Abstract:

In the United States, the cost of a university education continues to increase making it affordable for fewer and fewer people. One way every professor can help mitigate that cost of a student’s education is to reduce the cost of materials needed for their course. One large expense to most students is that of textbooks and resource materials. There is a growing trend in the U.S. to attempt to develop courses without the use of costly texts. The author has created and collected data on an online class in which students were not required to purchase any books. The course material were gather from resources openly available on the internet. These resources included scholarly articles, current news stories, and videos, or developed by the professor. The material was then organized in a way that was highly structured and digestible for the students. Data was collected from students over three years (n= 283) regarding their experience. Students reported that the courses was highly informative (85.4%), enjoying videos created by the professor (89.3%}, and felt comfortable not having a text in the class (83.5%). These data will be discussed relative to how the course was organized and structured, and the antidotal experience of the professor will be shared.

Keywords:

Distance learning, free educational resources, curriculum design.