Your action plan is an internal planning document for how you will convince key internal and external constituents to support for the work that you are doing. It is intended as a living document that you can revisit as you review the results of your advocacy activities and refine your advocacy strategy. Think of it as a skeleton you can work to fill in.

The movement for Open Educational Resources (OER) has grown exponentially across
North American higher education. Recent studies have found that as much as a third
of faculty now have some level of awareness of OER and that the trend toward OER
adoption is growing. Yet despite this progress, some myths about OER still remain.
Whether it is confusion over the meaning of open versus related concepts such as free
or digital, or adherence to folk wisdom such as “you get what you pay for,” there are
many common misunderstandings about OER.

OER Mythbusting addresses the top seven myths about OER in North American higher
education, as voted on my more than 100 faculty, librarians, students and other
members of the OER community. This project grew out of a discussion during one of
SPARC’s Libraries and OER Forum monthly calls, where a group of librarians from the
U.S. and Canada identified a need for better resources to address misconceptions
about OER. A team of volunteers developed a poll and distributed it over email lists
and social media over a two week period in July 2017. The results were then used to
produce this collaboratively written document.

While OER Mythbusting is not intended to be a comprehensive catalog of all myths in
all contexts, our hope is that it will provide a useful resource for both OER advocates
and those seeking to learn more about the topic. We anticipate that this resource will
evolve over time, as new myths emerge and old ones fade.

The rising cost of higher education is about more than tuition—expensive textbooks and
course materials remain a looming barrier to college affordability and access. Open educational
resources (OER) are a solution to high-cost materials and state legislators are starting to
take notice.

Open Educational Resources (OER) are freely available materials that can be downloaded,
edited and shared to better serve all students. OER include all kinds of content such as
textbooks, lesson plans, assignments, games, and other educational materials, and can
include printed materials, not just digital.

Nearly half of all states have considered OER legislation in past years, and it has increasingly
become a go-to strategy for legislators seeking to make college education more affordable
and effective. States can catalyze and support action at institutions by providing resources,
incentives, and policy frameworks.

This playbook provides a set of ideas that state legislators can consider to harness the
power of OER to reduce college costs for students. Recommendations can be combined or
pursued independently, and while not every recommendation is right for every state, each
one offers a potential pathway to benefit students.

Check out SPARC’s OER State Policy Tracker to see existing state policy and stay up
to date on current legislation: https://sparcopen.org/our-work/state-policy-tracking/

Open educational resources (OER) are textbooks and other course materials that are free for
people everywhere to use and repurpose. States and institutions are leveraging OER to expand
access to flexible, digital learning materials that reduce costs for students by millions each year.

The increasing concentration of scholarly communications, courseware publishing, and
data analytics into the hands of fewer commercial vendors continues to raise concerns,
particularly in the absence of evidence that publishers have any interest in mind other
than their short-term revenue and profit growth. The focus on protecting revenues even
in the face of deep academic budget cuts, the relentless lobbying to protect “inclusive
access” practices that limit student choice, and the reluctance to abandon practices that
disadvantage researchers point to the conclusion that the academic community can
protect its values only by increasing control of its own content and infrastructure.

The past year has seen more deals that led to more concentration, loss of diversity, and
ultimately to the academic community’s lessening control over its own destiny. However,
there are also positive signs: a large merger failed, Invest in Open Infrastructure (IOI) was
launched as a concerted effort to build a community-owned infrastructure, and some
legislative progress was made. Much remains to be done, but the opportunity to tip the
scales in favor of the interests of the knowledge community is significant and must be
pursued.

This 2021 Update to the SPARC Landscape Analysis further explores these trends.
Supplementing observations first published in the SPARC 2019 Roadmap for Action, this
document suggests organizational changes in academic institutions to both (1) manage
increasing strategic and ethical challenges and (2) deploy tools and analyze data to
better understand the needs and protect the interests of individuals and communities.
The recommendations underscore the need for the academic community to take control
of its own content and infrastructure both to best serve its own interests and to protect
and further its values of equity, inclusiveness, and academic freedom.