Exploring the potential for Sylla to source open educational resources

About the project

We are piloting Sylla with four universities to source high-quality, free open educational resources (OER) at scale. Sylla matches reading lists and course data to OER, offering a cost-effective alternative. While promising, in tough financial times, actual savings depend on academic adoption and the availability of suitable resources.

What is Sylla?

Sylla is an educational technology platform that uses AI to helps institutions find and adopt open, affordable OER tailored to course syllabi, addressing the e-textbook cost barriers highlighted in our blog. While there was interest in open access course content then, many institutions lacked resources to implement it effectively. Sylla’s platform offers the potential to both source OER and customise content, moving beyond traditional textbook models and supporting a more accessible and equitable education.

An initial pilot with Coventry University demonstrated significant impact, saving £95,000 (gross) by replacing costly textbooks with open alternatives in its business school. Coventry expanded Sylla’s use across all undergraduate programmes, achieving over £250,000 in savings across 245 modules.

Jisc and Sylla’s pilot

Building on the Coventry trial, Jisc launched a pilot programme with other institutions to evaluate Sylla’s potential to support more inclusive, affordable and tailored learning.

The pilot is assessing both the strengths and challenges of using Sylla in higher and further education, particularly its ability to surface relevant OER and the practical barriers institutions may face.

Four universities are currently participating, with two more and a college set to join soon. Each participant receives ten weeks of access to the Sylla platform, along with training and support. Early findings suggest promising benefits in certain subject areas, though some challenges remain.

How Sylla supports affordable, inclusive and flexible learning

Financial savings: Where suitable no-cost OER exist, they can replace commercial textbooks, delivering significant savings. However, savings depend on:

Availability: some country-specific subjects like UK law, have few resources
Coverage: existing OER may only cover specific sections or chapters of a commercial text, rather than serving as a full replacement
Capacity: library and academic staff need time to evaluate and adopt OER
Integration: systems and content access need to be seamless
Academic buy-in: switching resources adds extra workload for academics and existing prescribed texts may be authored by academic staff
Institutional policy: support for OER adoption varies

Customised content: Sylla enables the creation of custom, tailored course materials by mixing chapters from various OER sources, even when no single resource matches the syllabus, although this requires time investment from library and teaching staff.

Inclusivity: Sylla supports inclusive learning by offering free, flexible formats (text, video, quizzes) and enabling culturally diverse or locally relevant content.

Free extended reading lists: As well as replacing core textbooks, Sylla can identify high-quality supplementary resources – at no extra cost.

Supporting open access: Pilot institutions found Sylla aligned with their open access and open education goals, offering a practical way to support those priorities in teaching and learning.

Peer-reviewed resources for faster adoption

Sylla is developing an ‘adoption list’ - a peer-reviewed catalogue of OER used by other universities to streamline decisions and reduce duplication of effort for academic staff.

Addressing gaps in OER through collaboration

Sylla launched the ‘grow’ initiative, to co-create at least five new open textbooks in under-resourced subjects.

Next steps

Pilot universities continue collaborating with Sylla to evaluate the platform and enhance its capabilities
A pilot is about to start with a further education college
We are exploring licensing options for wider sector access

Get involved

Keep an eye on this page for updates and if you would like to be involved in the pilot contact Joe Pettican (joseph.pettican@jisc.ac.uk).