Student Motivation Should Spur Faculty Usage of Open Resources

Student motivation ranges from earning a degree to fulfilling a promise to an influencial person in their lives and everything in between.

Regardless of the motivation source, one fact remains clear with all students, they want to learn. Learning happens through lecture, active discussions and the sharing of content that helps students connect with the course and faculty delivering the course.

Students have trust in the faculty and the content they are delivering regardless of the environment in which they are learning - i.e. Face-to-face, hybrid, or online or even a format somewhere in between.

Acknowledging this trust, faculty should be inspired not to only deliver course content prescribed by publishers via traditional textbooks but should leverage both their knowledge and access to information technology to not only deliver basic course content but to engage and inspire students with relevant on-demand content that validates the course and the commitment of the faculty to students.

Textbooks are vetted reliable secondary sources but are now matched by aggregated information sources such as Google News and Scholar in addition to paid ebook resources that university libraries purchase for unlimited use by faculty and students (great example is Books 24x7).

There is existing research that indicates students relying on open source content learn at equal or higher levels than those who rely solely on traditional textbooks.

Though in the early stages... I urge more colleagues to recognize and explore the potential of relevant open-source content and be motivated by your student's thirst for learning and match that thirst with your effort to leverage your knowledge and existing information technology to deliver a quality course that is affordable and exceeds your student's expectations.