New Research Identifies Open Educational Resources as a High-Impact Practice
The American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) has released a report identifying open educational resources (OER) as a high-impact practice, the twelfth to earn this designation in nearly two decades.
High-impact practices (HIPs) are teaching and learning approaches that research consistently links to stronger student outcomes: better grades, higher retention, and improved completion. The first eleven practices identified by AAC&U include undergraduate research, internships, first-year seminars, and writing-intensive courses — practices that institutions incorporate into strategic plans, accreditation reviews, and budgets. Adding OER to that list places it firmly in a category viewed as central to student success.
The report, Open Educational Resources: A New High-Impact Practice, is among the largest studies of OER conducted to date. It draws on nearly 700,000 student records across 15 institutions, including community colleges, doctoral universities, HBCUs, regional public universities, private colleges, and a tribal college, along with survey and focus group data from more than 200 instructors who teach with OER.
Key findings include:
Across every institution type, the share of students earning A's rose after instructors adopted OER.
Student outcomes did not decline in any context. Students paid nothing for their materials and performed at least as well as before, often better.
At community colleges, students who took multiple OER courses and needed more than four years to graduate finished roughly a year sooner than those who took none.
At doctoral universities, course withdrawal rates fell.
The largest effects appeared among students balancing the most demands at once, including Pell-eligible, first-generation, part-time students, students over 25, and community college students.
Like any high-impact practice, OER delivers its strongest results when its implementation is well supported. The study is specific about what that includes: instructional design support, librarians and OER specialists, professional development, funding, and time for faculty to adapt materials. Instructors who had strong implementation support reported the best outcomes and, in many cases, came away having improved their teaching. Instructors who lacked this support reported a weaker experience.
However, unlike most high-impact practices, OER does not require substantial institutional infrastructure to have an impact. HIPs tend to be resource-intensive programs that reach only a portion of students, such as study abroad, internships, and service learning. In contrast, a single instructor can choose to adopt OER on their own and reach every student in the course on the first day. While better-supported programs are more effective, the study shows that even basic OER adoption lowers costs for students without putting outcomes at risk.
For colleges and universities deciding where to concentrate student success efforts, the report offers peer-reviewed evidence at scale that open educational resources belong alongside the practices already recognized as central to that work.
For practitioners who have been making the case for OER on their campuses, this is a significant development and important news to share. We are sharing a template email that you can adapt and send to your own administrators. Use it as an opening to connect this research to your local context and make the case for your work.
