Open Educational Resources

In spring of 2023, the St. Olaf Student Government Association (SGA) Textbook Initiative sent out a survey to various aliases and tabled with a QR code to ask students and faculty about their perspectives on textbook affordability, its impacts on students, and possible solutions. This survey was entirely student-led; it was created and analyzed by Donovan Roddy ('25), Roxi Wessel ('26), Sophie Smith ('26), and Noah Faas ('26). The SGA Textbook Initiative and the survey was overseen by Brandon Cash, Director of Student Activities.

Some notes on the data

345 students and 82 faculty responded to the survey.

The student survey asked which 3 departments students had taken the most classes, and about their experience with textbook usage/spending for each department.

The faculty survey asked similar questions about their department, the types of materials required for their classes, and their usage.

On student concerns about textbook affordability...

• Over 1/3 of students report an inability to purchase textbooks due to cost concerns that resulted in limited success in one or more classes
• Over 80% of students report being concerned about textbook affordability

On the perception discrepancy between students and faculty...

In the survey, students were asked if they 1. are concerned about textbook affordability and 2. think faculty care about the issue. The faculty were asked if they 1. care about textbook affordability and 2. think students are concerned about the issue.

The comparisons of these perceptions show that students are significantly more concerned about textbook affordability than faculty perceive them to be and that faculty care much more about the issue than students perceive.

This suggests two important conclusions:

• There is a lack of awareness among faculty about the extent of the issue
• Although faculty do care, there are obstructions to action, leading students to believe faculty do not care

On the obstacles to affordable textbook alternatives...

Faculty clearly care about the issue of textbook affordability, and 97% of faculty would be or might be open to using traditional textbook alternatives.

Selected free responses from faculty on ideas for alternatives:

• "Advocate for open-access publishing alternatives"
• "More copies in the library and perhaps other places where students study"
• "Provide stipends/course release to faculty willing to move to a[n] open access/collated materials over textbooks"
• "... a price comparison tool in the textbook selection interface..."
• "... get more faculty thinking about open texts or even creating their own open texts"

Selected free responses from faculty on barriers to implementing:

• "Professors are sometimes beholden to publishers"
• "... the open-access textbooks for my field are not good"
• "Doing this independently is a significant task"
• "... the department sets a standard book, and all instructors who teach the intro class are expected to use that book"

The St. Olaf Student Government Association (SGA) Textbook Initiative is designed to help make textbooks more affordable to St. Olaf students.

The goals of the Textbook Initiative are:

1. Promote awareness of textbook affordability concerns
2. Investigate the root causes of these issues
3. Work together with students and faculty to provide solutions to course accessibility, with a universal learning approach in mind

The Textbook Initiative works closely with St. Olaf Libraries to purchase textbooks to be placed on course reserve in the library.