Approaching a New Normal? Educational Resources in U.S. Higher Education, 2024

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The ongoing support from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation makes these reports possible, and we are thankful for their continuing guidance. We're also grateful to the Online Learning Consortium, who has served as administrator for our grant and provided invaluable feedback.

This project would also not be possible without the faculty and administrators — over 3,000 respondents — who completed our survey. We review every response and read every submitted comment and have included some in this report, with permission. Each quote is as close to the original as possible; changes were made to remove personally identifying information or to correct obvious typos.

The project also received great support from the open education community. We turned to members of the community for feedback and advice throughout the course of this project and thank them for helping to improve the final version.

This report would also not possible without support from our colleagues. We thank Nate Ralph for his extensive copy editing, I. Elaine Allen for feedback throughout the process, and Mark Favazza for designing the report cover.

Finally, we’d also like to thank everyone who reads this report. Your comments and feedback help guide the future of this project and are always welcome.

Julia E. Seaman
Jeff Seaman
Bay View Analytics
2024

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

This is the 13th report in a series of surveys tracking curricula discovery, selection, and adoption processes in U.S. higher education. The surveys have tracked the growth of digital materials and OER in higher education" classrooms since 2009, providing trends on adoption and sentiments. The results also covered the abrupt transitions to remote teaching and return to in-person instruction during and following the COVID-19 pandemic.

The survey responses for this analysis were collected in April 2024, from a total of 3,447 faculty. The respondents come from all 50 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, and the Virgin Islands.

The key takeaways from this year’s survey are:

Fully face-to-face courses remained the most common modality in 2024, with three-quarters of faculty teaching at least one such course. That said, it remains below pre-pandemic levels. A smaller portion of faculty (40%) taught at least one course that was fully online.
Digital options for required textbooks continue to grow. The majority of faculty (78%) have a required textbook for students for their largest enrolled course, and almost all required textbooks (92%) are offered in a digital format. Just 8% of courses only offered a print textbook, down from 12% last year.
Faculty opinions on print versus digital materials remain conflicted and stable. The majority of faculty (79%) agree digital materials offer students greater flexibility, but a large number of faculty (41%) also agree that print materials are better for student learning. These rates are almost identical to 2022-23 results.
Faculty awareness for licensing varies by the type of license. Faculty have the highest level of awareness for copyright (96% aware at any level), followed by public domain (90%), and finally Creative Commons (76%), all representing drops in awareness over 2022-23.
In 2023-24, more than half of faculty (56%) were aware of OER at any level. However, OER awareness dropped 8% compared to 2022-23, to a level seen two years ago, in 2021-22. For the most part, differences were seen evenly across faculty characteristics like teaching modality, discipline, and institution type.
There was a 3% decline in the rate of use of OER as required materials for 2023-24 compared to 2022-23, paralleling the decrease in OER awareness. Overall, 26% of all faculty reporting that they use OER as a required material in their courses.

STUDY RESULTS

Teaching Modalities

While fully face-to-face courses remain the most common, many faculty report teaching fully online or a blend of both. This pattern of course modalities remains similar to 2022-23, potentially indicating the new post-pandemic status quo.

"...I very much prefer for students to have physical materials in" class. I prefer they not be distracted by laptops, and instead focused on working with" classmates."

— Intermediate Linguistics / Language Faculty

A course's mode of delivery – fully face-to-face, fully online, or a blend of the two – directly impacts the course materials faculty choose. To better understand the 2023-24 academic climate, we asked faculty to describe how they are currently teaching.

The most common teaching modality for the 2023-24 academic year were fully face-to-face courses, with three-quarters of faculty teaching at least one course fully face-to-face. A smaller portion of faculty (40%) taught at least one course that was fully online, where no instruction was done in-person. Blended courses, mixing both online and in-person instruction in some form, were less common — just 23% of faculty taught at least one blended course.

Faculty generally teach more than one course during an academic term, and they may not share the same format. A faculty member might teach the two versions of the same course — one fully face-to-face, the other fully online. Or they might teach one course subject online and another that features an in-person lab component. For the 2023-24 academic year, two-thirds of respondents said that all their courses were in just one modality. The remaining third of faculty were split between teaching two modalities (26%) or all three (8%).

