Adopting Open Textbooks

1. Clarity and comprehensibility - content, including the instructions and exercises

2. Accuracy - this requires subject matter expertise

3. Readability - in terms of logic, sequencing, and flow

4. Consistency of course materials - consistency in the content language and use of key terms as is necessary to facilitate understanding by novice users

5. Appropriateness of content - appropriateness of the material for community college level courses

6. Interface - technological issues such as broken links, improperly displayed graphics, and ease of navigation

7. Content usefulness - the ways in which the content could be useful for teachers, students, and those with a general interest in the subject area

8. Modularity - the ability to adapt, rearrange, add, delete and modify the content by sections

9. Content errors - the presence or absence of factual errors, grammatical errors, and typographical errors in the content

10. Reading level - appropriate for community college level students

11. Cultural relevance - use of examples that are inclusive of diverse races and ethnicities

We need more reviewers for open textbooks, can you help?

• Please read the reviewer instructions

Visit the Review site

When you are considering an open textbook, it is good to know what other instructors think about its quality. Several organizations, including the College Open Textbooks, have posted reviews of some of the open textbooks that are now available.

Practice Finding and Selecting

1) Using the COT website, find the textbook called Collaborative Statistics by Illowsky and Dean.

2) Once you locate the title, click on it.

Did you notice that you were brought to the Connexions website? This is where the actual textbook is stored. COT is merely linking to it and acting as a search engine or filter for open textbooks. Some repositories actually store the books, others will be like COT and link to them.

It's now time to head off on your own. Using COT's website, look for a book that may work for your subject area. Be prepared to report back what book you found, and what repository you found it on.

There are several things to note about this particular book - it has been adopted, peer-reviewed, and reviewed for its accessibility by all learners. All of that information is available before even going to the actual textbook itself.