From Exploring First-Generation Student Experiences with OER Textbooks (S. LeMire et al., College and Research Libraries, November 2024):

This case study explores how first-generation students perceive their textbooks, particularly in the areas of cost savings and format. It also supports research indicating that first-generation students are concerned about the cost of textbooks and experience financial challenges, such as food insecurity.

Open educational resources (OER) include readings, media, and other learning objects that are made freely available, or with some rights reserved by their creators.  They are characterized by the "5 R's":

1. Retain - the right to make, own, and control copies of the content (e.g., download, duplicate, store, and manage)
2. Reuse - the right to use the content in a wide range of ways (e.g., in a class, in a study group, on a website, in a video)
3. Revise - the right to adapt, adjust, modify, or alter the content itself (e.g., translate the content into another language)
4. Remix - the right to combine the original or revised content with other open content to create something new (e.g., incorporate the content into a mashup)
5. Redistribute - the right to share copies of the original content, your revisions, or your remixes with others (e.g., give a copy of the content to a friend)

See: BCOER (2014), BCCampus.

Selected Resources for OER: