Textbook costs represent a considerable barrier to participation in education both in the US and elsewhere around the world. With the cost of textbooks rising over 800% in the past 40 years [1] and US student loan debt currently standing at $1.4 trillion, [2] the drive to mainstream and strategically embed the use of open educational resources (OER) such as open textbooks has saved students in the United States millions of dollars whilst increasing engagement in educational opportunities. Students in the UK face similar challenges: student loan debt now stands at more than £100billion [3] whilst the average cost of books and equipment per academic year is around £1000 [4].
The Hewlett Foundation funded UK open textbook project (UKOpenTextbooks.org) involving UK HEI’s The Open University (UK), University of the West of England (UWE) working in collaboration with WonkHE, OpenStax (based at Rice University, Houston, TX, USA) and Open Textbook Library (at the University of Minnesota, MN, USA) have joined efforts over 2017-18 to examine the feasibility of different open textbook adoption approaches in the UK Higher Education context.
In this presentation we will share the outcomes of the UK Open Textbook project to date. From summer 2017 onwards a number of open textbook workshops based on the Open Textbook Library’s methodology, and conference exhibitions and poster presentations to raise awareness of OpenStax materials were conducted across the UK and Ireland. We will report on the current levels of awareness of open textbooks, the outcome of the two approaches, any changes made to the models and a report on known adoption numbers. We will also present a number of case study examples and make a series of recommendations regarding next steps and the potential mainstreaming of open textbooks in an European context.
1: https://www.ft.com/content/e7aed422-16c4-11e6-b197-a4af20d5575e
2: https://www.ft.com/content/a272ee4c-1b83-11e7-bcac-6d03d067f81f
3: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-40511184
4: https://www.nus.org.uk/en/news/81-per-cent-of-students-want-textbooks-included-in-tuition-fees/
SLIDES: https://www.slideshare.net/BeckPitt/open-innovation-on-tour-bringing-open-textbook-to-a-uk-audience
