Illinois Course Materials Survey: Student Perspective

Survey Results

CARLI is pleased to share the "2023 Illinois Course Materials Survey: Student Perspective Report" (updated 3/22/24.) Included in this full report are key findings about the course material experiences and preferences of 4,617 eligible students who participated from 52 Illinois not-for-profit institutions of higher education.

Please also view our March 5, 2024 webinar which highlights the key findings from the survey and includes a panel of Illinois students reflecting on these results. 

Background

The Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Illinois (CARLI) and its Open Educational Resources Subcommittee developed the “Illinois Course Materials Survey: Student Perspective” to help identify Illinois students’ needs regarding affordable course materials and interest in Open Educational Resources or other affordable course material options.

This survey specifically aimed to answer the following research questions:

1. How much did students spend on course materials during the current term?
2. How are students affected by the cost of college course materials?
3. Which demographics of Illinois college students are most impacted by the cost of course materials?
4. What are students’ interest in and experiences with Open Educational Resources (OER)?
5. What are students’ interest in and experiences with other affordable material options?
6. Do students have clear preferences for the formats and features of course materials?

This survey was conducted between April 5, 2023 through December 31, 2023. 

This data helped us identify future steps CARLI can take to better support Illinois students’ required course material needs including continued support for the creation of Open Educational Resources and advocacy for recurring funding. It also benefited individual institutions by identifying answers to the research questions at the institution level for library directors who requested institutional aggregated data. 

This survey was modeled from other statewide course material surveys including the Florida Virtual Campus (FLVC) and the Virginia Academic Library Consortium (VIVA) as well as CARLI-member surveys.

Distribution to Students

This survey was approved with exempt determination category Exempt 2(ii) by the University of Illinois’ Office for the Protection of Research Subjects to be shared with students at not-for-profit institutions of higher education in Illinois. With this approval, CARLI requested librarians at not-for-profit institutions of higher education forward the survey to their students through local campus channels. Distributing emails to students looked different for all institutions and often required approvals. Please note that institutions distributed this survey and did not recreate it. When campus approval was required to distribute the survey, it was necessary to start approval requests as soon as possible.

Messaging: An informal student outreach message or a formal student outreach message were made available for use when distributing this survey to students. 

CARLI members successfully reached students through a combination of approaches: direct emails to students, sharing of the survey via the campus learning management system, emails to faculty and deans notifying them of the survey, and reaching out to other campus groups.

Institutions were able to distribute the live survey in more than one academic term, between April 5, 2023-December 31, 2023. 

Students were able to complete the survey for each enrolled term in 2023.

CARLI staff collected the data in a secure system, RedCap, approved by the University of Illinois’ Institutional Review Board.

All student responses were anonymous and aggregated together for analysis at the state and institution levels.

Student questions were all optional with the exception of four questions that ask students to: consent to participate, select an academic term, identify if they were 18 years of age or older when the term began, and indicate their institution name. 

Questions about the survey can be sent to PI Nicole Swanson or CARLI Support. Questions for the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Office regarding IRB approval of this survey can be directed to the Office for the Protection of Research Subjects at 217-333-2670 or irb@illinois.edu.

Survey Instrument

Questions included in the 2023 survey are available in this offline version.