For faculty teaching all their courses in a single modality, teaching fully face-to-face was most common (68%), followed by fully online (19%) and blended (13%). The most common combination of modalities was fully face-to-face and fully online (69% of faculty teaching two modalities). Teaching multiple course modalities was less common for faculty who teach hybrid courses; just 17% combined hybrid and fully face-to-face, and 14% combined hybrid and fully online, if they taught in two modalities. Compared to 2022-23, the number of faculty just teaching in one modality decreased from 72% to 66%.

The course modality breakdown for the 2023-24 academic year was very similar to the 2022-23 academic year. In 2023-24, just 3% more respondents reported teaching fully face-to-face, 3% fewer reported teaching blended courses, and 1% more reported teaching their courses fully online. This lack of year over year change may indicate a new status quo of course modalities for the post-pandemic times.

Compared to 2018-19, prior to the global COVID-19 pandemic, faculty reported 21% fewer fully face-to-face courses, 6% fewer blended courses, and 6% more fully online courses. This indicates that while there was a return back to the" classroom following the pandemic-forced remote teaching in the 2019-20 academic year, in-person instruction hasn't and will likely never return to the pre-pandemic levels. This gap represents a new group of faculty who no longer teach any fully face-to-face courses.

Textbook Formats

More than 9 out 10 courses with required textbooks offer them in both print and digital formats to students. The proportion of courses with print-only textbooks continued to decline year-over-year.

"Determining which materials to use based on their unit price omits all kinds of qualitative issues, including the authority of the author/s."

— Introductory Arts and Literature Faculty

“I have avoided requiring a textbook for years now because I don't teach directly from it, and students have complained about the cost of the book. The textbooks seem (honestly) superfluous for me, and I'm teaching STEM.”

— Graduate Natural Sciences Faculty

“The future of printed textbooks is to not print textbooks.”

— Introductory Mathematics / Statistics Faculty

The textbook remains a core component of course materials in higher education. The majority of faculty (78%) stated that there is a required textbook for students in their largest enrolled course. This is an almost identical portion to 2022-23, where 77% of faculty stated they required a textbook.

The required textbook may be available to students in print, digital, or both formats. More than 9 in 10 courses with required textbooks were available in a digital format. Most courses (64%) offered the textbook in both formats, while 36% offered only one format. Just 8% of courses only offered a print textbook, while over three times as many courses (28%) only offered digital formats.

A decreasing number of faculty reported offering only print versions of textbooks in their courses. In 2021-22, almost one-fifth of courses (19%) only offered a print textbook. This dropped to 12% in 2022-23, and to 8% in 2023-24 — under one-tenth of courses. For all three years, offering students a choice in formats has been most common, ranging from 50% to 71% of courses.

Perceptions of Digital versus Print

A large and increasing majority of faculty (79%) believe digital materials offer greater flexibility for students, though many faculty (41%) believe students learn better from print than digital materials.

"I appreciate the no-cost to students aspect as well as the fact that I can embed these materials into our online learning management system. Many of our students receive aid and have financial challenges so anything to reduce their cost but still provide quality materials is critical."

— Introductory Social Sciences Faculty

"In some institutions, especially particular community colleges, it doesn't work because technology is an active barrier for students. Even young students, digital natives struggle with online resources, because they don't have the technological literacy, they don't have experience with much beyond the infinite scroll."

— Intermediate Arts and Literature Faculty

“The textbook is rapidly becoming a dinosaur. Students don't read and information on technical/scientific topics is better acquired by video.”

— Advanced Natural Sciences Faculty

Agreement that Digital Materials Provide Greater Flexibility

Faculty were asked to provide their level of agreement to the statement, “Digital materials provide greater flexibility for students than print materials.” The majority of faculty (79%) “somewhat agree” or “agree” with this statement, indicating they find flexibility a benefit for digital formats for students. Most of the remaining faculty did not agree or disagree (15%), and a small group (6%) chose “somewhat disagree” or “disagree.”

