Category Archives: oa.textbooks

Announcing Construction Contracting, second edition: A Rights-Reversion Project – Open@VT

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“The Open Education Initiative (OEI) supports and advocates for faculty to select materials that best fit their students’ needs. Faculty members contact the University Libraries when they realize there will not be enough copies of their selected book for a course. The Office of Scholarly Communication (the unit in which the Open Education Initiative resides) explores options for continued use in a course and determines whether a book is indeed out of print. Most out of print books are the result of publishers deciding that a book is no longer in their scope or no longer profitable to them. While fair-use digitization and very limited sharing of portions of books are options, they are limited, short-term and local options. Using copyright-related tools such as rights reversion, open access publishing processes including open licenses, and the equipment and services of the University Libraries we can provide public access and openly-licensed versions which not only aid students and faculty, but are helpful for students and faculty from other educational institutions as well as the general public.

As many authors sign away their copyrights at the point of publication, rights reversion is necessary for those authors who wish publish open access via a different publisher. Rights reversion can happen in three main ways: First, automatic rights reversion occurs when the terms of a publication agreement with a rights reversion clause is operationalized. (For this reason, we encourage authors to negotiate for a rights reversion clause before signing a publication agreement. We also encourage authors to retain copies of their publication agreements.) Second, for published works that are at least 25 years old and published in the U.S. after January 1, 1978, authors/heirs may be eligible for termination of transfer of copyrights. And third, also the option leveraged for Construction Contracting, the author or estate may contact the publisher to request and obtain rights reversion. (This helpful guide from Author’s Alliance provides further information, tools, and templates for authors and estates.) 

The Open Education Initiative cannot legally represent authors or estates. However, we are happy to advise on strategies for authors and estates approaching a publisher when the author/estate is planning to release rights-reverted works freely and publicly under an open license….”

Position Opening: Visiting Program Officers – SPARC

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“SPARC is seeking two Visiting Program Officer (VPO) candidates to join our team working to advance open and equitable practices in education. SPARC’s VPO program offers library professionals the opportunity to gain valuable, national-level experience working alongside our experienced team on critical issues that impact SPARC’s member community. While serving at SPARC, VPOs remain fully employed at their current institution with .25 FTE of their time dedicated to SPARC work. The positions require a 1 year commitment from the VPO’s institution starting in July or August, and candidates may apply for one or both openings:

Visiting Program Officer for Textbook Equity
Visiting Program Officer for Open Education Leadership…”

High Prices Make Textbook ‘Piracy’ Acceptable to Most Students * TorrentFreak

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“Through several lawsuits, Danish publishers tried to send a clear message: educating oneself through pirated textbooks is illegal. This message has thus far failed to make an impact. New research published by the Rights Alliance shows that more than half of all students find it acceptable to use pirated books. Prison threats are not much of a deterrent but they are willing to change if prices drop significantly.”

UK students launch ebook petition. – Campaign to investigate the Library ebook market

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“Students at the University of Worcester (UK) have launched an #ebooksos petition calling for the fair pricing of ebooks. The students ask that people support their efforts to ‘ensure all students have access to the essential digital resources required for their studies and success‘, before stating,We are particularly concerned about those from disadvantaged or less privileged backgrounds, who may be unable to afford the cost of purchasing books required for their courses, resulting in inequality in education.Some examples of the “astronomical” costs their library has been expected to pay for ebooks, in comparison to the hardcopy equivalents, are included to illustrate the problem….”

Library to host Francophone OER Summit | Library

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“On April 27, the University of Ottawa Library, in collaboration with the Canadian Association of Research Librariesnorth_east

external link (CARL), will host the Francophone OER Summit. Held both onsite and online, this event dedicated to open educational resources (OER) will bring together some 30 practitioners, experts and students from Francophone communities across Canada and Québec.

OER are free and openly accessible learning and teaching resources. They can be custom created, adapted or translated, and are widely available. They are also more equitable for users.

The lack of French-language educational resources and textbooks is an issue that has been highlighted by many at the University of Ottawa , as well as by stakeholders at other Francophone and bilingual post-secondary institutions in Canada . In this context, the creation and adaptation of OER in French can help mitigate this problem….”

New Legal Analysis Exposes Loophole Preventing Many College Students From Obtaining Affordable Textbooks | Student Defense: National Student Legal Defense Network

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“Student Defense today released a new analysis outlining regulatory and legal changes that could bring increased competition and accountability to the higher education textbook market. Published by the Postsecondary Equity & Economics Research (PEER) Project, the paper outlines how a 2016 change to the Cash Management regulations allows schools to automatically include the cost of textbooks in tuition and fees if they partner with a third-party publisher or retailer to offer the books “below competitive market rates” and give students a way to opt out. 

