Open Textbooks

This is an open textbook (CC-BY) that my colleagues and I wrote for an introduction to philosophy course at Lansing Community College (beginning Fall 2019).  If you would like an editable version of the textbook, please email me.

Pressbooks version here: https://pressbooks.online.ucf.edu/introductiontophilosophy/

From BCcampus, "This first year Geography textbook takes a holistic approach to Geography by incorporating elements of physical, human and regional geography, as well as bringing in methods and perspectives from spatial information science.. This textbook applies a fundamental geographical approach to understanding our globally changing world by looking at local processes which are linked to larger global processes and events. For example mining and its effects are a global issue and we can see how these unfold in BC. A further example is the recent apology to First Nation peoples on the residential school treatment, as similar events occur in the US, Ireland and Australia. Processes of urbanization, a phenomenon which people all over the globe are experiencing, can be seen in Vancouver with our discussion of the city’s development. Geography students, indeed all first year students, need to be able to critically assess their own contexts and environments in order to properly engage with our continually globalizing world."

Available for free in several formats from BCcampus:

http://goo.gl/NkH3xn

http://open.bccampus.ca/find-open-textbooks/?uuid=ab58c7f7-41a4-479d-8359-b97b495352dc&contributor=&keyword=&subject=

This study explores the relationships between the frequency and identities of heroes as role models used in the social studies textbooks in teaching 20 core values and prospective teachers’ preferences of heroes. The findings
indicated that there are striking similarities and differences between these two variables. For gender variable,
97,4 % of heroes found in the textbooks were male and % 2,6 was female, whereas all the heroes preferred
by prospective teachers were male. Moreover, 73,6 % of heroes in the textbooks were national and 26,4 % was universal; 75 % of prospective students’ preferences were national and 25 % was international. However, the study indicated that there is a low level of congruence between the two variables in terms of the identities of the heroes. While Atatürk was the most frequently used role model in the textbooks, prospective teachers’ preferences
of role models for the basic values constituted of Atatürk and religious heroes.

This paper presents the results of collaborative research between open textbook provider OpenStax College (OSC) and the OER Research Hub (OERRH), a Hewlett funded mixed methods open research project examining the impact of open educational resources (OER) on learning and teaching.

The paper focuses primarily on the results of two surveys that were conducted with educators using a range of OSC open textbooks during 2013 and 2014/2015. The results of this research shows that OER such as OSC enables a majority of educators to better respond to student needs whilst often making teaching easier and in some instances changing teaching practices. Although this paper does not focus on the impact of OER on students, a majority of educators surveyed perceive an increase in student satisfaction when using OER such as OSC and believe that OSC are saving students money.

The UCT Open Textbook Journeys monograph tells the stories of 11 academics at the University of Cape Town who embarked on open textbook development initiatives in order to provide their students with more accessible and locally relevant learning materials. Produced by the Digital Open Textbooks for Development (DOT4D) initiative, the monograph contributes towards a better understanding of open textbook production by providing details related to authors’ processes and their reflections on their work. The collection aims to provide rich anecdotal evidence about the factors driving open textbook activity and shed light on how to go about conceptualising and producing open textbooks, and to aid the articulation of emerging open textbook production models that advance social justice in higher education.

In this contribution, three open textbook authors outline the motivations and mechanics of three successful yet different approaches to writing open textbooks. These approaches include textbook creation and adaptation projects, individual and collaborative efforts, and traditional timeline and compressed " sprint " models. Following these cases, the authors discuss similarities and differences across approaches, along with broader issues concerning how particular disciplines and philosophies of teaching influence writing open textbooks.

Objectives
There is little empirical data reported on retail prices of college textbooks beyond self-reported surveys and no published datasets. Textbooks, as an ancillary cost, can contribute to the overall rising cost of education which can impact upon students’ ability to succeed in Higher Education. This study sought to understand more about costs of college textbooks by conducting a systematic collection of several thousand textbooks from faculty readings lists in one Higher Education Institution in Ireland and a retrieval and analysis of the retail prices of a selection of those books.

