Adopting Open Textbooks

Expectations / Should I take this course?

This course requires between 2 to 4 hours per week in class-related work.  A key component of finishing each module is that you share your findings: frustrations and moments of elation with your peers in the class.   This is a peer to peer learning experience and you will learn as much from each other as from the course material and thus your participation in the weekly discussions in the course forum will be essential.  There will also be 3-4 live webinars where we will share what we are learning and new material will be introduced.

General Strategy of Course

STEP1:  DISCOVER & SELECT
Discover high-quality, accessible, and culturally-relevant open educational resources using OER repositories and publisher websites where you can browse and search for learning materials.  Many of these repositories include peer reviews and include authoring platforms where you can remix materials and post new ones.

STEP 2:  ADOPT & USE
After locating one or more educational resources that meet your learning objectives, you now will want to decide when and how to announce this to stakeholders in your learning community including students if you are an educator.   Assuming a diverse student population, you will want to ensure that materials are accessible to all students regardless of disabilities by reviewing the different ADA accessibility guidelines.

If you will be adding new materials to supplement those you have found, you will want to explore how to combine them for delivery depending on how you teach and what technologies are available to you.   Creative Commons licensing options will be explored and how to license new materials and remix existing ones will be discussed.

STEP 3: SHARE & ADVOCATE

After adopting an open textbook, learn how to share your newfound knowledge with decision-makers in your learning community and collaborate with others to find new solutions for delivery of open education materials to benefit students and educators.   For example, some campus bookstores may be able to provide a printing option for students who want a hardcopy of open textbooks.  This can be much more efficient than having students print out materials in the library or at home.

How is the course organized?

Week 1   September 15-21
Kick Off & Introductions
1. Live webinar on tools:  cccconfer/elluminate
2. Syllabus, Expectations, & Introductions
3. Workshop Overview (Definitions, etc)

Week 2     September 22-28
Finding Open Textbooks  Part I 
 1. Introducing repositories and open textbook publishers
 2. Searching

Week 3   September 29-Oct 5
Finding Open Textbooks Part II
1.  Live Webinar (Share Findings)
2.  Peer Reviews

Week 4    October 6-12
Adopt & Use Part 1
1. 508 Section of ADA Law and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
2. Understanding and Selecting Creative Commons Licensing

Week 5     October 13-19
Adoption & Use Part 2
1.  How to inform stakeholders on campus
2. Selecting format of open textbook

Week 6      October 20-27
Sharing & Advocacy Ideas
1. Last live webinar
2. Working within your department/division/learning community
3.  Influencing decision makers