Research Guides: Affordable & Open Educational Resources: Affordable & Open Educational Resources

Affordable & Open Educational Resources

Deputy University Librarian

she/her/hers

Contact:

lhibbler@brandeis.edu

781-736-4656

Subjects: African and African American Studies, Asian Studies and Asian American and Pacific Islander Studies, History, Rabb GPS

Addressing the High Costs of Textbooks and Learning Materials

Between 2006 and 2016, the price of college textbooks increased 88%.¹ The rising costs of course materials can negatively impact student success. A 2013 study of over 2,000 college students found that 65% of respondents had resorted to not purchasing a required textbook due to price, and in some places, spent $1,200 a year on learning materials.² Consider ways you can reduce costs for your students:

Explore Open Educational Resources (OER): OER are learning resources such as articles, books, audio recordings, images, video, software and digital tools that one is licensed to reuse, revise, remix, and redistribute. Instructors can reuse OER, as well as edit and augment these materials, in developing course content for students. Please continue reading for examples of OER.
Work with Your Librarian: Your librarian can work with you to identify ways to reduce the expense of course materials for your students through the use of OER, multi-user e-books, and materials available through the Library. Contact your librarian to discuss options for your teaching.
Request Course Reserves: Faculty can set aside books, videos and other materials as Courses Reserves at the Library for their students. More information.

Suggested Resources for Identifying Open Courses Materials

Open Textbook Library
A catalog of free and openly-licensed textbooks. All titles have been peer-reviewed.
OpenStax
Provides 25+ books for college level courses. The books included in this collection have undergone rigorous peer-review. From a non-profit at Rice University.
MERLOT
The Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning & Online Teaching (MERLOT) provides access to thousands of open educational materials. Created by California State University Center's for Distributed Learning
MERLOTx
Open textbooks from MERLOT, covering a wide range of subject areas.
OER Commons
In addition to using OER Commons to identify open educational resources, instructors can use OER Commons to develop their own customized learning materials. Includes textbooks, as well as other types of resources.
Digital Video Collection compiled by the University of Minnesota
Scroll down for a list of freely accessible collections of high-quality online videos
ALT Open Access Repository
Produced by the Association for Learning Technology in the United Kingdom. Includes suggested resources from a wide range of disciplines.
American Institute of Mathematics Open Textbook Initiative
The American Institute of Mathematics Editorial Board has developed criteria for evaluating textbooks and provides a list of books which have met the Board's criteria.
Carnegie Mellon Open Learning Initiative
High-quality courses which can be incorporated into your teaching.
The Center for Open Educational Resources and Language Learning (COERLL)
Provides resources for foreign language education. Produced by the University of Texas at Austin's Center for Open Educational Resources and Language Learning.
Harvard University's Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs)
MIT Open Courseware
A large amount of MIT course content, made freely available online.
OpenIntro Textbooks for Statistics
Open Yale Courses
Provides free and open access to a variety of introductory courses taught by Yale University faculty and scholars.
Big List of OER Resources
Directory of Open Access Journals
An online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals.
Directory of Open Access Books
An online directory provides access to academic books.
Internet Archive
Like Google Books, the Internet Archive includes collections of digitized materials, including books and periodicals.

We will continue to add resources to this list.

Materials Available Through Library Subscriptions & Collections

The library subscribes to several hundred databases which contain a wide range of sources, including eBooks, articles, music, digitized primary sources, and images.

Databases A-Z

Most of our licenses allow you to include links to database sources in Moodle.

In addition to ebooks and articles, library resources include image databases, streaming video collections, and other non-textual resources which can be incorporated into course materials.

Please contact your department's library liaison with any questions about library materials for your course.

Case Studies

Case Studies Available Through Library Databases

Sage Business Cases This link opens in a new window
Presents business cases from a variety of industries. Topics include marketing, operations management, small business and entrepreneurship, international business, and human resource management. Instructors who wish to access teaching notes for business cases should email e-resources@brandeis.edu or their library liaison.
ABI/INFORM Collection This link opens in a new window
Excellent coverage of international business and economics topics from journals, magazines, reports, and data sources. To limit to case studies, enter keywords and select the Document Type limiter "Case Study."
Business Source Ultimate This link opens in a new window
This database covers journals in business, international business, management, economics, banking, finance, accounting and more. To limit to case studies, enter keywords and select "Case Study" under Publication Type. Full text available may not be available for all search results, including results from Harvard Business School Cases.

Freely Available Case Studies

While freely available, licenses on the case studies available through the following resources vary.

Ideas Worth Teaching
Case studies and other classroom resources for business school educators. From the Aspen Institute.
Learning Edge Case Studies
Business case studies covering entrepreneurship, leadership, ethics, operations management, strategy, sustainability, and system dynamics. From MIT Sloan School of Management.
Journal of Business Cases and Applications
An open access journal which publishes applied business cases and exercises for classroom use.
Freely available cases from Yale School of Management
Case Studies from the University of British Columbia
Case Studies by Stanford Graduate School of Business
Filter to "Available to download at no charge"
Case Studies from Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations
Collection of free case studies focusing on employee owned companies.

¹ Bureau of Labor Statistics, “College Tuition and Fees Increase 63 Percent since January 2006,” 2016. https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2016/college-tuition-and-fees-increase-63-percent-since-january-2006.htm.

²U.S. PIRG, “Fixing the Broken Textbook Market,” 2014. https://uspirg.org/reports/usp/fixing-broken-textbook-market.