In the 25 Years of ED Tech book, chapter 20 (2020), open textbooks emerged as part of the Open Educational Resources (OER) movement in 2013. This movement was due to the expensive cost of textbooks that North American students had to pay, around $900 per student per year. This movement was mainly in the United States and Canada, allowing licensed versions of textbooks to be provided to colleges and universities as free digital and printed versions at low cost. Projects like OpenStax, and the Open Textbook Library played a crucial part in developing and promoting open textbooks. Many studies have shown that these textbooks are as effective as traditional textbooks. OpenStax estimates savings of $155 million in book purchases as of 2018.
Although these examples show how open textbooks benefit numerous students, some advocates, such as Robin DeRosa and Rajiv Jhangiani, argue that replacing expensive textbooks with open textbooks is not a solution to improving education. However, some case studies highlighted the key aspects of the necessity of open textbooks in higher education. First, the open education movement provided evidence of the positive impact of open textbooks on students. Second, since more people can access these open textbooks, professional providers have established an excellent production of open textbooks that appeal to educators and students that compete with traditional commercial textbooks. Third, shifting from purchasing copyright resources to open textbook production is a great economical way for sustainability. These three elements lay the foundation for the importance of open textbooks.
In summary, open textbooks align with distributed and open learning as these initiatives make education more affordable, flexible and accessible to everyone. Open textbooks are available for free or at a lower cost for students who might have some financial challenges. Moreover, these open textbooks under open licenses such as Creative Commons licenses (CC License), provide individuals and institutions with permission to use content, revise and reuse in their creative work under copyright law (CC licenses, 2020). This flexibility helps students and educators employ the information in these open textbooks in their courses to align with their learning objectives. Also, a student living in a different geographic area can access open textbooks easily. Thus, open textbook promotes accessibility to students worldwide to access education.
Reflection
I chose this topic, and specifically, I read chapter 20 because I wanted to read what the book says about open textbooks and how it started. During my studies at UVic, I used open textbooks mainly in math classes, which was beneficial in terms of affordability and quickly accessing the textbook any time I wanted. The chapter discussed the advantages of implementing open textbooks in universities, which I agree with as it helped me during school, especially since I am a full-time student. I would benefit from any way I can save money. Moreover, these open textbooks help students feel they are all equal. I had a microbiology class where if I bought the textbook for that class, about $300, I could access the practice question. At that time. It was not easy to spend money on a textbook I would only use for one term. Thus, I lost the advantage of having practice questions which affected my learning outcome eventually. Moreover, open textbooks are essential in a distributed and open learning environment as they allow students to easily access these books and enforce the learning experience as if it were an in-person learning class!
References
Picture: https://www.dreamstime.com/open-book-icon-earth-internet-educational-resources-online-learning-courses-library-global-education-vector-illustration-image269254534
Weller, M. (2020). 25 years of ed tech. AU Press.
About CC licenses. Creative Commons. (2020a, May 22). https://creativecommons.org/about/cclicenses/