Agreement that Digital Materials Provide Greater Flexibility by Year

The proportion of faculty agreeing that digital materials offer students greater flexibility than print has increased compared to the 2021-22 and 2022-23 academic years. The total number of faculty who “somewhat agree” or “agree” grew 6%; most of the growth was in the “agree” group. This suggests that more faculty may be experiencing the benefits of digital materials for their students over the last year.

Agreement that Student learn Better from Print

We also asked faculty to provide their agreement with the statement “Students learn better from print materials than they do from digital materials.” Forty-one percent of faculty “somewhat agreed” or “agreed” with this statement, demonstrating a preference for print materials. Fourteen percent of faculty “somewhat disagreed” or “disagreed” with the statement, indicating their preference for digital materials. But the largest group of faculty, almost half of respondents (45%), selected “neither agree nor disagree.”

Agreement that Student learn Better from Print by Year

The proportion of faculty believing that print materials are better for student learning has remained pretty consistent since 2018-19. There was a small drop in agreement in 2021-22, after the COVID-19 pandemic, but responses have since returned to the pre-pandemic levels at just over 40%. There has been almost no change to the overall faculty levels of agreement or disagreement over the years. This consistency is despite the increase in use of digital materials and online course modalities across higher during the same years.

Faculty preferences do appear to be linked to the formats they choose to use in their courses. The 8% of faculty who only use print textbooks are much less likely to believe digital materials offer more flexibility than print (57% “somewhat agree” or “agree” while 19% “somewhat disagree” or “disagree”). They are also much more likely to believe print materials are better for student learning (62% “agree” or strongly agree” while 9% “somewhat disagree” or “disagree”). Similarly, the results show that faculty teaching fully face-to-face courses are slightly more likely (up to 5%) to have pro-print opinions on flexibility and student learning than those teaching in other modalities. In contrast, the opposite patterns are seen for faculty who choose digital-only textbooks, or teach a fully online or blended course.

The divide between print and digital course materials tends to fall along traditional lines: price versus quality. Print-only proponents generally cite a perceived lack of quality in digital materials, especially when compared to the body of print materials created by established publishers they've relied on for years, or longer. Those who prefer digital materials cite the financial burden that students face to pursue higher education. They also report (sometimes with surprise) that digital materials are a higher quality than they anticipated or previously experienced.

Faculty opinions were also tied to their mode of teaching, as the use of print versus digital materials can vary greatly between in-person and online courses. Proponents of fully face-to-face instruction and print materials expressed concerns about the potential distraction that digital mediums present. Fans of fully online or blended environments, by contrast, generally praise the affordability and ease of use of their chose digital materials, when they could find materials that were suitable for their courses.

OER Awareness

While more than half of faculty are aware of OER, there was a decline of 8% from 2022-23 that is seen across faculty, though the most pronounced decrease in awareness was seen in newer, part-time, or in-person teaching faculty.

"Faculty tend to rely on word of mouth on book success. OER needs better publicity about the highest quality materials (without noise from lower quality materials)."

— Intermediate Psychology Faculty

"Like anything, not every OER out there is worth using. I find that upper level OER books are impossible to find, and anything that is even slightly specialized is difficult to find."

— Advanced Natural Sciences Faculty

"The primary barrier is the stigma that exists against anything that is low- or no-cost. Many of my colleagues believe that OER materials are of lesser quality than more expensive materials."

— Introductory History / Government Faculty

Open educational resources (OER) are a specific type of course material available for adoption. These materials are usually available in digital format, for free or at a very low cost. Unlike commercially published materials, OER materials are available under an open license, most commonly a Creative Commons license, that allows materials to be revised and redistributed by users. Additionally, many OER materials are created and shared by educators and peers, though there are also OER publishers.

Measuring the awareness and use of OER materials isn't straightforward. Many educators will adopt materials without being fully aware of the licensing details, misunderstanding the specific, distinguishing aspects of OER. Additionally, some may confuse “open” with “free,” and assume all free resources are OER.

To gauge awareness of OER, reports in this series have used a consistent question, which has proven to have the best balance in differentiating among the varying levels of awareness, without leading those with no previous knowledge of the concept. The specific wording has remained consistent to support year-to-year comparisons to the earlier surveys. Further, the measure of OER awareness incorporates both responses to Creative Commons licensing and OER awareness questions to ensure a high-quality output.

