Texas Border Business
By Amanda Sotelo
A champion for student success, South Texas College Economics faculty member Kevin Peek, Ph.D., for the last decade has dedicated his time to promoting Open Educational Resources (OER), or access to free digital textbooks and other academic material, to maintain student educational access and equality.
“OER is the present and future of South Texas College with a focus to save students money,” said Peek, a pioneer of OER instruction. “We live in one of the poorest metropolitan areas in the U.S. and textbooks are expensive, which is why education needs to come with a cost savings, and at STC, we do that through the establishment of OER.”
In 2021, STC received a $75,000 grant from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board to convert traditional book-reliant courses to OER. The college has continued to received funds from various grantors to continue expanding this resource.
Since then, hundreds of classes at STC have converted to OER, offering students access to online, openly licensed material for teaching, learning and research through textbooks, media, digital tools and other course materials at no charge to them.
“Through the years, we’ve converted many of our classes, even a few being 100% OER such as algebra, precalculus and calculus,” he said. “We’ve seen student participation increase dramatically and student satisfactory surveys reflect positive improvements for students enrolled in these types of courses siting ease of use and accessibility as key factors.”
According to Education Data Initiative, an online company that compiles statistics about the U.S. Education System, the average college student spends $174 on a new printed textbook, but depending on the subject matter, some books can cost as much as $400. In the last fiscal year, 2024-2025, STC students saved an estimated $5.24 million, with more than 51,000 students enrolled in an OER course and more than 3,500 OER courses offered.
Taking the lead early on, Peek has worked with many STC faculty in converting classes from traditional to OER, with the goal of finding a solution to begin converting competency-based education (CBE) workforce programs, which Peek said tend to be more challenging due to the hands-on training requirement.
“Although we’ve converted many classes, we still have a long way to go. Some are also more challenging than others,” said Peek. “We will continue working together to increase the courses we offer and serve more students. In addition, we continuously work to update the OER courses we already offer.”
Beyond developing the courses, Peek said keeping them up to date is also a priority. With the advances of artificial intelligence (AI), the task has become faster and quicker.
“OER is a cornucopia of resources, and these resources are evolving and need to be updated often,” he said. “AI is helping us work through these updates regularly, giving students peace of mind that the resources they’re using meet industry standards and always related to today’s evolving careers.”
Peek mentioned that his passion for this decade-long project stems from his own experience as a college student.
“I could have never afforded a college education without the scholarships, fellowships and help I received. I want to do the same for our students,” said Peek. “My job is to find the resources that make college life easier and more accessible, and I know OER can be lifechanging for our students.”
To learn more about OER courses at STC and to preview the course list, visit southtexascollege.edu/academics/oer/.
Information source: STC
