Designing an OER Outreach Program for Tribal Colleges and Universities with Fall 2024 Commercial Book Adoption Data

American Indians and Alaska Natives (AI/ANs) established Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs) to foster Tribal sovereignty and combat the trauma of the boarding school era. The boarding school era left AI/ANs facing substantial economic inequities. An estimated 79% of TCU students receive Pell Grants. As open educational resources (OER) offer a free alternative to commercial materials, TCUs that adopt OER rather than commercial texts could lower course costs for their students. A data-driven outreach initiative to see how commercial texts were being used was needed. The resulting fall 2024 study collected course data from 97% of the TCUs (36/37, N=4,564) and adoption data from 73% of the TCUs (27/37, N=3,461). Commercial adoption rates were found to range between 19% and 93%, with an average of 44%. The average TCU book cost $62.92. This result highlights that while TCUs do provide a very affordable education, there is room to lower costs further. Study data was paired with a TCU-adapted version of Rogers’ (2003) Diffusion of Innovation theory. The theory outlines how new practices spread through social systems. The combination of data and model was used to identify key features of a tailored future OER outreach program for the TCUs.