In an effort to address concerns of student access, affordability, and success, University of Maryland University College set an ambitious goal – to adopt open educational resources (OER) in all of its undergraduate courses. In less than two years, a team comprised of subject matter experts, instructional designers, and librarians identified, evaluated and, when necessary, revised OERs for use in each course.

To assess the impact of OER adoption, we examined the course completion rates and final grades of over 34,000 students in 92 courses before and after adoption of OERs. In the sampled courses, failure and withdrawal rates were lower after the adoption of OERs and completion rates rose by 1.8%. The potential cost savings for the students in the after OER sample exceeds $1.6 million. In total, we estimate the potential costs savings for all UMUC students to exceed $5 million. Our initial evaluation suggests that the transition to OERs does not diminish learning or completion rates and provides students with no-cost, high-quality learning materials. To continue our work measuring the impact of openness on student success, we will be employing rigorous data analyses and appropriate controls to evaluate the effects on our population of over 90,000 students.