2026 Iowa OER Annual Report

[Iowa OER]

The Iowa Open Education Action Team is pleased to announce the release of our 2025/2026 Annual Report! 

The report includes the findings from our annual OER survey, which was sent to all Iowa colleges and universities earlier this spring. In addition to these findings, the report also includes a summary of the action team’s recent work to support open education initiatives in Iowa. Major outcomes of this year’s report include: 

1. OER use remains strong, with $9.5 million in savings despite data collection issues arising from changes in course material adoption reporting.
2. Institutional OER initiatives are expanding, with publishing support, course marking, and incentive programs being developed across several institutions.
3. Instruction and outreach remain key drivers for progress, with several respondents requesting additional professional development opportunities for faculty.

Please feel free to share the report with your peers and colleagues and let us know if you have recommendations for how our team can leverage these findings in the year ahead!

Note: This message will also be sent out to all those who completed the survey on behalf of their institution(s).

Iowa Open Education Action Team

www.iowaoer.com

@IowaOER

[Iowa OER]

Thank you to our friends at Buena Vista University for pointing out an issue with Table 1 attached to our original email. That table's data was incorrectly transposed. Luckily, this issue only affected the numbers within the table, and none of the totals.

The live version of the report has been updated in Google Drive with accurate data. Please refer to this version when referencing the report. 

--

Iowa Open Education Action Team

www.iowaoer.com

@IowaOER