- Open textbooks are digital educational resources that can be openly licensed and allow for multimedia integration, remixing, and redistribution. - Academics at the University of Cape Town are increasingly developing open textbooks to make content more accessible and affordable for students, though it requires a significant time investment from authors. - Open textbook authors are attempting to promote greater inclusion through locally relevant content, multilingualism, and including student voices in the authorship process in order to shift power dynamics in education.

1. Digital Open Textbooks for
Development
Presentation to the Universities South Africa Teaching and Learning
Strategy Group, 27 February 2020

2. Definition
Open textbooks are digital collections of open
educational resources and open access materials
published under an open licence on platforms
and in formats that provide affordances for the
integration of multimedia, remixing of various
content components, printing and redistribution.

3. Main Research question:

5. UCT interest
• 17 applications
• Open textbook activity appears to be on the rise at UCT despite a
range of institutional barriers to open textbook development activity

6. Open textbook grants at the University of Cape Town
Primary Criteria:
Curriculum transformation:
Localisation of an existing textbook
Writing a new textbook for our context
Multilingualism: translation of text or use of local language examples
Inclusion of student voices: as authors and/or as editors
Technological innovation
Pedagogical innovation
Secondary criteria:
Collaboration with multiple authors, Sustainability: a plan for versions and multiple authors,
Range of disciplines

7. DOT4D grantees

8. Social justice is a concept that requires the
organisation of social arrangements that make it
possible for everyone to participate equally in
society. Fraser (2005) considers social justice as
‘participatory parity’ economically, culturally and
politically.
What is social justice?

9. Open
textbooks
and social
justice …
Cox et al.
2020
• Academics at UCT are aware of the challenges related to the cost and
utility of traditional textbooks and are experimenting with new
approaches towards resource creation through open practice
• Time is a significant cost to the academic in open textbook
production
• Open textbook authors are attempting to make content more
accessible in terms of relevance, format and genre in order to
promote greater inclusivity
• Open textbook authorship models are providing avenues to explore
innovative, student-centred pedagogical approaches
• Academics at UCT acknowledge that there is a legacy of gatekeeping
in the selection of prescribed textbooks which serves to perpetuate
political misframing and exclusion
• Open textbook authors at UCT are including students in content
development processes in order to shift power dynamics and build
confidence in terms of students’ ability to contribute

10. Open
textbooks
alleviating
student
financial
burden
• UCT International Academic Programmes Office estimates the
cost of textbooks and stationery at R7 000 (approx. USD 475)
per annum
• In 2015, textbook prices increased by the above-inflation
percentage of 13.6% in one year and the costs continue to rise,
particularly in the case of imported books (which constitute a
large portion of the prescribed works in South African
universities)
• International cost savings from open textbook initiatives =
****

11. Institutionalising
open textbook
practice
• Senior leadership champion (DVC Teaching &
Learning Lis Lange at UCT)
• Grants programme (up to R80k in DOT4D)
• Transformed Ad Hominem promotion system
• Open Textbook Award (launching 2020 at UCT)
• Publishing support (in collaboration with
libraries)

12. Scaling activity …
How can open
textbooks
support social
justice in South
African HEIs?
• Partnerships for publishing
• Transformation of IP policies for individual
author agency
• Learning analytics for student use data

13. What are the
barriers and how
do we engage
institutions?