Faculty awareness for licensing varies by the type of license. Faculty have the highest level of awareness for copyright (96% aware at any level), followed by public domain (90%), and Creative Commons (76%).

While total awareness levels remain high, there was a drop from the 2022-23 awareness levels for all three responses. Awareness of copyright declined by 1% overall and 5% for those who are “very aware.” Public domain awareness was lower by 3% overall and 8% at the “very aware” level. Creative Commons awareness dropped 5% overall and 7% at the “very aware” level.

In 2023-24, more than half of faculty (56%) were aware of OER at any level. Eleven percent were “somewhat aware,” 24% were “aware,” and 21% were “very aware.” For the unaware faculty, 12% reported that they had “heard of” OER, suggesting they have some name recognition, but nothing further. A third of faculty are unaware of OER.

Faculty OER awareness in 2023-24 dropped 8% compared to 2022-23, to a level seen two years ago in 2021-22. While the levels of “somewhat aware” and “aware” are very similar year over year, most of the decline was in the number of faculty saying they are “very aware” of OER.

As the OER awareness metric requires awareness of OER and Creative Commons, changes in both factors can impact the final measurement. There was a decline in both individual measures in 2023-24 compared to 2022-23. The differences were seen evenly across faculty characteristics like teaching modality, discipline, and institution type (2- or 4-year, public or private). However, faculty with less than 5 years of experience, part-time faculty, and those teaching fully face-to-face were more likely to show a decline in the OER awareness metric.

OER Use

One quarter of faculty report using OER as required materials in their courses, most commonly in online or introductory-level courses.

"I fully support OER materials. Knowledge should not be kept behind a paywall."

— Introductory Linguistics / Languages Faculty/div>

“In my experience, the use of an OER textbook imposes a burden on the teacher since the book does not come with any teaching resources typically provided by commercial textbook publishers. Institutions should find a way to support the production of supplemental resources to faculty who decide to adopt an OER textbook.”

— Intermediate Business Faculty

“I'm enthusiastic about OER materials in higher education for their affordability and flexibility. However, finding resources that align closely with course objectives can be a challenge. Despite this, I remain committed to leveraging OER materials in my teaching practice.”

— Advanced Computer Sciences Faculty

"I think [OER]offer tremendous potential in higher education. They provide affordable alternatives to traditional textbooks, making education more accessible and inclusive. Additionally, OER materials often offer flexibility and adaptability, allowing instructors to tailor course content to meet the diverse needs of their students."

— Introductory Economics Faculty

OER use generally requires awareness of OER; faculty will learn about OER from their peers, an online search, presentation, or any other means, and adopt OER materials for their own courses. Not all faculty who are aware of OER will actively use OER materials, so the level is a subset of OER awareness. We asked faculty about their use of OER materials across their" classrooms to compare to the OER awareness trends.

In 2023-24, 41% of faculty reported using OER materials in at least one of their courses. These can be any type of" classroom material, including textbooks, homework, interactive activities, and more. It is important to note that these responses are by individual faculty, not by course: faculty can teach multiple courses and use OER in only one, or across them all for this question.

Over half of OER users (63% of OER users, 26% of all faculty) say that they use OER as a required material in their courses. A similar level of faculty report using OER as supplemental materials: 61% of OER users, 25% of all faculty. Ten percent of all faculty use OER as both supplemental and required materials.

The rate of use of OER as required materials for 2023-24 is 3% lower than results from 2022-23. The slight decrease in use parallels the decrease in OER awareness, especially at the level of those who are “very aware.” However, the OER use rate for this year still remains above all other prior measurements.

The use of OER as required materials varies by course modality. Faculty are more likely to report using OER in courses with an online component. Specifically, faculty teaching fully online courses and blended courses report 6% and 5% higher rates than fully face-to-face courses, respectively. Additionally, the rates reported for introductory-level courses are 10% higher than advanced courses and 5% higher than intermediate-level courses. The types of OER materials that are readily available might account for some of the difference here, as many options exist for introductory-level courses, while fewer for higher level resources tend to be available.

