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Week 3: Question #1 - Of the criteria explored over the past two weeks (Peer reviews, Accessibility, and Copyright) ...
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Which of the three areas do you feel is most critical to consider when choosing an open textbook? Why is that?
I want to put a plug in here for Accessibility. Although peer reviews and open licensing are important to achieving quality resources that are available over time, accessibility for students with disabilities is critical as well. Here are 3 reasons (thanks to webaim)
1. By adopting and creating resources that are accessible to students with disabilities, you can really improve people's lives. By giving them access to the same educational opportunities as sighted or mobile students for example, you can help them to achieve success in their lives so they can contribute back to society.
2. When you adopt and create accessible open educational resources, you extend the reach of your materials. Now, your influence as an instructor, author, mentor can go much further and serve a wider audience.
3. It's the law in many countries. The U.S. has the American with Disabilities Act and the Section 508 Electronic and Information Technology which states that electronic information and software applications must accommodate students and federal employees with disabilities. For some wonderful tutorials, visit the webaim site and verify that your website is accessible using their WAV tool.
http://webaim.org
While I agree that serving our entire student population is critical, I want to ensure that I provide the best resources for the learners in my class. So my first choice would be based on peer reviews of the textbook, then accessibility, and the copyright.
I agree with you Una, accessibility is number one for me as well, then copyright and then peer review of OERs. I understand that peer reviewing OERs might help to assure some quality control and assist the selection of the resources available. What confuses me sometimes is that people get very passionate about quality of OERs - what about the content materials available within the traditional education... who does actually check the quality of the content materials?? At least here in Australia, universities go through a rigorous process of quality assurance every 5 years, but surprisingly nobody checks the learning materials...Professionals and experts in their field are assumed to have the hability to develop good materials. Anyway, sorry for the long post. I just returned from a international conference on Distance education, which discussed also OERs. So, I came back with lots of ideas :-)
Cheers,
Carina
At the risk of being the cynic, I would say - based on a decade of working to design online courses in higher ed and for business - the ranking is very different. It shouldn't be, but it is.
Accessibility was more of a concern with business because they had to meet government requirements like SCORM. Schools were concerned when they had an issue with a student who complained.
Copyright was often ignored ("It's Fair Use," is the battle cry of educators.) But, for example, when I brought my university onto iTunes U, we needed to show compliance with things like DMCA and that threw the legal office into a spin because they had not really addressed many issues.
For open textbooks, I find that peer review seems to catch faculty attention. Though they question who these reviewers are (who knows if they are qualified?), they like having other people start the process for them.
In the longer criteria lists, if I asked faculty to rank them, I doubt that accessibility & copyright would make even the top 5.
It's a very worthwhile topic. I have a longer list on my website made up of things suggested by faculty. I added a poll just now to select the top criterion. I'm sure the poll will not get a large response in the next few weeks, but perhaps members here will respond it send the link to colleagues and we can get a sense of perceived importance.
Poll link
http://pccc.libguides.com/aecontent.php?pid=102267&sid=809007
Thanks, Ken, for a thoughtful and "real-world" response. The list on your website is valuable and I can see several that are not covered by our peer-review criteria and perhaps should. I like the comparison to a commercial textbook -- this should of course include cost and the percentage of content applicable for the specific course in which it would be used.