Open Educational Resources (OER) are open access educational materials which can be used by anyone, shared freely, improved/adapted/repurposed, and redistributed. In fact, you have most likely seen or used OER before! Online textbooks, as well as the popular educational website Khan Academy, are both examples of an open educational resource.
Over the last decade, textbook prices have increased by 88%, which is four times the inflation rate, and higher than the 63% increase in tuition. By the end of their undergraduate degree, the average student will have spent $4,000–$6,000 on course materials alone. Because of this, 81.5% of McGill students may opt out of buying course materials due to their cost and 23.5% of students may drop and/or not enroll in a course due to the cost of course materials.
OER are a core practice of open science that strives to make science more transparent, collaborative and reproducible. Found by Fang et al. (2025) – work in progress (view the pre-registration here), OER are 1. cost-effective for students, saving up to 70% on textbooks; 2. students enrolled in courses based on OER received more course credits by taking more classes and that their GPA was no different from those who did not enroll in those classes. Educators who choose to use OER tend to continue doing so. People like them!
Tired of paying for single-use-textbooks? Let the SSMU know! We are dedicated to making education financially accessible to all, and we would love to learn more about how we can help 🙂
Over the past few years, the SSMU has worked with instructors and student assistants to compile Open Educational Resources tailored specifically to a number of classes at McGill. Check out the list below to see if we’ve compiled OER for one of your classes!
Try searching one of these existing repositories:
For questions or more information, email ua@ssmu.ca.