Tag: research

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New UGA study finds students do better in class using OER instead of pricey commercial textbooks

A large-scale study at the University of Georgia has found that college students provided with free course materials at the beginning of a class get significantly better academic results than those that do not.

The Georgia study, published this week, compared the final grades of students enrolled in eight large undergraduate courses between 2010 and 2016. Each of these courses was taught by a professor who switched from a commercial textbook costing $100 or more to a free digital textbook, or open educational resource, at some point during that six-year period.

Source: Measuring the impact of OER at the University of Georgia :: Inside Higher Ed

This sort of study needs to be done at the post graduate level. I’m not surprised by the results since providing OER helps reduce the cost of education, and lowers the stress of having to pay for books out of a limited budget.

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HeinOnline Law Reviews Now Available on Fastcase Adding Secondary Sources to the FC Mix

Today, we’re happy to launch the second phase of this partnership, integrating HeinOnline’s extensive law review collection in Fastcase. Using your Fastcase account, you now have access to search one of the most comprehensive databases of law review articles in the world. The HeinOnline collection includes more than 2,000 law review titles, each going back to the first page of the first volume. It’s by far the largest collections of law reviews and law journals in the world — and starting today, you can search the entire collection in Fastcase, and subscribe to HeinOnline whenever you want at a discount.

via Two Great Services that Work Great Together: Announcing HeinOnline Law Reviews on Fastcase « Fastcase.

This expansion of the Fastcase HeinOnline partnership that was announced last year brings secondary legal materials to researchers using Fastcase’s primary materials. Fastcase will offer its subscribers with suggested results from HeinOnline resources that compliment the primary resources found. Researchers need a separate subscription to HeinOnline to view the HO articles.

Overall this service will be a boon for Fastcase subscribers and make the service more valuable to legal researchers both in practice and in academia.