{"id":12783,"date":"2018-01-29T09:18:43","date_gmt":"2018-01-29T17:18:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lumenlearning.com\/?p=12783"},"modified":"2025-12-09T11:11:46","modified_gmt":"2025-12-09T19:11:46","slug":"looking-for-learning-impact","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lumenlearning.com\/looking-for-learning-impact\/","title":{"rendered":"Looking for Learning Impact"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Kim Thanos, CEO<\/span><\/h3>\n

January is a natural time for reflection: How are we doing? What impact are we making? What can we do differently and better in the new year? <\/span><\/p>\n

And what does impact mean, anyway? <\/span><\/p>\n

Impact = Number of students? <\/span><\/h2>\n

When the curtain closed on 2017, we tallied just over 170,000 students using Lumen course materials at the institutions we support. We\u2019re pleased to see this number of Lumen-supported students more than double every year. Millions more use Lumen\u2019s openly-licensed content through our free public catalog<\/a> (11 million users during the Fall term alone). That\u2019s one way of measuring impact. <\/span><\/p>\n

Impact = Textbook cost savings? <\/span><\/h2>\n

Another way to measure impact, common in the open education community, is in terms of textbook cost savings: How much did students save by using our open educational resource (OER)<\/a> materials rather than expensive publishers\u2019 textbooks? <\/span><\/p>\n

A lot has been written about how much students actually save using OER at a time when relatively few students buy all their assigned textbooks new. Amazon, the used book and textbook rental markets all complicate this picture further. But if we calculate the difference between Lumen course support fees (standard pricing $10-25) and the average cost of a textbook ($100), we estimate Lumen-supported students saved $15 million in 2017. <\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s a tidy sum for one year. It goes far towards helping individual students buy groceries, pay for rent, childcare and transportation, and reinvest in achieving their educational goals. <\/span><\/p>\n

Impact = Successful students? \u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n

For many educators, the most fulfilling part of the job isn\u2019t about dollars or numbers at all. It\u2019s about working with individual students and seeing the transformative impact of education in their lives.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lumen\u2019s mission<\/a> is to <\/span>enable unprecedented learning for all students<\/span><\/i>. <\/span><\/p>\n

Initially we worked towards this mission by replacing expensive textbooks with OER. We found that opening access and removing cost as an obstacle helped\u2013up to a point. <\/span>Research<\/span><\/a> found students performed as well or better in Lumen-supported OER courses, compared to courses using traditional textbooks. But we also came to the realization that replacing static publisher materials with static open materials doesn\u2019t lead to unprecedented learning. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Since 2015, our focus has shifted towards improving the learning experience around OER. <\/span><\/p>\n