At first glance, UTA’s new Doctor of Social Work program’s commitment to $0 in textbook costs seems like a dream. But students and future instructors may wonder: what’s the benefit beyond the financial impact?
When we decided to go the $0-cost textbook route, we knew it was an important step toward demonstrating our commitment to our social work values, student access, student success, and modeling leading practices in education while joining a global movement.
As our DSW Program Director, Dr. Karen Magruder, stated, “By making our DSW program fully OER, we demonstrate our commitment to access and affordability, ensuring that pursuing a doctoral education is not accompanied by surprise expenses or unnecessary financial barriers.”
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) defines the use of Open Educational Resources (OER) as “learning, teaching, and research materials in any format and medium that reside in the public domain or are under copyright that have been released under an open license, that permit no-cost access, re-use, re-purpose, adaptation and redistribution by others” (UNESCO, n.d., para. 1). UNESCO has promoted OER since 2019.
This focus on no-cost access is key given new financial aid regulations and rising textbook costs; the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) estimates that college textbook costs have risen 158.42% since 2001 (as reported by the Official Data Foundation, n.d.).
Beyond the financial impact, the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U), “a global membership organization dedicated to advancing the democratic purposes of higher education by promoting equity, innovation, and excellence in liberal education” (AAC&U, 2026a, para. 1), has recently released a report identifying OER as a High Impact Practice (HIP) based on a two-year, mixed methods study of almost 700,000 student records and 200 instructors’ insights from 15 institutions (AAC&U, 2026b).
HIPs are “teaching and learning practices shown to provide significant educational benefits for students, particularly those from populations historically underserved in higher education” (AAC&U, 2026b, para. 2). And if you want to keep score, your DSW has 5 other HIPs as well—Capstone, Teaching Practicum, Collaborative Assignments, ePortfolio, and a First-year seminar.
This report reveals findings that are important not only to you as consumers of an OER-based DSW but also to you as future Social Work educators. Here are a few key, statistically significant highlights; more information is available in the full report (Watson et al., 2026).
A leading concern for social work educators is economic justice for our students. Course withdrawals after the start of a semester almost always incur costs for students. OER use decreased course withdrawals compared with the same courses before OER implementation.
Setting social work students up for success aligns with our valuing the dignity and worth of the person.
Students achieving As in OER-based courses increased as compared to the same courses prior to OER implementation.
Students who completed at least one OER-based course had reduced time to graduation as compared to those who did not.
These gains were observed across populations including those historically underserved by (and perhaps unprepared for) higher education.
As students, professors, and future instructors progress through the DSW curriculum, we encourage you to explore OER and plan to implement it in your own teaching! If you decide to pursue this, the report also includes a few interesting findings related to faculty use.
The most salient point is the importance of support from the department and the university in developing and implementing OER resources. At UTA, we are grateful that our Library and University leadership value this initiative and support us immensely!
References
AAC&U. (2026a). About AAC&U. https://www.aacu.org/about
AAC&U. (2026b). Open Educational Resources: A New High-Impact Practice. https://www.aacu.org/research/open-education-resources-a-new-high-impact-practice
Official Data Foundation. (n.d.). College Textbooks Inflation, 2001-2026. https://www.in2013dollars.com/College-textbooks/price-inflation
UNESCO. (n.d.). Open Educational Resources. https://www.unesco.org/en/open-educational-resources
Watson, C. E., Miceli, H., Perkins, B. A., Chittum, J. R., & Schneider, H. (2026). Open educational resources: A new high-impact practice. American Association of Colleges & Universities. https://www.aacu.org/research/open-education-resources-a-new-high-impact-practice