Connect OER reports provide a snapshot of the state of OER at participating campuses, including insights on best practices, current trends, and the collective impact being achieved through OER. Our intent is that these insights will help inform SPARC members, the open education community, and the library community about the progress of the OER movement, and the role of libraries within it.
2018-2019 Report
The data from our 2018-2019 report encompasses 132 institutions spanning 44 U.S. states and five Canadian provinces who participate in Connect OER. The data underlying this report was collected through the Connect OER platform between July 2017 and August 2019. Analysis was performed by the SPARC team.
Report Files
2016-2017 Report
The data from our 2016-2017 report encompass 65 SPARC member libraries spanning 31 U.S. states and five Canadian provinces who participated in the pilot. Our analysis provides a snapshot of what is happening on the ground level with OER at this subset of institutions. From this data we have derived six key insights:
- Libraries are the most engaged entity on campus in efforts to advance OER.
- Within libraries, the department most actively engaged in advancing OER is Scholarly Communications.
- Mathematics and statistics is the academic subject with the most OER traction.
- Nearly half of the participating institutions have a faculty or staff person with explicit OER responsibilities.
- OER grant programs are the most common type of OER program reported.
- SPARC member institutions saved students an estimated $5 million through the use of OER in the 2016-2017 academic year.
Report Files