HOUSTON - eTradeWire -- OpenStax, an educational initiative of Rice University, is celebrating 25 years of expanding access to research-informed educational tools and resources for learners and educators worldwide. Throughout its history, OpenStax has served 36.7 million students across 153 countries and has saved students over $2.9 billion in related education costs.

Thanks in part to the work of OpenStax, textbook prices began to drop in 2018 (https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/monday-afternoon...). That trend generally continued (https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/chart-of-the-day...) as educator awareness of open educational resources (OER) increased or maintained in both higher education (https://www.bayviewanalytics.com/reports/oer_20...) and K-12 (https://www.bayviewanalytics.com/reports/oer_20...) environments.

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Through various partnerships, OpenStax continues to break down barriers to learning. In August, OpenStax partnered with Google (https://news.rice.edu/news/2024/openstax-partners-googles-gemini-apps), so its resources could be discovered, searched and referenced within the Google Gemini AI tool, akin to ChatGPT.

"Celebrating 25 years of OpenStax is a testament to the power of open education and the collective commitment to making learning accessible to all," said Richard Baraniuk, founder and director of OpenStax and SafeInsights and the C. Sidney Burrus Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Rice. "From the seeds of an idea to building a large library of OER and now to creating personalized, interactive learning tools that meet students where they are, we have been continually inspired to make an amazing education accessible to all."

OpenStax has grown its library to include more than 70 comprehensive digital learning textbooks, each with standards-aligned, culturally relevant resources for students and instructors, leading to its recognition as the world's largest OER publisher.

After years of serving secondary students in addition to its core audience of higher education learners, the organization expanded to formally include a K-12 division in 2021.

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In response to the growing digitalization of education and the evolving needs of students and instructors, OpenStax has begun providing interactive learning technologies (https://news.rice.edu/news/2024/openstax-assignable-expands-brings-interactive-learning-higher-education) based on new AI tools. These technologies are designed through cutting-edge educational research gained through the work of SafeInsights (https://news.rice.edu/news/2024/rices-openstax-...) to enhance its content and ensure efficacy toward student learning outcomes.

"We're grateful to the faculty, schools, students, funders, authors, advocates and partners who have walked this path with us and helped make OpenStax what it is today," said Daniel Williamson, managing director of OpenStax. "We pioneered an industry built around open resources, an industry that has been shown to drive innovation and increase competition, ultimately allowing for improved student access to high-quality learning materials. Our success is a reflection of the work done by the OpenStax team, the open education community and a vast ecosystem of partners and institutions."

To learn more about OpenStax's mission and impact, visit openstax.org/impact.