Open Access

Open educational resources (OER) is a type of open access content. OER are educational materials that can be freely used by students and faculty. Faculty do not pay permission fees to use and modify existing content and students can use OER for free. Access to OER content is flexible—course materials are available to read online, download, and print. OER is accessible and can be used with various screen-readers.

The University of Cincinnati Press provides resources and services to assist faculty in the adoption, creation and publication of OER content. Browse the Pressbooks Directory of OER content here.

• Using OER materials has the potential to increase student engagement while offering a lost-cost learning alternative.
  
  
• It supports student success by ensuring they have access to the course materials on the first day of classes. 
  
  
• It saves students money throughout their academic career, supporting financial mobility upon graduation. Expensive textbooks frequently outweigh the average student’s financial ability. For many, academic costs serve as a barrier to educational endeavors.
  
  
• When using OER content, faculty can choose the course materials that best matches their syllabus. 
  
  
• Provides digital formats that increase inclusivity. Open Educational Resources interact well with accessible technology. 
  

• Encourages contributions to what is next in academics, develops a meaningful and lasting global impact.

Hear the impact of textbook costs from a student:

University of Cincinnati Press is dedicated to promoting the endless possibilities that OER offers the academic landscape. By encouraging the use of open educational resources, we ensure faculty-teaching and student-learning experiences are affordable, immediately accessible, and part of the digital transformation at UC. 

The University of Cincinnati Press, with the support of the University of Cincinnati Library and a Next Lives Here 2021 Strategic Sizing Grant from the Office of the Provost, has been designated to Lead the Open Agenda. The strategic vision of Lead the Open Agenda is to organize and simplify support for faculty interested in learning more about publishing in open access.

The grant provides essential funding to create a university-wide infrastructure of publishing services to support the creation and adoption of open educational resources and provide mini-grants to offset APC costs for journal publishing. Through such work, the Press aims to increase cost-savings efforts for students, organize and support open access (OA) and open educational resource (OER) materials produced by University of Cincinnati faculty, and increase the global impact of Bearcat scholarship by facilitating open access works for distribution, use, and citation.