Data description
Queries were made of the course catalogue database of a Higher Education Institution in Ireland resulting in generation of records for required and recommended textbooks for 15,414 books from 3030 unique courses for the academic year 2017–2018. This data was cleaned and processed before being used to query Google Books API. The dataset presented here represents the combination of data from the course catalogue and the Google Books API queries and comprises 2940 records of textbooks. Details for each book including title, authors, publisher, ISBN, retail price, ebook format, pdf availability, and public domain availability.

Open Textbooks are openly licensed academic textbooks, where the digital version is available freely, and the print version at highly reduced cost. They are a form of Open Educational Resource (OER) that has seen significant impact and success in the USA and Canada.

The UK Open Textbook project was funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation with two main aims: firstly to promote the adoption of open textbooks in the UK, and secondly to investigate the transferability of the successful models of adoption to the UK. The project was led by The Open University (UK) OER Hub team in partnership with 2 US based open textbook providers and champions, OpenStax and the
Open Textbook Network, and WonkHE and the University of the West of England (UWE).

Initial research into the differences between the US and UK context highlighted that textbook use in these two contexts varies considerably and that there was little existing research into UK textbook use. The UK Open Textbook project carried out both an initial literature review and a survey of UK educators during the project. The cost of textbooks is a more significant barrier in the USA, and their usage tends to be more heavily mandated. However, participation costs for UK students are increasing, and textbooks represent a contributing factor.

In our 2018 survey with UK Higher Education (HE) educators, it was noted that whilst there is an initial low awareness of OER, respondents had a strong interest in pursuing their adoption.

UK Open Textbooks was a project focused on engagement. Through a number of workshops at a range of higher education institutions (HEIs) and targeted promotion at specific education conferences, the project successfully raised the profile of open textbooks within the UK. The project focused particularly on STEM subject textbooks and in spite of contextual differences between UK HEIs and their counterparts in North America there was considerable interest and appetite for open textbooks amongst UK academics. This was partly related to cost savings for students and institutions, but more significant factors were the freedom to adapt and develop textbooks. Open textbooks were also viewed as a possible means to counteract the disinterest of commercial publishers in developing books for smaller markets.

This report reflects upon the current use of textbooks at UK HE level and the potential for open textbooks. It contextualises and presents the tried and tested methods used to engage with stakeholders at events and workshops and reports back on our findings and outcomes from this activity. Finally this report also presents some of the case studies curated and created during the project; illustrating current best practice and use of open textbooks.

The UK Open Textbooks project successfully raised awareness of open textbooks and OER over a one year period, and through the project’s activity discovered that higher and further education is a potentially fertile ground for the use of open textbooks and further development in this area.

We invite papers which analyse print and digital educational media from both diachronic and synchronic perspectives. We particularly welcome papers which investigate the relationship between societal issues shaping the production process and the selection and presentation of content in the materials. Organising team: Roderich Henry, Lars Müller, Marcus Otto, Steffen Sammler and Vera Zellmer.

В силу специфики деятельности лаборатории "Школьная медиатека", где посчастливилось работать, доводится уделять время изучению роли традиционного и электронного учебника в информационно-образовательной среде отечественной школы. В современной педагогической науке прослеживается несколько тенденций, характеризующих отношение к электронному учебнику. Ряд ученых считает, что будущее – за электронным учебником, и что учебник традиционный не выдержит конкуренции со стороны электронного, станет маловыразительным средством обучения и со временем сдаст свои устоявшиеся позиции. Не менее велико число представителей науки, полагающих, что, напротив, электронный учебник не в состоянии целиком и полностью заменить традиционный учебник ни по каким позициям, и что уже в скором времени докажет свою полную несостоятельность перед последним как средство обучения и уйдет с повестки дня научных дискуссий. И, наконец, суще-ствует мнение, которого придерживается со временем растущий круг деятелей науки, характеризующееся синтетическим взглядом на предмет. Согласно ему, подчеркиваются все положительные стороны традиционного учебника, которые следовало бы развить и существенно до-полнить за счет принципиально новых возможностей, открыва-ющихся перед нами с появлением электронного учебника.

