The document discusses building communities of practice around open textbooks to encourage their adoption, effective use, and sustainability. It describes a panel discussion with representatives from different academic disciplines who have formed communities of practice around open textbooks in their fields. The panelists discuss their experiences and lessons learned in starting these communities, using both synchronous and asynchronous communication methods, and getting instructors comfortable sharing materials. The goals are to share best practices, discuss challenges, and make plans to further develop these open textbook communities of practice.

1. Building Communities of Practice to Encourage Open Textbook Use SloanC-MERLOT Conference July 12, 2011 With generous support from DynamicBooks Slide

2. The challenge Increase adoption, effective use, and sustainability of open-licensed textbooks The solution Communities of Practice Slide

3. Why we are here today Hear from our panelists about the lessons they’ve learned in forming working communities of practice around open textbooks Hear from you about lessons you’ve learned Slide

4. Goals Share the practices that have worked and those that have not Apply the results to other kinds of learning communities. Discuss the differences between the communities that start with a theoretical vs. pragmatic approaches Compare the use of synchronous and asynchronous communications methods. Discuss how instructors and others can feel comfortable sharing their materials. Share the plans for the future of these seven communities Slide

5. Logistics Each panelist represents a different academic discipline and will take 5-7 minutes to share his/her learning around a specific area of communities of practice. We will start discussions after the presentations Slide

6. Joanne Mu Joanne Munroe Community: Organic Chemistry Emphasis: Learning Communities and Communities of Practice (Cox, 2004; Wenger, 1998; Wenger, White, and Smith, 2009) Slide

7. Una Daly Community: Educational Psychology Emphasis: Collaboration & Remixing Curriculum Drivers Small programs Varied majors State licensure Slide

8. Connexions textbook Drs. Seifert & Sutton Online collaboration Reorder, remix, authoring tool. Online repository Slide

9. Slide CC BY-SA Some rights reserved by Gideon Burton

10. Bill Buxton Community: Economics Emphasis: Pragmatic, Participatory, Permanent, Powerful Slide Bill Buxton, Founder, Textbook Equity

11. Economics Primary (seed) Open Textbook: “ Microeconomics”, by R. Larry Reynolds, Professor, Boise State University. (2011) CC-BY-NC-SA Current Ancillaries: 15 Interactive Excel® models 6 Flash® modules with voice over 2 Quicktime® movies with voice over 13 Powerpoint® lectures Math and calculus reviews Topics in PDF and Word® formats Homework and exam examples with answers Slide

12. Teamwork Slide

13. “ Corequisites” for Success

14. Lynda Lambert Community: College Writing Emphasis: Starting from Scratch Author/ Facilitator Goals: To get unbiased opinions on the usability of an unpublished, as yet un-adopted book To create ancillary materials on a course site that could then be accessed and used by adopters. Slide

15. Goals Achieved? At this point.... There has been some feedback on the book from three people, with minor suggestions. There was an attempt to offer a possible ancillary, but the posting caused technical problems that tied us up for 3 weeks. Slide

16. Things learned so far A larger, more varied pool of possible participants will help move us forward. Asking for a specific response is better than asking for a general contribution. Specific tasks do-able in short timeframes are best. Methodical, regular contact and updates are a necessity to keep things going. Slide

17. If you’re interested... For those in the audience who are interested in joining this Learning Community, you can begin by taking a look at the book on which it is based, Deconstructing American English , at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XtU840Cftqmsq6fOAxowW9pZT58N-CQV4LZhZfZ_sc4/edit?authkey=CNqNkpIG&hl=en_US&pli=1 Slide

18. Barbara Illowsky Community: Statistics Emphasis: Author responses to inputs & evolution Slide

19. Barbara Illowsky PDF: free always! (download and/or print) QOOP: hard copy of pdf – purchase ( <$30) Connexions: free (Web 1.0) Kno/20 Million Minds: $4.99 enhanced with interactive multimedia (Web 2.0) WebAssign homework system: $25 iTunesU: free chapter videos Slide

20. Navigate table of contents Click here to print out Key term links to definition

21. Slide

22. Jacky Hood: Four Communities with Varied Challenges Accounting: great book, publisher support challenge : fledgling community Math: excellent book, many adopters, excellent Subject Matter Expert challenge : no facilitator Sociology: great tool and structure, huge opportunity challenge : only four adopters, none available to manage community Project management: large well-qualified community, three great tools, challenges : writing a 1000-page textbook, funding, business model Slide

23. Discussion Tell us about your needs … Join the College Open Textbooks Community http ://collegeopentextbooks.ning.com With generous support from DynamicBooks