This loophole prevents students from saving money on textbooks by effectively eliminating  competitive textbook markets. Additionally, the ability to opt-out is often illusory where schools and publishers prevent students from comparing costs and opting-out for less than all of their courses. To close this loophole, Student Defense proposes the Department of Education define “below competitive market rates” and require institutions to disclose their pricing and discount methodology. …”

New Legal Analysis Exposes Loophole Preventing Many College Students From Obtaining Affordable Textbooks | Student Defense: National Student Legal Defense Network

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“Student Defense today released a new analysis outlining regulatory and legal changes that could bring increased competition and accountability to the higher education textbook market. Published by the Postsecondary Equity & Economics Research (PEER) Project, the paper outlines how a 2016 change to the Cash Management regulations allows schools to automatically include the cost of textbooks in tuition and fees if they partner with a third-party publisher or retailer to offer the books “below competitive market rates” and give students a way to opt out. 

This loophole prevents students from saving money on textbooks by effectively eliminating  competitive textbook markets. Additionally, the ability to opt-out is often illusory where schools and publishers prevent students from comparing costs and opting-out for less than all of their courses. To close this loophole, Student Defense proposes the Department of Education define “below competitive market rates” and require institutions to disclose their pricing and discount methodology. …”

Congress Introduces Bill to Tackle College Textbook Costs – SPARC

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“SPARC, a non-profit advocacy organization working to make education and research open and equitable, today applauded the reintroduction of the Affordable College Textbook Act in the U.S. Congress. The bill would address a key but often overlooked factor in the cost of higher education—the cost of textbooks—by establishing a grant program for the creation and use of free, openly licensed textbooks, while also strengthening federal price disclosure requirements for textbook publishers and institutions. If passed, the program would build on the success of the Open Textbook Pilot which is already projected to save students an estimated $250 million since its creation in 2018….”

Survey of US Higher Education Faculty 2023, Interest in Producing or Using Open Access Educational Materials

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“This report looks closely at which faculty author, hope to author, or use open access educational materials.  Survey respondents comment on their hopes and fears for open access, and contribute to a unique dataset enabling report readers to pinpoint faculty who enable open access to their lectures, who want to write textbooks, open access or otherwise, or who have developed open access materials in the past.  The study helps its readers to answer questions such as: what type of faculty, defined  by many characteristics, have produced open access materials?  Who is interested in doing so?  Who is using such materials and to what extent?

This study is based on data from a survey of 954 higher education faculty randomly chosen from nearly 500 colleges and universities in the USA. Data is broken out by personal variables such as work title, gender, personal income level, academic discipline, age and other variables, as well as institutional indicators such as college or university type or Carnegie class, enrollment size, public or private status and others.

Just a few of this 98-page report’s many findings are that:

7.44% of faculty sampled are currently writing a textbook for either commercial or open access distribution.
54.55% of faculty under the age of thirty had ever used an open access textbook in one of their classes.
Faculty in environmental sciences were the most likely of those in all subject fields to have made their lectures available open access online.
Broken out by race or ethnicity, Black or African American faculty were the most interested in authoring open access educational materials….”

Closing the OER Information Loop: 2022 data

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“A few years ago we reported on the rates of growth in the adoption of ‘Open Educational Resource’ (OER) textbooks and ‘Open Access’ (OA) monographs. These are books published under Creative Commons licenses, which means that they can be used and circulated freely. In world of $200 commercial textbooks, OER textbooks, in particular, have become an important part of school and state efforts to reduce student costs.

But free has a few drawbacks. In markets for commercial textbooks (and most other goods), supply and demand are connected by the sale. Producers and consumers communicate through this information loop, and this relationship makes the market more or less efficient and — on the supply side — capable of adjusting.

The information loop for free digital books, on the other hand, isn’t closed. There is no sale or single point of access and titles are copied and circulate freely. It’s hard, accordingly, to know what the demand side of the OER and OA ecosystems looks like. And this lack of information becomes a problem for authors and publishers (the producers) and faculty and students (the consumers). Decisions to invest time and money by faculty, funders, libraries and others in creating new titles are made without strong insight into the demand for existing ones. Adoption decisions by faculty and staff are made without much visibility into the experience of other programs, which could provide models. Both sides of the equation involve risks, that those risks are hard to mitigate….

