Open educational resources (OER) play a central role in Odessa College’s relentless efforts to remove obstacles to student success. Partnering with Lumen Learning to provide state-of-the-art OER courseware designed to strengthen learning for at-risk students, Odessa College is achieving outstanding results:

• Over $1 million per semester in textbook cost savings
• Over 20,000 enrollments in OER courses since 2017
• Emporium-style Math Studio using OER courseware to transform preparedness for college level math
• All sections of core associate degree courses converted to OER

Located in rural West Texas, Odessa College is a Hispanic-serving institution in communities with historically low college attendance, many first-generation college students, and significant socioeconomic disadvantage. The College’s faculty and staff have gone to great lengths to identify and address common problems their students face, with an array of inventive student success initiatives.

Faculty teams have led course redesign initiatives to transition high-enrollment courses to open educational resources (OER). These projects have improved affordability and access to learning content, and they have given Odessa College faculty greater control over how to shape the learning experience to fit their students’ needs.  

“Our goal with OER course materials is to provide successful degree pathways for students who wouldn’t otherwise be able to attend college,” said Becky Musil, Dean of Teaching & Learning at Odessa College. “Textbook affordability is a huge piece of this picture, and so is the learning experience. Using Lumen’s OER courseware, our students have access to excellent OER content as well as online homework, immediate feedback, personalized nudges, and other tools to support them with the best learning possible.”

In addition to faculty-led OER course redesign projects, Odessa College has implemented other inventive student success initiatives, such as eight week terms, FAFSA workshops, Success Coaches, a Drop Rate Improvement Program to increase students’ connection to their courses, and first-class free for all students.

These student-focused interventions won Odessa College a coveted Aspen Prize for Community College Excellence Rising Star Award in 2017, and it has been named as an Aspen prize finalist in 2019. Since embarking on this path, Odessa College has seen:

• Higher enrollment
• Near doubling of three-year graduation rate
• Lower drop rates
• Improved persistence
• Improved success rates, particularly among students of color

More about Odessa’s student success initiatives:

• Read Odessa College’s Whitepaper for the 2019 Aspen Prize submission
• Download a printable PDF of this Odessa College success story

Learn more about Lumen:

Lumen Learning provides affordable course materials designed using open educational resources (OER), with a catalog focusing on high-enrollment general education courses. Our goal is to provide OER that are better for learning and simple for faculty members to adopt.

Discover OER course materials that are a great fit for you and your students: visit our public catalog or download our course list.

The Business Administration Department at Cerritos College began turning to open educational resources because faculty members saw many students struggling when they could not afford to buy expensive textbooks. After OER led to demonstrable improvement in retention rates, the department partnered with Lumen Learning to shift the entire curriculum to OER, including department-wide use of Waymaker courses that provide personalized coaching and encouragement to help students become better learners. By fall 2016, the Business Department’s retention rate had climbed to 87%, up from 67% before it first introduced OER.

A Business Department Goes Open

In 2008, the Business Administration Department at Cerritos College was grappling with lackluster retention rates of just 67%. As a Hispanic-serving community college located in Los Angeles County, CA, Cerritos College educates students from diverse backgrounds and varying degrees of college preparation. With the climbing cost of textbooks in their Business and Management programs, fewer students were buying books, and their academic performance suffered.

When the instructors learned about open educational resources (OER), they were determined to try open content. OER promised to help the department tackle problems with textbook affordability and access. Participating in the Lumen-led Kaleidoscope Open Course Initiative, the departmental colleagues began to redesign curriculum using OER mapped to learning outcomes developed in conjunction with industry groups. Every student had access to low- or no-cost materials from the first day of class.

Promising Results Fuel Appetite for More and Better OER

It wasn’t long before the Business Administration Department’s shift to using OER in selected classes began to manifest itself. Program passing and retention rates began to climb. The cost of course materials dropped. Students and workforce partners were delighted by the tens of thousands of dollars in textbook cost savings every term.

The faculty team saw even more possibilities: shifting the entire business curriculum to open content. They turned to Lumen Learning to provide reliable access to the best available OER course materials. Lumen’s well-designed content, LMS-friendly technology and faculty support simplified the transition to OER.

In 2014, Cerritos College began collaborating with Lumen in a Next Generation Courseware (NGC) project to develop more effective and personalized learning experiences using OER. This collaboration resulted in Lumen’s Waymaker courses. After promising results during an initial pilot, the Business Administration Department has opted to use a growing number of Waymaker courses, which offer a higher-touch learning experience for students. According to Professor Bob Livingston, “Waymaker helps me identify and help students who are in trouble, and that we’re in jeopardy of losing if we don’t react quickly.”  

Results and Recognition

By spring 2016, the Cerritos College Business Administration Department’s retention rate was hovering around 87%-89%, an increase of approximately 20 percentage points.  Using Waymaker OER course materials, the department saw more students staying enrolled and passing their courses successfully.

In November 2016, Cerritos College won the OLC Digital Learning Innovation Award for its progressive work using OER with digital courseware to strengthen affordability, access, and student success. “Every time we add more OER, our student retention continues to go up,” says Livingston. “We are really sold on open educational resources.”