1. Yay! We found an open
textbook … now what?
OpenEd 2015 Vancouver
Irwin DeVries – Naomi Cloutier
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike
4.0 International, except where otherwise noted.
2. Background
About us
Study background and scope
BCcampus open textbooks
OERu
Purpose
Growing body of research on uptake, perceptions,
effectiveness
Less on development and maintenance
3. Background
Question: What were participants’ experiences and
views of the development and/or implementation
processes of five open textbooks at TRU Open
Learning?
Methodology
Notes from development meetings and
communications
Video interviews with participants
Direct participation and observation
Surfaced themes
Preliminary findings only – study to expand
4. 1. Convergences
Experimental mindset (institutionally
supported)
Opportune course
development/revision stage
Aware, ready and willing faculty
(authors) and developers
Body of available open textbooks
Capacity to revise and add value
5.
6.
7.
8. 2. Differences from traditional textbook
development
Open peer review and collaboration
Improved currency due to a shorter production time;
localization can be a higher priority
Course content can influence textbook content
Dynamic document; authoring, editing, publishing,
producing media – changes to workflow
Consideration of “next user” – “5 Rs of openness”
Reuse, revise, remix, redistribute, retain
9.
10. 3. Sustainability
Champions
Maintenance plan - support ($) for expertise needed
How to share and evolve from the “finished” product
11.
12. Early observations
No one approach – multiple and complex pieces need come into
play (convergences)
Context specific (institution, jurisdiction, capacity, advocates,
development methods, awareness, course lifecycles)
Advantages of relevance, currency, quality, open peer feedback,
collaboration, flexibility
Challenges of version control, distribution, developing for own use
and for reuse, workflows, digital resources management, funding,
maintenance
Questions raised for further study
Models for sustainability (Downes 2005) - what’s actually working?
Centralization – decentralization (Wiley 2005)
How are the open textbooks being used? – Track over time
Open business models? (Stacey 2015)
13. “…the sustainability of OERs – in a fashion that
renders then at once both affordable and usable
– requires that we think of OERs as only part of a
larger picture, one that includes volunteers and
incentives, community and partnerships, co-
production and sharing, distributed management
and control.” (Downes 2005)
14. Endnotes
Images
http://www.tru.ca/__shared/assets/coyote_banner29454.jpg
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d3/Kamloops.jpg
https://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1407/542862353_3203ae6737.jpg
https://www.flickr.com/photos/thompsonrivers/4670553830/in/album-72157624198863176/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/thompsonrivers/21686048374/in/album-72157657731169744/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/thompsonrivers/8974752994/ building
https://www.flickr.com/photos/thompsonrivers/9359763007/in/album-72157657772035849/
http://www.hellobc.com/kamloops.aspx
Notes
See http://bccampus.ca/open-textbook-project/ for detailed description.
See http://oeru.org/ for OERu overview.
OERu courses referenced are located here: http://wikieducator.org/Art_Appreciation_and_Techniques;
http://wikieducator.org/Introduction_to_Research_Methods_In_Psychology Open
E.g. http://lumenlearning.com/research/; http://openedgroup.org/review
References
Downes S. (2007). Models for sustainable open educational resources [Electronic version]. Interdisciplinary Journal
of Knowledge and Learning Objects, 3, 29–34. Retrieved from http://ijklo.org/Volume3/IJKLOv3p029-
044Downes.pdf
Stacey, P. (2015). Open business models – Call for participation. http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/45022
Wiley, D. (2005). Thoughts from the Hewlett Open Ed grantees meeting. http://opencontent.org/blog/archives/192
15. Thank you!
Irwin DeVries
Director, Curriculum Development
Thompson Rivers University,
Open Learning
idevries@tru.ca
Twitter – IrwinDev
idevries.com
Naomi Cloutier
Associate Director, Curriculum Services
Thompson Rivers University,
Open Learning
ncloutier@tru.ca
Editor's Notes
----- Meeting Notes (2015-11-17 17:17) -----
Scope - five courses with open textbooks
Sociology, History, Psychology, Art, English
Thow fro the OERu