Open Syllabus can construct this demand side information from syllabi, and so partially close the information loop….”

PROSE: PreTeXt-Runestone Open Source Ecosystem | An NSF project supporting Open Educational Resources in STEM

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“PROSE is a project scoping the development of an Open-Source Ecosystem (OSE) surrounding PreTeXt and Runestone software products that enable the authoring and publishing of accessible Open Educational Resources in STEM. Through a series of virtual and in-person roundtable discussions, office hours, and workshops, we will engage instructors, authors, publishers, and researchers using these products to develop a vision and strategic plan for our OSE….

PreTeXt is an open-source language that allows STEM textbook authors to describe their content in a single source. This content can include words, images, embeddable videos, applets, and much more. Our open-source software is able to convert this single source into a printable PDF, accessible and interactive HTML, tactile braille code, and more formats. These documents can then be deployed to freely-available static web hosts, with GitHub Pages support built-in.

Runestone is a Learning Engineering Analytics Portal (LEAP) built with open-source software that enhances PreTeXt-authored HTML, providing an all-inclusive solution for managing a course. Students and instructors are able to log into Runestone-hosted textbooks, allowing instructors to assign content from the book for students to complete online. Going beyond a traditional learning management system, Runestone applies evidence-based principles and methods from educational technology and the learning sciences to create engaging and effective learning experiences, supporting the difficulties and challenges of learners as they learn. Runestone’s deep analytics not only help students and instructors optimize learning, but also support authors and researchers that want to study how books are being used, and evaluate interactive pedagogical features of online books that improve student learning….”

Canadian Copyright, Fair Dealing and Education, Part Five: Open Textbooks Saving Students Millions of Dollars – Michael Geist

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“Adjacent to open access publication of research is the growth of open educational resources and open textbooks, which has been actively encouraged and supported by governments who recognize the benefits of investing in textbooks that can be freely copied, adapted, and distributed with no further licensing costs. The model typically involves an upfront payment for the creation of the materials (often through grants) with the stipulation that the licence that accompanies the resulting works will fully permit free and open use. Copyright lobby groups rarely acknowledge the emergence of these materials, which involve significant public expenditures to create and result in a long-term cost savings for educational institutions and their students. 

For example, the Ontario Government has provided funding for post-secondary institutions to create virtual open access resources. eCampusOntario’s Virtual Learning Strategy (VLS) funding engaged Ontario’s post-secondary sector and resulted in the creation of hundreds new virtual educational resources. Other initiatives include Open Education Alberta (run by the University of Alberta), which offers 39 high-quality open educational resources through a partnership with five universities, three colleges, and four other educational institutions as well as BC Campus, which features hundreds of open textbooks. By August 2022, a total of 267,924 British Columbia students were using open textbooks. In 2020/21, 43 educational institutions across the province had replaced course materials with an open textbook – a practice known as adopting. Since 2019, there has been a 70% increase in the number of open textbook adoptions across B.C.

One of the clearest benefits are the cost savings for students. During 2020/21, around 9,000 students at the University of Saskatchewan used open textbooks instead of commercial texts, saving them about $800,000 collectively. Since the University launched its open textbook initiative in 2014, students have saved more than $2.5 million at that one university alone. Investments in the area continue as the University of British Columbia’s 2021/22 budget committed $2.5 million in future years to expand existing learning enhancements, technology tools, and open educational resources….”

Creating an Open Textbook: The Science of Sleep – Open Education Network Blog

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“With the goal of creating a new textbook for her Kapi‘olani Science of Sleep course, Sheryl pondered how she might capture her teaching style in written word, and began contacting commercial textbook publishers in 2018.

 

Sheryl’s plans changed, however, thanks to an impromptu conversation with colleague Sunyeen “Sunny” Pai. Sunny is the Kapi‘olani Digital Initiatives Librarian who, as Sheryl writes in her acknowledgments, “opened my eyes to the social justice impact of OER and the myriad benefits of zero-cost textbooks.” …”

CC Open Education Platform Lightning Talks February 2023: Recordings and Slides

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On 2 February 2023, the Creative Commons Open Education Platform community held Lightning Talks, where presenters shared innovative ideas and technologies in the field of Open Education. Each speaker brought unique expertise to the table, sparking conversations and inspiring new ideas. You can watch the replay below. The Lightning Talk Presenters: Reimagining Open Education as … Read More “CC Open Education Platform Lightning Talks February 2023: Recordings and Slides”
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