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Sustainable Learning at Cal Poly Humboldt

Cal Poly Humboldt's Sustainable Learning Program is a campus strategy for implementing the CSU Affordable Learning Solutions initiative. This faculty development program aims to decrease the cost of an education by promoting and supporting faculty in evaluating and adopting high-quality, peer-reviewed open textbooks and open educational resources (OER), and other resources that reduce the need for costly textbooks. 

Open Educational Resources (OER) are free online teaching and learning materials. They are videos, textbooks, quizzes, learning modules and more. This guide collects the best OER and organizes them by HSU department. If your discipline isn't listed, start with the general tab for multi-disciplinary OER resources. Using OER in your classroom can save you time and your students money. Take a look and see what is available in your discipline!

In addition, an immediate way you can help to reduce the cost of college education and increase student success is to promote textbooks on reserve in the Library and by placing your required readings on reserve.

Already using OER? Report OER Adoption here!

OER/AL$ at Cal Poly Humboldt Data

*Summer course data added, starting in 2023. Student count is calculated by the average of FTE for Fall/Spring and Summer headcount. **Reporting changed in 23-24 to reflect less duplicative counts in total # of student data. Ex - on average if every student had access to OER, they would save $230.63. Prior to SU23, student count was determined by enrollment count for each class with affordable or OER adoptions. It did not differentiate individual students. Using an average of FTE for FA/SP and summer headcount provides a count with less duplication.

Cal Poly Humboldt Faculty OER/AL$ Showcases

• 2024 Showcase - Debbie Gonzales and Amanda Dinscore, SW 456
• 2024 Showcase - Josh Steimel, Engineering
• 2023 Showcase - Sara Hart, Religious Studies
• 2023 Showcase - Pam Bowers, Social Work
• Visit Cal Poly Humboldt Faculty Showcases on Merlot

Why use OER?

Check out the Education Data Initiative for an overview of textbook costs in higher education. 

• Student Success: Textbook costs negatively impact student access to required materials (66.6% did not purchase the required textbook) and learning (37.6% earn a poor grade; 19.8% fail a course).
• Graduation Rate: Because of textbook costs students reported that they take fewer courses (47.6%), do not register for a course (45.5%), drop a course (26.1%), or withdraw from courses (20.7%).
• Equity: A study by the University of Georgia reports a one-third reduction in DFW rate among minority and Pell-eligible students in courses which switched to OER.
• Class Design: Requiring students to buy a textbook means an obligation to teach to its goals. Conversely, OER can be edited to meet the course-specific goals for the class.
• Recruitment: Students choose courses with zero-cost textbooks. A course or department offering zero-cost textbooks will be able to market to current and incoming students.

[Research provided by the 2016 Florida Student Textbook and Course Materials Survey. Studies by Oregon Higher Education Coordinating Commission and Student Public Interest Research Groups corroborate the findings.] Digitally Established: Educational Resources in U.S. Higher Education, 2023

Impact of Textbook Costs on Students

A national survey done by the U.S. PIRG Education Fund in 2020:

• 65% of students indicated they didn't buy required textbooks because of the price.

U.S. PIRG Education Fund. 2021 "FIXING THE BROKEN TEXTBOOK MARKET" CC BY 4.0

Interested in learning more? Read about the program in Humboldt NOW: New Options Save Students $1 million in Books since 2016.

For More Information, send an email to oer@humboldt.edu

• Morgan Barker, Sustainability Librarian
• Kimberly Stelter, First Year Experience & Student Success Librarian

Faculty Professional Development Materials

OER Canvas Course 

A Canvas course dedicated to teaching you the ins and outs of OER as well as how to implement them into your class.