Open digital educational content is a key priority of the Greek national K-12 educational policy. " Digital School I " national initiative (2010-2015) resulted in 7,500 Open Educational Resources (OERs); 100+ open, interactive textbooks; a modern digital repository infrastructure (Photodentro) for hosting, organizing, and sharing K-12 OERs, along with a national educational content Aggregator service and portal for harvesting and providing seamless access to externally hosted OERs; and a social educational platform for pupils and teachers (e-me). The paper presents the current status in Greece regarding K-12 digital educational content and e-services, in line with the Greek K-12 digital policy, and the new nationwide program " Digital School II " (2017-2018) that extends and upgrades the current infrastructure.

This study explores the relationships between the frequency and identities of heroes as role models used in the social studies textbooks in teaching 20 core values and prospective teachers’ preferences of heroes. The findings indicated that there are striking similarities and differences between these two variables. For gender variable, 97,4 % of heroes found in the textbooks were male and % 2,6 was female, whereas all the heroes preferred by prospective teachers were male. Moreover, 73,6 % of heroes in the textbooks were national and 26,4 % was universal; 75 % of prospective students’ preferences were national and 25 % was international. However, the study indicated that there is a low level of congruence between the two variables in terms of the identities of the heroes. While Ataturk was the most frequently used role model in the textbooks, prospective teachers’ preferences of role models for the basic values constituted of Ataturk and religious heroes.

Strategies for Academic Success accompanies the first-year University of Saskatchewan College of Arts and Science online course by the same name. However, the information it contains will apply to post-secondary institutions all over. The textbook has a reader-friendly format arranged to help you develop the essential skills and provide the information you need to succeed in university.  Strategies for Academic Success is adapted from a work produced and distributed under a Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-SA) in 2017 by the University of Saskatchewan.

This adaptation has seen significant rewriting and reformatting of the original 2010 and 2016 texts, replacement of images and figures, and deletions and rearrangements of chapters and sections. This work is made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license, with the exception of the cover photo, which is made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license from photographer Francisco Osorio.

While the value proposition of OER is clear, there is a barrier to adoption
because of poor accessibility and the lack of tools to adapt the resources to new needs. With this in mind, Guide to Developing Open Textbooks was conceived to (i) reduce the need to spend hours identifying useful resources and (ii) provide the tools to enhance and adapt these original resources. This manual provides a number of different technological solutions for the effective location and use of existing OER to develop an open textbook platform.

The rising cost of textbooks for students has been highlighted as a major concern in higher education, particularly in the USA and Canada. Less has been reported, however, about the costs of textbooks outside of North America, including in Europe. We address this gap in the knowledge through a case study of one Irish higher education institution, focusing on the cost, accessibility, and licensing of textbooks. We report here on an investigation of textbooks prices drawing from an official college course catalog containing several thousand books. We detail how we sought to determine meta-data of these books including: the formats they are available in, whether they are in the public domain and the retail prices. We explain how we used methods to automatically determine textbook costs using Google Books API and make our code and dataset publicly available.

This study explores the relationships between the frequency and identities of heroes as role models used in the social studies textbooks in teaching 20 core values and prospective teachers’ preferences of heroes. The findings indicated that there are striking similarities and differences between these two variables. For gender variable, 97,4 % of heroes found in the textbooks were male and % 2,6 was female, whereas all the heroes preferred by prospective teachers were male. Moreover, 73,6 % of heroes in the textbooks were national and 26,4 % was universal; 75 % of prospective students’ preferences were national and 25 % was international. However, the study indicated that there is a low level of congruence between the two variables in terms of the identities of the heroes. While Ataturk was the most frequently used role model in the textbooks, prospective teachers’ preferences of role models for the basic values constituted of Ataturk and religious heroes.

