Impact of Open Education Resources (OER) on Student Academic Performance and Retention Rates in Undergraduate Engineering Departments

Beyond college tuition, the high cost of textbooks and supplies is a challenging addition to higher education expenses. The most recent survey data from the College Board indicates a full-time undergraduate can incur at least $1,240 to pay for books and supplies during the 2019-2020 academic year. Moreover, due to the coronavirus pandemic, the demand for digital textbooks is surging, and the price of textbooks has grown significantly and predicted to increase even further. This is compounded by the fact that students are facing more barriers to access course content with restricted access to campus resources. Open textbooks and open educational resources present a viable alternative to costly publisher course content. Open educational resources (O.E.R.) are teaching and learning materials freely available for everyone to use. They are typically openly licensed to allow for re-use and modification by instructors. To students and families already struggling to afford high tuition and fees, spending an additional $1,240 per year on books and supplies can be the breaking point. That's as much as 39% of tuition and fees at a community college and 14% of tuition and fees at a four-year public institution. Beyond the financial burden, existing research pinpoints a negative impact of lack of textbook access on student's grades, retention rates, and graduation time. As a large four-year public institution, New York City College of Technology - CUNY (City Tech) serves a diverse student body where more than 60% of students are considered as economic disadvantaged. Since Fall 2016, O.E.R. initiative has been implemented at City Tech across 28 departments, and 116 courses; Eight of those departments are engineering departments. The main objective of this paper is to investigate the association between O.E.R and student success using data collected from the O.E.R initiative in engineering departments at City Tech. Specifically, we will examine and present the findings on whether O.E.R has a positive impact on student's grades and retention rates.