From $100 Textbooks to Zero: One History Instructor’s OER Revolution
When I hit “publish” on my first OER-based syllabus, I’ll admit I was nervous. Would the materials hold up? Would students take free resources seriously? Would I regret abandoning the familiar, glossy textbook and publisher resources I’d used for years?
Three weeks into the semester, a student emailed me at 11 pm. Not to complain but to thank me. She’d just accessed our primary source collection from her phone while waiting tables, squeezing in reading between shifts. “I never could have afforded the old textbook,” she wrote. “This changes everything.”
That’s when it hit me: I hadn’t just changed my course materials. I’d changed what was possible for my students.
Five years ago, I took the plunge and replaced my standard $100+ U.S. History textbook with Open Educational Resources, or OER for short. The decision came after years of watching students show up to class without required readings, not because they didn’t care, but because they couldn’t afford them. Some waited weeks for financial aid. Others simply went without, cobbling together whatever they could find online or hoping a classmate or I would share.
The results of switching to OER? For one, the financial impact was immediate. Twenty-eight students, zero textbook costs. That’s roughly $2,800 staying in students’ pockets. Money that went toward rent, groceries, and other course materials instead of a single book they’d use for one semester.
Another impact of my adoption was that access barriers vanished overnight. On day one of the semester, every single student had complete access to all course materials. No waiting for paychecks. No scrambling for library reserves. No apologetic emails about not having the reading. They had instant, universal access from any device, anywhere.
But here’s what surprised me most. The content itself fit my teaching style better. The OER materials I curated included primary sources from the Library of Congress, digital archives, and a textbook which engaged students in ways my old textbook never did. They weren’t passively highlighting paragraphs; they were analyzing Ida B. Well’s actual words, zooming in on Civil War photographs, and exploring multimedia narratives that brought history alive and made the class relevant.
As for my own workload, the transition was more or less a wash. There was some upfront time spent identifying quality OER materials and making sure they covered what I needed, but once that foundation was laid, things ran pretty smoothly. I wasn’t constantly working around a publisher’s chapter structure so, in some ways, having the flexibility to pull from multiple sources made my planning feel a little more intentional.
Making the switch wasn’t just about saving students money, though that alone would have been worth it. It was about rethinking what’s possible when cost isn’t a barrier to learning.
Interested in exploring the potential of adopting OER materials for your classes? CFC is partnering with the Bookstore and Hunter Library to provide funding and support. Visit the OER Grant Program website for more details.
Hunter Library (2026): Open Educational Resources (OER). Research Guides. https://researchguides.wcu.edu/oer/home
Information on what OER is, how to find and evaluate course appropriate OER, as well as tips on adapting OER resources.