This article discusses the impact of human-computer interaction in the pedagogical design of open textbooks affordable into a diversity of learning environments. An exploratory study is conducted, wherein an online questionnaire is administered to the second-year master's degree students from the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Studies. The results show that students are aware of the importance of metacognition in developing effective learning strategies. Thus, they use metacognitive strategies when taking notes, doing reflections, and employing mnemonics to enhance understanding. However, despite the current practice of using open didactical materials, students feel that the open textbooks approach needs to be relooked and changed to be more effective; it could be equipped with appropriate learning tools to provide more opportunities for immediate feedback and collaborative assessment. Individualization and collaboration are the key factors in developing metacognitive exp...

This article discusses the impact of human-computer interaction in the pedagogical design of open textbooks affordable into a diversity of learning environments. An exploratory study is conducted, wherein an online questionnaire is administered to the second-year master's degree students from the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Studies. The results show that students are aware of the importance of metacognition in developing effective learning strategies. Thus, they use metacognitive strategies when taking notes, doing reflections, and employing mnemonics to enhance understanding. However, despite the current practice of using open didactical materials, students feel that the open textbooks approach needs to be relooked and changed to be more effective; it could be equipped with appropriate learning tools to provide more opportunities for immediate feedback and collaborative assessment. Individualization and collaboration are the key factors in developing metacognitive experience. These findings indicate that students are cognizant of the important role of open textbooks in promoting learning.

There has been little research into the impact of textbook costs on higher education in the United Kingdom. To better understand textbook use patterns and the issues faced by UK students and educators the UK Open Textbooks Project (2017–2018, http://ukopentextbooks.org/)) conducted quantitative survey research with United Kingdom educators in September 2018. This article reports on the findings of this survey, which focussed on awareness of open educational resources; textbook use and rationale; awareness and use of open textbooks; and open licensing. Results reveal fertile ground for open textbook adoption with potential to support a wide range of open educational practices. The findings indicate strategies for supporting pedagogical innovation and student access through the mainstream adoption of open textbooks.

The high cost of textbooks is a detriment to student success. Legal solutions include: using older editions, used books, unbundling, personal libraries, library reserves, cheap paperbacks, open source textbooks, Wikipedia, iBooks. Illegal solutions include: distribution of review/desk copies, photocopies, pdf files. Faculty are not bound by a culture of textbooks and can overcome the obscurantism and blame-transfer of the textbook industry to find solutions for their students.

presentation with Shane Finneran, for the Annual Meeting of The Society for Anthropology in Community Colleges section of the American Anthropological Association, San Diego, CA. April 27, 2012

Rising textbook costs have been highlighted as an issue for students in higher education (HE), particularly in North America. Less is known about the costs and forms in which books are available to students in higher education in Europe and specifically in Ireland. This is despite significant moves towards openly licensed books as a potential response via established open access publishing platforms. This research sought to address a gap in the scholarly understanding of textbook usage and the potential of open alternatives in Ireland. We present the results of an analysis of the accessibility, cost and licensing of textbooks in Ireland taking one higher education institution as a case study. We report here on the findings of phases one and two of this study, including the retail prices of over 500 books, the formats they are available in and those that are in the public domain. The next phase of this study involved the design of research instruments to use with staff and students a...

"Distinguishing the dOERs: Faculty use of Open Educational Resources" was presented by Beck Pitt on 10 March 2015 as part of a BCcampus webinar for Open Education Week with Rajiv Jhangiani and Clint Lalonde.

Recording available here: http://open.bccampus.ca/2015/02/06/open-webinars-for-open-education-week/

"OER Research on Open Textbook adoption and Librarians" was presented by Beck Pitt on 10 December 2014 as part of a CCCOER webinar with Nicole Allen (SPARC) and Una Daly.

Recording available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTnbyh7Utfw&feature=youtu.be