One of the most important uses of Open Education Resources (OERs) at many universities is as a textbook replacement. Several universities have begun offering what some institutions call “z-degrees,” meaning that they require “zero” textbooks. OERs take the place of textbooks. Examples include Tidewater Community College, Northern Virginia Community College, Thomas Edison State College, and the University System […]
Open Textbooks
Open Education – Who is it For?
One of the original motivating factors for the Open Education movement was to allow less-developed countries with fewer educational resources to have access to quality course materials from the world’s best universities. However, anyone can benefit from Open Education – even learners within a developed country like the United States! Case-in-point: The Williamson Community Unified […]
Affordable College Textbook Act is introduced in the Senate
Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., have introduced the Affordable College Textbook Act in the Senate on Thursday. The bill creates a grant program to support the creation and adoption of open educational resources at institutions of higher learning across the country. In a statement, Durbin said, “Over three years ago, I worked to […]
Saylor Foundation Releases New College Textbooks
The Saylor Foundation, an open education non-profit, has begun to release the first wave of free college textbooks that have undergone editing and peer review. The latest textbook is Mathematical Analysis I, but all of the most common subjects taught at the university level will have corresponding free textbooks available at the end of the […]
Open Textbooks – a timely subject
Can open licensing of textbooks transform authoring, customization and student usage? Can it change the textbook publishing industry itself? These questions will be examined at our Open Textbook Forum on 1/26 at 4pm in AIRB-1030. And it is timely. See this NYTimes article. And don’t forget to register for the onsite or webcast forum: http://ocw.uci.edu/info/event.aspx.