Group items tagged

"The Community College Open Textbook Project (CCOTP) was developed to support the use of textbooks that are freely available and accessible online, and that can be adapted by teachers and learners to meet their unique needs and contexts. This article presents the findings of a research study conducted by the Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management of Education (ISKME) on CCOTP. The study examined the adoption and use patterns of teachers and learners as end users of open textbooks, finding that important initial drivers of use included reduced cost, dependable quality and ease of use, and that teachers and learners use open textbooks in ways that reflect their existing teaching and learning practices. The study also showed the potential for new teaching and learning behaviours aligned to the use of open textbooks, including increased teacher collaboration on curriculum development and the interactivity of open materials as an enhancement of student learning. In addition, the study identified challenges for the sustainability of the open textbook model, including teacher technological efficacy and professional development that supports open textbook use."

"This paper provides a summary and assessment of the current development of open textbooks and describes a possible direction for future development and funded support of open textbook projects. This paper provides answers to the following questions: Why do we need open textbooks? What are open textbooks (in their various forms)? How are open textbooks developed and distributed? And finally, when will open textbooks be produced? As these questions are addressed, other dimensions relevant to the Open Education Resource (OER) movement are also revealed and discussed."

"The Open Access Textbooks Grant Project worked with others involved in open content to create a sustainable model for Florida and other states to discover, produce, and disseminate open textbooks. This three-year initiative was funded by a grant from the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE). The project built on efforts in Florida and across the U.S. to create a sustainable open textbook model and a collaborative community to further implementation of open textbooks. "

The Open Access Textbooks Project is a two-year initiative to create a sustainable model for the discovery, production, and dissemination of open textbooks. Funded by a grant from the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE), this project builds on lessons learned in open textbook efforts across the United States and seeks to create a collaborative community to further sustainable implementation of open textbooks.

"Dear SUNY Faculty, We would like you to consider being one of the first to produce an Open SUNY Textbook. We invite you to apply by submitting a brief proposal by December 17th to publish your textbook as an open educational resource and print-on-demand title, made possible thanks to a SUNY Innovative Instruction Technology Grant and the support of SUNY Libraries & SUNY Press. If selected, you will receive an award of $3,000 upon the completion of all work and required forms. An additional $1,000 will be paid to you if you decide to include and assess student involvement in the design and development of the textbook.* Although an open textbook is free online, you will be eligible to earn royalties on sales of the print-on-demand edition, if applicable."

"The Community College Open Textbooks Collaborative is funded by The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. This collection of sixteen educational non-profit and for-profit organizations, affiliated with more than 200 colleges, is focused on driving awareness and adoptions of open textbooks to more than 2000 community and other two-year colleges. This includes providing training for instructors adopting open resources, peer reviews of open textbooks, and mentoring online professional networks that support for authors opening their resources, and other services."

" the Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education (ISKME) conducted research on the adoption and use patterns of participating faculty and students as end users of open textbooks, and the ways that that open textbook use potentially supports teaching and learning. "

"The Utah Open Textbook project is examining the deeper learning and cost savings that can be achieved when open textbooks replace traditional, expensive textbooks in public high school science classrooms. "

"The goal of runestone interactive is to provide the tools, content, and hosting for high quality, interactive computer science textbooks. Everything is available under an open source license. There are really two main branches of the Runestone interactive project: To provide tools for building interactive textbooks. Our ultimate vision is to become 'The LaTeX of interactive publishing.' To this end we have built a platform based on Sphinx, comprised of several extensions for building interactive books. To provide hosting for interactive textbooks. We have three books that we host on this site for free, without registration or login required. We can also host a custom book for your course. If you are an instructor and looking to host your own course here is what you get: You can choose which modules you want to include. Your students get login-based access to their book so they can save their work, turn in homework right from the book, and take notes in the scratch edtitor popups. You get access to the grading interface Runestone interactive is a project of Luther College. "

"Eleven Learning publishes open-source, community-powered textbooks and etextbooks. Our books are more relevant, more up-to-date, and less expensive. Our product offerings include a web-based textbook reading interface and a community-commenting platform for textbook authors and educators. Eleven Learning is a privately held corporation. I"

"The ChemWiki project is a collaborative approach toward chemistry education where an Open Access textbook environment is constantly being written and re-written partly by students and partly by faculty members resulting in a free Chemistry textbook to supplement conventional paper-based books."

"Overall, the results of this study clearly show that the Open Course Library will not only save students millions on textbooks, but also generate a considerable return on the state's investment. Even in the unlikely case that the faculty who created the courses are the only ones who use them, the program will essentially pay for itself in textbook savings within the first year. "

Open source textbook publisher projects $1M in savings OpenStax has been well received on college campuses as textbook prices remain stubbornly high College students in some of the most heavily attended courses in the country will eclipse $1 million in textbook savings after a Rice University-based publisher had 13,000 open-source books downloaded since June.

"The colleges in 15 states and one Canadian province that make up the Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources (CCCOER) will now be able to tap into the collection of open textbook resources compiled by the international group of institutions that make up the OpenCourseWare Consortium (OCW Consortium) and vice versa in a new partnership. "

"Why not take advantage of the informational system that the academy inspired to deliver information about the academy? All the tasks of developing and producing a textbook-research, writing, reviewing, editing, distributing and using-can be improved by the open collaboration of distributed network of experts."

"In addition to providing grants for existing textbooks, the Saylor Foundation has announced a new option to award authors seeking to create open textbooks that will be CC BY licensed."

"This catalog provides information about some of the top examples of open textbooks, which are college texts offered online under a license that allows free digital access, low-cost print options and customization by instructors. "

"The second thing that Khan has made more accessible is the value of openly licensed educational resources. All material on Khan Academy is licensed under a Creative Commons Non-Commercial license, which ensures that these resources, and any subsequent improvements, will remain freely available. Because of the enormous generosity of Salman Khan, and the resources he has marshalled into this effort, the world now has an enormous body of good quality material that can be used to learn about a broad range of subjects. The body of material within Khan Academy can be used to replace large sections of traditional textbooks. The support of high-visibility donors has given these resources a credibility that other openly licensed materials, for whatever reason, have never enjoyed. Salman Khan's effort and vision in building a large body of openly licensed material has shifted the way people think about open content. Partnerships with SmartHistory, and the plans to include community-created material within Khan Academy, will widen the breadth of content within Khan Academy, while ensuring that this new material remains freely available, freely modifiable, and freely reusable in perpetuity. Potentially, Khan Academy will be accessible enough that people will realize that textbooks provided by the publishing industry are an unnecessary expense we can all live without."

" the education startup Highlighter has been tackling, initially offering a JavaScript plug-in enabling "comments in the margins" on blogs and websites. (I chose Highlighter as one of my favorite startups of 2011). Since then, the startup has shifted its focus slightly to become an education publishing platform that lets textbooks be published for the Web (as well as in PDF, Word, PowerPoint, Excel and ePUB) - all with built-in social marginalia features."

"Rice University this year started an unusual textbook-publishing venture whose books are free to download thanks to a mix of grants and revenue from optional "add ons," such as homework problem sets. Although it has published only two titles-for introductory courses in physics and sociology-officials announced on Tuesday that more than 13,000 students had downloaded them in the 10 weeks they've been available."

Neat idea. A variation on freemium.