This study is designed to explore the process by which faculty members select the educational materials that they employ in their courses. The most common of these is the required textbook--faculty members typically select one or more books that all students are required to use through the duration of the course. Faculty also employ a wide range…

Providing financial incentives to faculty who adopt free educational resources in place of traditional textbooks is becoming more common in U.S. higher education institutions. The University of Mississippi (UM) offered liberal arts instructors the opportunity to apply for internal funding to replace one traditional textbook in their classroom with…

Awareness and adoption of open educational resources (OER) has yet to enter the mainstream of higher education. Most faculty remain unaware of OER, and OER is not a driving force for faculty decisions about which educational materials to adopt. This report builds on several previous Babson Survey Research Group efforts exploring the role of OER in…