by Lauri Aesoph, BCcampus

1. Adopting an Open Textbook
It doesn’t need to be
all or nothing
Lauri Aesoph, Manager Open Education BCcampus
ETUG 2015
SFU, Burnaby, BC
Unless otherwise noted, this work is licensed under CC-BY. 4.0 International.
Feel free to use, modify or distribute any or all of this presentation with attribution.

2. Agenda
WHAT Overview of open textbooks
WHEN A very short history of OER
WHERE Where are open textbooks used
WHY Reasons given by faculty and students
WHO Adoption numbers in British Columbia
HOW Finding your spot between “all” and “nothing”

4. What are Open Educational Resources?
“Open Educational Resources (OERs) are
any type of educational materials that are
in the public domain or introduced with an
open license. The nature of these open
materials means that anyone can legally
and freely copy, use, adapt and re-share
them.”
UNESCO

5. The 5 R’s of Open
• Make and own copiesRetain
• Use in a wide range of waysReuse
• Adapt, modify, and improveRevise
• Combine two or moreRemix
• Share with othersRedistribute
Adapted (color change) from Open Education: A “Simple” Introduction by David Wiley released under CC-BY license

6. What about Copyright?
copyright (1) by Maria Elena released under CC-BY 2.0 license

7. Creative Commons logo by Creative Commons used under a CC-BY 3.0 License
CC license image from Copyright in Education & Internet in South African Law used under CC-BY 2.5 South Africa license

9. Learning
Objects
1996
MERLOT
1997
Open
Content
1998
Connexions
(OpenStax)
1999
Creative
Commons
2001
OER coined
by UNESCO
2002
Hewlett
Foundation
2002
BCcampus
2004
BC Open
Textbook
project 2012

11. Go to oermap.org

13. Textbooks are expensive
Image credit: Beyond Textbooks by Thomas used under CC-BY license

14. Average student debt difficult to pay off, CBC, March 11, 2014
Student Debt in Canada, Canadian Federation of Students, Fall 2013

15. Students spend
$1200/yr on textbooks
3x rate of inflation in
10 years
2nd biggest
educational expense
after tuition
Source: Fixing the Broken Textbook Market U.S. PIRG
Cover image: Center for Public Interest Research used under CC-BY 4.0 license

16. Textbook Costs vs Student Success
Source: 2012 student survey by Florida Virtual Campus
Slide: CC-BY Cable Green, Creative Commons via http://www.project-kaleidoscope.org/
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60%+ do not purchase books at some point due to book cost
35% take fewer courses due to book cost
31% choose not to register for a course due to book cost
23% regularly go without textbooks due to book cost
14% have dropped a course due to book cost
10% have withdrawn from a course due to book cost

17. OT Summit – Student Keynotes

20. BC Faculty Survey - 2015
http://open.bccampus.ca/2015/05/26/early-findings-from-bc-faculty-survey-on-open-educational-resources

22. BC Faculty Survey - 2015

23. Time – it actually saved time. Three weeks into the first semester I realized we weren’t
receiving 5-10 emails a day from students like we usually did. Previously the students
were having problems with the proprietary online companion site provided by the
traditional textbook publisher.
Access – no issues with the bookstore running out of the textbooks; students had
immediate access to the learning materials, and they have that access throughout their
degree program. With a traditional model, they only had access for a limited period –
three months or so.
Continuous evolution of material – When the Modern Language Association changes
documentation rules, I can make an immediate change. I can add new OER I find (or
that my students find!).
Student participation – they can contribute to the resource themselves (see above).
Easy linking – I can easily link to specific lessons from the course site. I can link specific
lessons in response to individual student needs (eg. If someone is having trouble with
run-on sentences but not spelling, she can send them straight to a lesson on that
aspect). I could never do that with the publisher’s site.
The collateral benefits of adopting

25. BC Public Post-secondary Institutions

26. Adoption Questions
1. What is the name of course for which this textbook will be
used (course name and course code)?
2. When did/will you begin using this textbook (term or
semester and year)?
3. How many course sections per term are you/will you be
using this textbook?
4. How many students typically enrol in each course section?
5. What is the cost of the textbook which will be replaced by
this open textbook?

27. Adoptions Faculty Students Savings
172 90 5368 $536,800 - $715,000
201 98 6050 $605,000 - $800,000

28. Adoptions on open.bccampus.ca

32. Airport bookstore by rod cuthbert under CC-NC-ND
BY 2.0 license

33. Shade 1: Why do you want new shoes?
Tri tone shoe by Russ under CC-NC-ND BY-SA 2.0 license
What are your reasons for using an
open textbook?

34. Shade 2: Are there any sales? Reviews?
Learn more:
colleagues, research, reviews, blogs

35. Shade 3: There’s already one in your closet
Another scramble for something by Mychal Stanley used under CC-BY 2.0 license
Babson Survey (2014)
 1/3 of faculty aware of open
educational resources (OER)
 ½ of faculty reported using OER
How can this be?

36. Shade 4: Go shopping
 BC Open Textbook collection (open.bccampus.ca)
 OpenStax (openstaxcollege.org)
 MERLOT (merlot.org)
Personal shopper = Librarian

37. Shade 5: Browse and window shop
.
Reading by Pedro Ribeiro Simoes used under CC-BY 2.0.
Suggested Reading

38. Shade 6: Try it on
.
Supplementary Reading

40. Shade 7: Shop for accessories
Chapter, chapter
section, image, graph,
table….

41. Part-time Humanities instructor…
“Though my curriculum is chosen by someone else, I use
many, many open resources when teaching and only rely
on textbooks to the extent that students will learn from
them.”

42. Shade 8: Time for the fashion show
.
Student Assignments

43. Resources on open.bccampus.ca
http://opentextbc.ca/opentextbook
http://opentextbc.ca/accessibilitytoolkit

46. Thank You
Lauri Aesoph
laesoph@bccampus.ca
open.bccampus.ca