Open education (OE) is when pedagogical materials are created to be free, publicly available, and remixable. According to the U.S. Department of Education, OE materials increase equity by obtaining the most recent content, which is particularly critical in our fast-changing political, social, and technological environment. OE materials also keep content relevant and high quality by allowing instructors to adapt content to fit their local contexts and needs easily in platforms designed to assist this process. Finally, OE materials save students and their institutions money and time, as books do not need to be purchased, shipped, stored, managed, or bought back at the end of the semester or quarter.

Tribal colleges and universities, such as Nebraska Indian Community College (NICC) and Red Lake Nation College (RLNC), are already using open educational resources throughout their curricula. For example, NICC uses anatomy and physiology available from OpenStax, and RLNC uses Discrete Mathematics: An Open Introduction by Oscar Levin available from Open Math Books.

OE materials include textbooks, which are available on a variety of platforms, including Merlot, OER Commons, Open Education Network, OpenStax, and Pressbooks. Books that are no longer in copyright can be found at Project Gutenberg, while images can be seen on the Library of Congress website. These are just a few of the resources available.

As knowledge of the benefits of OE spreads, many colleges and universities are applying OE resources to create Zdegrees (zero cost degrees), a concept popularized by the Minnesota State system. The Z-degree guarantees that students will not pay any money for textbooks or materials, although optional or supplemental resources can be suggested.

Join the OE movement by seeing how these materials can suit your course and institution’s needs. If you have questions and/or want individual help identifying, applying, or revising content to suit your subject, please contact the American Indian Higher Education Consortium.