This report presents the results of a biennial independent survey commissioned by the Digital Higher Education Consortium of Texas (DigiTex), in collaboration with the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB), to examine the landscape of Open Educational Resources (OER) programs, policies, and practices at higher education institutions in Texas.
Similar to the 2019 survey, the 2021 survey was administered to all 158 two- and four-year public and private institutions across the state. New for 2021, the survey was additionally administered to 11 independent health-related institutions across the state, for a total of 169 institutions. Responses from 111 institutions in 2021 show growth in commitment to OER across the state, with 45% of institutions having formal policies or programs in place to support OER, compared to 38% in 2019. The percentage of institutions with a formal defnition of OER and with OER course markers in place also increased, alongside the availability of fully-OER based courses—especially at the state’s two-
year colleges.
Furthermore, about one-third of institutions across the state are beginning to provide comprehensive, systems-based supports for OER by engaging multiple offces and roles on campus, from students, to library staff, to Faculty Excellence Center staff, to Digital Learning staff. These institutions are demonstrating other, advanced OER practices, including implementing formal OER policies and programs, building out their catalogue of OER-based courses, participating in partnerships with external educational institutions on OER, collecting OER impact data, and working to foster student awareness of OER through targeted strategies.
At the same time, the survey fndings also reveal insights into priority areas and challenges for some institutions as they work to advance OER adoption and use. While the large majority of institutions in 2021 identify the importance of increasing faculty buy-in in order to grow OER adoption, and are working to market OER on their campuses, there has been a decrease in the number of institutions that offer faculty incentives to encourage OER use since 2019. Additionally, OER professional learning has remained stagnant, with the large majority of institutions reporting in both 2019 and 2021 that less than 10% of their faculty have been trained on OER. Furthermore, the large majority of institutions in 2021 have not yet taken advantage of statewide OER support initiatives such as the OERTX Repository, Texas Learn OER, and THECB’s OER Grant Programs, and none of the state’s two-year colleges have taken part in the DigiTex OER Development Small Grant Program. Many institutions have plans to participate in these programs in the future, and would likely beneft from support in doing so.
The report concludes by outlining opportunities for addressing existing barriers to OER scale, and for advancing the work being done by the state’s OER champions—including new collaboration, professional learning, funding, and curriculum development supports focused on building an OERecosystem within and across institutions, toward equitable access to education and to lucrative employment for all Texas learners.
Read the full report here.