This document summarizes a study on the development and implementation of open textbooks at Thompson Rivers University Open Learning. It finds that there is no single approach, as multiple factors need to align, including institutional support, willing faculty authors, available open resources, and sustainability planning. While open textbooks allow for improved currency and collaboration, they also present challenges to version control, distribution, developing for reuse, and long-term funding. Further research is needed to understand how open textbooks are being used over time and identify sustainable business models.

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

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

10. 3. Sustainability
 Champions
 Maintenance plan - support ($) for expertise needed
 How to share and evolve from the “finished” product

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