Sentiment around OER use largely mirrors perspectives on digital versus print. Faculty find themselves weighing the cost of course materials against the quality of OER they encounter and find themselves either for or against their use. The quality of OER is a major sticking point in either direction.

Amongst respondents who adopt or at least support OER and digital materials, finding materials that meet their needs is cited as a challenge; our respondents occasionally expressed surprise that the OER materials they used were at least as good as materials sourced from commercial publishers. Respondents who haven't adopted OER, or refuse to, primarily listed the lack of quality of OER options as the chief reason for their opposition.

SUMMARY

The availability of digital materials in higher education continues to grow, both as replacements for physical media and novel resources. However, even as faculty continue to adopt these digital formats and admit their improved flexibility for students, they aren't convinced of their superiority for student learning over print options. Additionally, these results suggest a widening gap in faculty behaviors, with small though stalwart groups of faculty who are either proponents of physical, face-to-face courses, or digital, online ones.

This year’s survey saw the first measured decline in OER awareness and OER use for the series, a return to the levels reported two years ago. While this marks the first decrease since beginning the measurement in 2014-15, it is not yet known if this is a new trend, the new normal, or a blip.

The reduction in both general OER awareness and licensing awareness is of particular interest. It suggests that there may have been a shift in OER promotion or implementation, away from emphasizing the open license, possibly in favor for how OER fits into low- and zero-cost course material movements. There is also increasing competition for digital course materials, meaning there may be many more choices for faculty when they are looking for new materials.

Next Steps

This project aims to track and follow the trends of digital adoption and perceptions in U.S. higher education. Will the number of faculty teaching fully online and blended courses keep growing, and how will these experiences impact their adoption and opinions on digital materials? Are more innovative digital materials, like artificial intelligence (AI), going to become available and change teaching behavior? What are student preferences for digital or physical materials?

This report represents just a portion of the survey results. Additional reports, research briefs, and presentations will be released in 2024 on other topics in the survey. Some planned topics includes opinions from faculty and administrators on AI, professional development, and their perceptions about college readiness for freshmen. All future publications will be available on our website: bayviewanalytics.com/OER.

METHODOLOGY

This survey was conducted in April 2024, with a total of 3,447 faculty. The respondents come from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and the Virgin Islands.

The data for this report comes from survey results using a national sample of teaching faculty. The sample is representative of the broad range of teaching faculty in U.S. higher education. The sample selection process was multi-stage. The process began by obtaining data from a commercial source, Market Data Retrieval,1 which has over one and a half million faculty records, and claims that its records represent 93% of all teaching faculty. The first step selected all faculty who taught at least one course. Individuals were then randomly selected from the master list in proportion to the number contained in each Carnegie" classification, to produce a second-stage selection of teaching faculty and department chairpersons. The resulting list was checked against opt-out lists, as well as for non-functioning email addresses.

The respondents represent the full range of higher education institutions (two-year, four-year, all Carnegie" classifications, and public, private nonprofit, and for-profit) and the complete range of faculty (full- and part-time, tenured or not, and all disciplines). Respondents represent 1,415 different institutions.

Institutional descriptive data come from the National Center for Educational Statistics’ IPEDS database.2 After the data were compiled and merged with the IPEDS database, respondents and nonrespondents were compared to ensure that the survey results reflected the characteristics of the entire population of faculty. The responses were compared for 35 unique categories based on the 2015 Carnegie" classification of Institutions of Higher Education.

Unless otherwise noted, the analysis results presented in this report apply to all teaching faculty. Some results focus on a specific subgroup of these faculty, those teaching large enrollment introductory-level courses, because their course material selection and use can impact far more students than that of the typical faculty member.

As noted in our previous reports, the specific wording of questions is critical in measuring the level of OER awareness. The language for this report (provided below) matches that used in previous reports in this series. It was found to have the best balance in differentiating amongst different levels of awareness, while avoiding leading those with no prior knowledge of the concept.

