The University of Connecticut has been expanding its efforts to provide open access resources, including open source textbooks, for student use.
Open source textbooks are educational resources published with an open licensing agreement. These textbooks are available for free online or in print with a minimal charge to cover the cost of printing the material. (The Daily Campus)
In 2015, an effort to promote the use of Open Textbooks at UConn was begun by students in the Undergraduate Student Government (USG) and UConn Public Interest Research Group (UConn PIRG). Those students, along with administrators, academic staff, faculty, and librarians formed a Task Force to further explore Affordable Textbooks. As a result of strong advocacy, awareness building, and efforts by State Representative Gregg Haddad and Senator Mae Flexer, the State Legislature passed Special Act No. 15-18, An Act Concerning the Use of Digital Open-SourceTextbooks in Higher Education (House Bill 6117). In addition, the University Senate passed a resolution put forth by the Senate Student Welfare Committee in support of the Open Textbook Initiative.
The Task Force, with the help of Chris Petkovich, Senior Director of Foundation Relations at the UConn Foundation, applied for and received an 18 month grant titled, “Efficiencies in Connecticut Higher Education through Open Educational Resources.” UConn Today’s Kenneth Best reported in February, 2016, “UConn Leading State’s Open Textbook Initiative.“
At UConn, a committee of faculty, students, and administrative staff has secured a grant of nearly $100,000 from the Davis Educational Foundation to introduce open textbooks on campus. The University Libraries will lead the effort to survey faculty about the use of open textbooks, create online workshops for faculty development, and adapt an existing general chemistry textbook. (OER)
Dr. Edward Neth, a chemistry professor at UConn, edited an existing open access textbook and adapted it for his Chemistry 1124, 1125, and 1126 classes after students brought the problem of the high cost of textbooks to his attention.
“I got involved in open access partly through the library,” Neth said. “I asked a question which was ‘has anybody thought of adapting the existing open access book into atoms first format, which is now about 1 out of every 5 book sales.”
Neth was then asked to edit the book, the cost of which was covered by $20,000 allocated by the student government for the project.
The UConn Bookstore also gave $30,000 towards the expansion of open source textbooks at UConn.
Several other chemistry professors at the Storrs campus have begun using open-source textbooks in their classes.
“Chemistry kind of blazed the trail for the university, there are a few other people who have used open access before but, by far, chemistry is the largest right now,” Neth said.
The university is targeting getting open access textbooks into use in classes with the largest enrollments such as general chemistry, physics, psychology, or biology, Neth said.
The open source textbooks used in Chemistry classes at UConn currently affect upwards of 300 students.
Neth said he did not have to adapt his teaching style or alter his syllabus in any way to accommodate the new textbook.
“I have this book architected to fit how I want to deliver content for this course to these students,” Neth said. “When you get to do it yourself it fits like a glove.”
Neth said various textbooks in science and math disciplines are not that different from one another.
“You could probably take the top five chemistry textbooks and if you swapped the covers around, even the instructors using it might not be able to tell one from the other,” Neth said.
Part of the problem with the price of textbooks is the lack of competition in the market, Neth said.
“The fact that there are only four major publishers, at least in science, limits the competition and there isn’t really an incentive to lower the cost,” Neth said.
Neth said he hopes more professors in other disciplines and at other campuses will begin using open source textbooks.
“Sometimes it’s just making faculty aware of how much textbooks cost,” Neth said. “When the publishers come around with textbooks, they don’t tell you how much they’re going to cost.” (The Daily Campus)
At UConn, a committee of faculty, students, and administrative staff has secured a grant of nearly $100,000 from the Davis Educational Foundation to introduce open textbooks on campus.
Since this meager beginning, the Open Educational Resources (OER) initiative on campus has impacted several thousand students through the adoption of open textbooks and course redesigns to increase affordability. Dr. Edward Neth revised the OpenStax Chemistry textbook to the new title Atoms First Chemistry. Both OpenStax Chemistry books have since been used by more than 2000 students saving them over $200,000. Several faculty have redesigned their courses to make the materials either no cost or very low cost. In September of 2016, the Provost added $100,000 in award money for faculty who teach large classes to adopt, adapt, or create open textbooks and the UConn Bookstore, gifted the UConn Library’s OER Initiative with $300,000 for future development of Open on campus. OER has awarded grants to about 15 faculty for adoptions, adaptations, and creation of new textbooks which will be shared with the world when they are completed. (OER)
Among the UConn OER Trailblazers that have saved students over $1,000,000 overall since Fall 2015 are the following Chemistry faculty:
Dr. Edward Neth: Edward Neth was the first Trailblazer to adapt an OpenStax text for UConn. In October 2015, OpenStax announced that, “The Atoms First version of the Chemistry text was published less than a year ago and it has already impacted over 159,000 students, saving them $1.56 million.”
Dr. Joseph DePasquale: Joseph DePasquale, former Visiting Assistant Professor of Chemistry, was the first adopter of OpenStax Chemistry beginning in Spring 2016. Since, he created ancillary materials for the text as OER.
Dr. Nina Stein: Dr. Nina Stein of UConn Waterbury utilized the OpenStax Connexion platform and adapted the Chemistry textbook to better match her pedagogical approach for CHEM 1127.
Dr. Challa Kumar: Challa Kumar has received funding from CLAS and the Department of Chemistry to supplement the Provost’s Open Education Resources Award which he received for the development of an open source text book in Physical Chemistry. Dr. Kumar will be developing the open source text book from scratch as there are none currently available on the subject.
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Story courtesy of Anna Zarra Aldrich, The Daily Campus with excerpts from Open Educational Resources