Affordable Learning, Shared Findings: A Collaborative Survey of Oregon Institutions
- Conference Year
- Online Northwest 2026
- Session
- 1
- Type
- Breakout Session
- Presenters
- Stefanie Buck, Oregon State University
- Julia Stone, Portland State University
- Holly Gabriel, Southern Oregon University
- Abstract
Four Oregon institutions (University of Oregon, Oregon State University, Southern Oregon University, Portland State University) worked together to redesign the Affordable Textbook survey originally conducted by Florida Virtual Campus in 2016. Many people have heard of the “Florida survey” and its shocking results that 60% of students reported not purchasing their textbooks because of costs. Since then, the survey has been updated and improved upon and conducted at many institutions over the years and each time, we learn more about how our students are impacted by the cost of course materials, what strategies they use, and what is important to them. The four institutions collaborated to review and update the survey to better reflect the Oregon student population and needs of our individual institutions. In this presentation, we will discuss not only the results of the survey, but also how and why we made changes to the questions, and how we plan to disseminate the results and use this information to leverage support for more OER activities. We will share what we learned about Oregon students and the high cost of course materials, as well as some of the benefits and challenges in running this type of survey. Participants will receive access to the survey questions and IRB application, which have an open license for adoption and remixing.