Introduction: The initial response of higher education institutions (HEIs) to the COVID-19 pandemic was to shift to online learning as a contingency. However, not all students were equipped with the appropriate resources to make this shift. Research problem: There is scant contemporary research outlining the types of educational resources…

Biology is perhaps the most complex of the sciences, given the incredible variety of chemical species that are interconnected in spatial and temporal pathways that are daunting to understand. Their interconnections lead to emergent properties such as memory, consciousness, and recognition of self and non-self. To understand how these…

This is the 13th report in a series of surveys tracking curricula discovery, selection, and adoption processes in U.S. higher education. The surveys have tracked the growth of digital materials and OER in higher education classrooms since 2009, providing trends on adoption and sentiments. The results also covered the abrupt transitions to remote…

This survey describes the structure of the field of research on curriculum resources in mathematics education in the period from 2018 till 2023. Based on the procedures of a systematic review relevant literature was identified using Web of Science as a database. The included literature was analyzed and categorized according to the type of…

The importance of textbooks and other materials to the educational process cannot be overstated. Unfortunately, the prices on these vital learning materials have continued to grow steadily year over year (Hanson, 2021). Open educational resources (OER), which are "teaching, learning, and research materials that are either (a) in the public…

This is the fifth report in a series tracking curricula discovery, selection, and adoption processes in U.S. K-12 education. The series has followed the awareness and use of OER materials in classrooms through the global COVID-19 pandemic and its sudden onset of remote learning, and the post-pandemic return to in-person instruction in the…

A promising solution for reducing costs for students, especially textbook costs, is Open Educational Resources (OER). We explored community college faculty members' perceptions of using OER compared with publisher textbooks. In this comparative context, we investigated how OER impacted faculty, their instructional decisions, and their students as…

The high cost of textbooks creates barriers for students, especially those from underserved backgrounds, such as Black and Hispanic/Latinx/e students. This action research study aimed to reveal how Open Educational Resources (OER), or free, openly licensed materials, could mitigate barriers to success for Black and Hispanic/Latinx/e students. The…

Providing educational resources without burdening students financially is considered higher education's moral and sensible mission (Farrow, 2016). The financial burden of one or multiple textbooks can produce a great deal of stress on students, especially if the textbooks do not fulfill students' needs in satisfying learning objectives. We attempt…

The cost of course materials creates a gap between students who can afford them and students who cannot. Open educational resources (OER) are one way to close this gap through freely shared and flexible instructor-authored resources. OER programs have plenty of support through organizations that coordinate conferences, highly impactful open…

This study explored the pedagogical dimension of the new NSFAS book allowance funding model focusing on the availability of prescribed textbooks, the perceived impact on teaching and learning, and student's academic achievement. The study applied the human activity system approach (HAS) and the activity systems model within this approach as its…

This study presents findings from a survey and interviews investigating library-led textbook affordability initiatives in the United States. The results document diverse considerations and divergences in workflows, challenges librarians face in establishing and maintaining textbook affordability programs, and the intersection of these initiatives…

College textbook costs have risen dramatically since the late 1970s. Open educational resources (OERs) stand as a low- to no-cost alternative. This research examined the impact of OER book adoption on indicators of student performance and perceptions of the instructor, learning, and out-of-classroom communication. The first study compared student…

This study addresses the critical issue of low-income student success at Tri-County Community College (TCCC), with a specific focus on reducing the financial barriers posed by commercial textbooks. Recognizing the disproportionate impact of these costs on low-income students, the study implements an improvement initiative leveraging Open…

With the "pictorial turn", the picture has gained a new significance as a medium. It is impossible to imagine a digitalized world affected by mass media without pictures. While there are several studies on the impact of pictures in the discourse on climate change in the media, there has been no analysis of the visual representation of…