How aware are you of Open Educational Resources (OER)? OER is defined as "teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use and re-purposing by others." Unlike traditionally copyrighted material, these resources are available for "open" use, which means users can edit, modify, customize, and share them.
I am not aware of OER
I have heard of OER, but don't know much about them
I am somewhat aware of OER but I am not sure how they can be used
I am aware of OER and some of their use cases
I am very aware of OER and know how they can be used in the" classroom

This question may still slightly overstate the level of OER awareness, so we also ask a series of additional questions. Because licensing for remixing and reuse is central to the concept of OER, a question about the respondent’s awareness of different legal permissions was asked of all respondents before any questions about OER awareness itself: How aware are you of each of the following licensing mechanisms?

By combining the responses from the OER awareness question with those of the licensing questions, a combined index of awareness is constructed. An identical process was used in previous reports in this series, to permit year-over-year comparisons and trend analysis.

DEFINITIONS

In addition to examining the curriculum adoption process, this study explores materials" classified as open educational resources (OER). Creative Commons defines OER as:

Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching, learning, and research materials that are either (a) in the public domain or (b) licensed in a manner that provides everyone with free and perpetual permission to engage in the 5R activities.(1)
Retain – make, own, and control a copy of the resource

Reuse – use your original, revised, or remixed copy of the resource publicly

Revise – edit, adapt, and modify your copy of the resource

Remix – combine your original or revised copy of the resource with other existing material to create something new

Redistribute – share copies of your original, revised, or remixed copy of the resource with others
An important aspect of the examination of the use of educational resources is the licensing status of said materials: who owns the rights to use and distribute the material, and whether faculty members have the right to modify, reuse, or redistribute said content. The legal mechanism that faculty are most familiar with is that of copyright. The U.S. Copyright office defines copyright as:

A form of protection provided by the laws of the United States for "original works of authorship", including literary, dramatic, musical, architectural, cartographic, choreographic, pantomimic, pictorial, graphic, sculptural, and audiovisual creations. "Copyright" literally means the right to copy but has come to mean that body of exclusive rights granted by law to copyright owners for protection of their work. … Copyright covers both published and unpublished works.(2)

Of particular interest for this study is the copyright status of the primary textual material (including textbooks) that teachers select as core materials for their courses.

Copyright owners have the right to control the reproduction of their work, including the right to receive payment for that reproduction. An author may grant or sell those rights to others, including publishers or recording companies.(3)

Not all materials are copyrighted. Some content may be ineligible for copyright, copyrights may have expired, or authors may have dedicated their content to the public domain (e.g., using Creative Commons public domain dedication (4)).

Public domain is a designation for content that is not protected by any copyright law or other restriction and may be freely copied, shared, altered, and republished by anyone. The designation means, essentially, that the content belongs to the community at large.(5)

An intermediate stage between traditional copyright, with all rights reserved, and public domain, where no rights are reserved, is provided by Creative Commons licenses. A Creative Commons license is not an alternative to copyright, but rather a modification of the traditional copyright license that grants some rights to the public.

The Creative Commons (CC) open licenses give everyone from individual authors to governments and institutions a simple, standardized way to grant copyright permissions to their creative work. CC licenses allow creators to retain copyright while allowing others to copy, distribute, and make some uses of their work per the terms of the license. CC licenses ensure authors get credit (attribution) for their work, work globally, and last as long as applicable copyright lasts. CC licenses do not affect freedoms (e.g., fair use rights) that the law grants to users of creative works otherwise protected by copyright.(6)

The most common way to openly license copyrighted education materials — making them OER — is to add a Creative Commons license to the educational resource. CC licenses are standardized, free-to-use, open copyright licenses.(7)

This study also examines an emerging, subscription-based distribution model typically called "inclusive access," though often going by various names with no single clear definition. The common elements across all the variants of subscription-based models are digital distribution, multiple textbooks and/or" classrooms included under one contract, and students included unless they opt-out.

1 https://creativecommons.org/about/program-areas/education-oer/
2 https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/definitions.html
3 https://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/copyright
4 https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/
5 https://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/public-domain
6 Personal communication from Cable Green, PhD, Director of Open Education, Creative Commons
7 State of the Commons report: https://stateof.creativecommons.org