Student perspectives on Open Educational Resources (OER) are often examined through surveys. Less attention has been paid to how students themselves talk about free or OER textbooks when evaluating faculty. This lightning talk explores student discourse about OER in RateMyProfessors reviews. Using purposive sampling, reviews containing references to OER were identified through systematic keyword searches. The talk focuses on how students frame the presence of OER materials when describing courses and instructors. This study approaches OER as a feature of student evaluation discourse. Drawing on qualitative content analysis, the project considers student attitudes toward OER, the reasons students give for those attitudes, the faculty ratings students provide in reviews mentioning OER, and the institutional contexts in which these comments appear. Rather than measuring learning outcomes, this work examines how “free” course materials are positioned within broader narratives about teaching, course experience, and instructor evaluation. By shifting attention from formal assessment to naturally occurring student commentary, this talk highlights how OER is interpreted in everyday student language. This perspective can inform how librarians, faculty, and institutions communicate about OER and better understand how students experience the OER aspect of their courses.
