Lightning Talk by Professor Erin Owens at Sam Houston State University (SHSU) PACE Teaching & Learning Conference, Aug 12, 2021: High textbook costs disproportionately impact first-generation, minority, and low-income students. These costs can be especially hard to swallow in introductory courses outside a student’s major. While e-textbooks may lower the initial price-tag, they cannot be resold and are not ideal for all learners. But there’s another option: You can provide immediate, free digital access to an open textbook, with a low-cost print option available through the bookstore for students who prefer print. You can do it quickly, without sacrificing the convenience of supplementary materials, and if you’re feeling intimidated, the library can help. Learn more in this lightning session!

1. Adopt an Open Textbook
for Your Intro Course
in Under 20 Hours
Erin Owens
Professor, NGL SHSU
SHSU PACE 2021 Teaching & Learning Conference

2. What’s an “Open” Textbook?

3. Traditional Textbooks
• Print or digital? The
Scylla and Charybdis
of textbooks
• High costs cause more
harm to first-generation,
minority, and low-income
students “Geert Verheyen fall down on Boonen & Friends cyclocross race on
04.12.2010” by Max Mayorov from Flickr is licensed CC-BY-NC-SA

4. Open Textbooks
• No cost, immediate access
 create equitable
conditions for all students
• Impact course grades,
retention, and completion
• Create more benefits for
first-generation, minority,
and low-income students Photo by Marc Rafanell López on Unsplash is licensed CC0

5. In Their Own Words: SHSU Students
• It is a tremendous help not to have to worry about spending
extra money on a textbook, even just one class makes the
difference.
• It helped me especially since I am a first generation college
student. I come from essentially a lower class family and
having a zero cost course helps make college seem within my
means.
• Professors who choose this method understand the rising cost
for students to attend University and help reduce the end cost
for the students, thus allowing us to spend the saved money in
other necessary areas that are required for university
education.

6. In Their Own Words (cont’d.)
• It gave me a lot more money to spend on daily needs like food or water especially
since I had financial aid trouble at the start.
• Zero-cost has helped me with my living expenses. Some textbooks cost $300 and
honestly, that's about 2 months' worth of food or even more. I am very grateful for
this program and if another class offered it, I would gladly take it again. Thank you
• Incredibly helpful financially and it relieved stress of returning textbooks at the end
of semester. I wish all courses were zero-cost!!! Some courses I've taken in the past
left me unable to buy food or pay rent and this is extremely unfair. Most of the
time these textbooks were not even used by the professor save two or three
smaller assignments.

7. In Their Own Words (cont’d.)
• I am thankful that it is an option and should be provided
if there is the proper material available for the class.
• Zero-cost courses are a blessing. Not having to worry
about getting books or having to scrape up funds last
minute to try to get your hands on a book you might not
even get a chance of using to its fullest extent (e.g.
during this pandemic) is a great thing. Zero-cost courses
should be how all courses are ran especially given we
already pay thousands to take the class to begin with the
least we can have is a free book in exchange.

8. In Their Own Words (cont’d.)
• It's better just do it. Don't y'all get enough money from us?
• When college textbooks cost more than my car payment or half of
monthly rent, there is something completely wrong. One single
book cost more money than electric and water bills combined.
Education should not be ran like a business. It's a shame that those
who wish have a better life and chance at the American dream will
spend the next thirty years paying debts for student loans for the
opportunity and privilege. However, I doubt any individual within
the college upper management will read this.

9. More Than Just Money
• Adapt to suit your own pedagogical style – rearrange
chapters, remove or add topics, explain differently
• Merge your preferred parts from multiple open
books, plus integrate other images, videos, exercises
• Adapt to reflect local context – increase relevance to
SHSU students specifically

10. How Would I Start?
• Just start!
• OpenStax (housed at Rice University) publishes
scholar-written, peer-reviewed, professionally edited,
open textbooks, with an emphasis on intro courses
• Far from the only publisher, but a great place to start
• Tons of supplementary instruction materials

11. OpenStax Collection
3e

12. Instructor Resources
Example:
Chemistry 2e

13. Instructor Resources

14. How Do I Adopt It?
• Similar to any textbook!
• Report the ISBNs to the bookstore
– Electronic ISBN: Required
– Print ISBN: Optional
• Adopt (or adapt) the slides, lecture notes, test banks,
and homework to suit your needs and preferences
• Link to the electronic book in Blackboard

15. The Catch? There’s None!
• You get tons of supplementary materials to make
adoption fast and easy.
• Your students get free, immediate textbook access to
help them stay on track and succeed.
• All faculty participants in a 2019-20 SHSU mini-grant
program reported less than 20 hours of effort – and
many used a more complex solution than OpenStax.

16. Still Feeling Uncertain?
• Read reviews from other faculty via the
Open Textbook Library.
• Explore the map of schools and students
using OpenStax. 60% of higher education
institutions in the U.S. use OpenStax.
• Peruse the impressive list of foundations
that support OpenStax’s mission.
• Contact me or your subject librarian to talk
about options and assistance. We’ll help!

17. Closing Thoughts...
You can continue putting off change because it may
cost you time. But what is the failure to change costing
your students?

18. Thank You! Questions?
Erin Owens
Professor – Access Services Coordinator & Scholarly
Communications Librarian
Newton Gresham Library, SHSU
936-294-4567
eowens@shsu.edu
Learn more about open textbooks, available resources,
and library help at https://shsulibraryguides.org/oer
These slides are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC-BY-NC-SA)​