Reports and Dashboards to Inspire Open Education Advocates
By Jenn Martin |
Working as part of an evolving field, open education advocates often find themselves fighting to solidify the future of their initiatives. They need concrete evidence to prove how their programs are moving the needle on strategic priorities like student cost savings and equitable access to learning materials.
Dashboards can be a valuable tool in this pursuit. They can offer a compelling, succinct visual representation of data that allows stakeholders to better assess outcomes. In our recent webinar “Cost Savings and Beyond: Demonstrating Impact and Effectiveness with Open Education”, our panelists shared some examples of how their organizations, and organizations they admire, monitor the impact of their open education initiatives.
From tracking textbook affordability to evaluating the reach of open access course materials, these dashboards and reports help illustrate the transformative potential of open education while providing insights into its tangible benefits for learners.
University of Minnesota Libraries
Understanding cost savings with the Course Materials Savings Dashboard
Built using Tableau, the Course Materials Savings Dashboard by the University of Minnesota Libraries provides a filterable dashboard to show comprehensive student cost savings data across campuses, academic year, degrees, and more.
Iowa State University
Understanding program impact with ISU’s Our Impact Reports
In response to the rise in cost of higher education, the University Library, CELT, ISU Book Store and student government partnered to work on the Open & Affordable Education Committee to find new ways to alleviate costs at Iowa State. These reports showcase the impact of that initiative.
View the reports
University of Oregon
Understanding student cost burdens with the Course Materials and Affordability Dashboard
The Oregon Higher Education Coordinating Commission requires that all Oregon colleges and universities display required course materials and associated costs on the university bookstore website. The dashboard below reflects the work that University of Oregon Libraries has been doing to help faculty report their course materials costs to help bring visibility to the issue.
Open Oregon
Understanding the impact of investment in textbook affordability with the Six Years of Community College Cost Savings Report
From 2015-2021, Open Oregon Educational Resources, together with campus bookstore managers, gathered data to show how statewide investment in textbook affordability pays off in lower costs to students.
Pressbooks
Understanding the reach and impact of open educational resources with Pressbooks
Cheryl (Cullier) Casey shared some information about how Pressbooks publications are performing at the University of Arizona, particularly 2022 statistics from one edition of Humans R Social Media—an acclaimed open-access textbook on social media, new media and participatory culture by Diana Daley.
This dashboard breaks down important information that helps institutions understand the reach of their content, like total visitors and total pageviews. The referring websites are of particular interest to authors because it helps them understand how their material is being used at other institutions.
This information actually led to a collaboration on the next edition. Our author found out that the book was being used at the University of Colorado Boulder and they have been collaborating on this new edition and are about to release it
Cherly (Cullier) Casey
Update: A new edition of Humans R Social Media was published in Spring 2024 as a “living book”. The new edition includes updated student insights, chapter overviews, galleries of student work, and a new chapter from Nathan Schneider, assistant professor of media studies at the University of Colorado Boulder.
For more information on how institutions are using dashboards to track the impact of open education initiatives, watch our panel below:
