What We Would Tell Students
To reiterate, we know that the OER/free textbook debate is somewhat tenuous. We know that instigating university-wide changes to course materials is an impossibly distant ideal. We are two undergraduate students. We know that we cannot change everything, but we can start from the ground up. We are the grassroots.
What we hope to communicate to other students when we table or through social media is something like this:
“You are a student, you are paying to be here. You deserve to have some say in what, if anything, you are required to purchase on top of tuition. You have a responsibility to yourself and your peers to do some research. What are the problems you are facing now i.e. with affordability, inclusive access, accessibility challenges? Communicate these to your educators! Open the lines of communication between yourself and those teaching you. Their word is not gospel, your input is just as valuable, if not more so.”
We’re also getting close to the end of the semester which means Course Evaluations will be assigned to every single student to fill out. Knowing this, we also feel it is important to tell students “If you aren’t confrontational, or even if you are, the Course Evals are a perfect way to get this message and desire across easily. Actual people read your responses and use them to make choices about their teaching styles and courses. It could be as easy as saying ‘this professor was awesome. i learned a ton, but I would have loved to see some OERs or more Leganto. I think it is important to start implementing more affordable and accessible learning materials.’ How simple is that?”
With all the work we’ve put in to curating resources for students, we are eager to share them . We are also hoping to let students know we have current solutions for them! “Here are some OER resources that we have vetted. They are scholarly, peer-reviewed, and have textbooks on practically every subject. We aren’t saying throw your textbooks away and use these instead, but they could function as valuable supplemental learning materials, especially as the shift to actually open education moves along. Talk to your friends, your family, your teachers. You are in control here:)”
Despite all of our research and meetings, all of our goals for OER and hopes for the future, that is our base message. Our top priority throughout the whole process is to help students succeed, however we can.
We want to keep our outreach simple, easy-to-understand and implementable. We aren’t organizing protests or demanding anything crazy, just short messages — the quiet murmurings of students wanting changes that will eventually grow into something larger. This is where we start, and we are happy with even centimeters of progress.
