College Open Textbooks BLOG
Driving Awareness and Adoption
The PhysWiki Dynamic Textbook Project
The PhysWiki Dynamic Textbook Project
The PhysWiki is one of seven integral components of the STEMWiki Dynamic Textbook Project (DTP), a multi-institutional collaborative venture to develop the next generation of open-access textbooks to improve STEM education (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) at all levels of higher learning. The central aim of the DTP is to develop and disseminate free, virtual, customizable textbooks that will substitute for current, commercial paper texts in multiple courses at post-secondary institutions across the nation. All are licensed Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share-Alike. All seven textbooks in the STEMWiki DTP have been linked together under the direction of Professor Delmar Larsen of the University of California at Davis and include: the ChemWiki (the forefather), the BioWiki, the MathWiki, the StatWiki, the PhysWiki, the GeoWiki, and the SolarWiki.
The goal of this project is to seed the PhysWiki with an open-source, calculus-based textbook, in an effort to expand access and usage of this segment of the STEMWiki. Working with both Professor Delmar Larsen (founder of the STEMWiki DTP) and Professor Paul D’Assandris, Monroe Community College, Rochester, NY (author of Spiral Physics), physics students at South Florida Community College are seeding the PhysWiki with Spiral Physics textbook. Spiral Physics is an OER physics textbook that is currently in use by over 40 two-year colleges nationwide. Spiral Physics comes in three variants (calculus-based, algebra-based, and modern physics) and provides a research-based introductory physics curriculum along with an integrated textbook and workbook activities. Using a restricted equation set, Spiral Physics provides a unique approach to building student success by providing repeated exposure (i.e., spiral) to concepts with increased complexity. It includes alternative problem types, including goal-less problem statements, ranking tasks, and critical analysis tasks which have been research-proven to help students develop conceptual understanding.
Although implementation of this project has not kept up with the desired schedule, things are moving forward and usage of the PhysWiki continues to grow as shown in the most recent Google Analytics Report.
We initially had to learn how to work with LaTeX markup language used in the DTP and how to format equations using MathJax open source JavaScript display engine for mathematics. As neither of my workstudy students had any formal computer programing training, this was a big challenge. However with the continued assistance from Delmar and from numerous Internet searches for information, we overcame this challenge. The act of transcribing of the textbook and equations from Word format to LaTeX has had a steep learning curve. Unfortunately as the current semester is nearing completion and my two workstudy students are busy preparing for finals and then graduation, they are finding little time to assist with this project. Thus I am in search of replacement students to complete the task.
Once completed, this project should not only help to expand usage of the PhysWiki segment of the STEMWiki, but also enable Spiral Physics to be used as a living etextbook, whereby faculty and students, can expand and augment the online textbook with supplemental information. I am excited to be able to use this site as the host for my etextbook for next semester.
Erik Christensen | South Florida Community College
Advanced Water Mathematics Online Textbook – an update from an adopter community grantee
Regina Blasberg, College of Canyons
Mike Alvord, Director of Operations for Newhall County Water District, and I are working on writing an Advanced Water Mathematics online textbook. Mike has basically completed the first draft of the textbook which is already in use in our Water 031 Advanced Water Mathematics course. I have been focused on completing edits and identifying any inconsistencies in formatting. Since the text is currently being used, we have found that the students are enjoying providing comments, pointing out errors, and indicating topics that aren’t clearly explained as well. Once this draft is final and we’ve received additional student feedback, we’ll add more homework problems, figures, and any other final updates.
What’s New in OER at Scottsdale Community College?
Faculty in the Mathematics Department at Scottsdale Community College have been working hard this year to create, revise, and organize materials for our OER project in several of our courses. This is exciting for all of us!
Our goal is to offer all of our MAT 09x Introductory Algebra, MAT 12x Intermediate Algebra, and MAT 150 College Algebra courses using OER materials starting this Fall 2012. During the 2011-2012 academic year, we have pilot tested our materials, formed a learning community of very talented mathematics faculty, and collaborated with each other to further refine the OER textbook, student support materials, and online homework assignments. This summer, several faculty (Bill Meacham, Judy Sutor, Jenifer Bohart, Donna Guhse, and Linda Knop) will be working hard to take what we have learned from our spring pilot and, once again, refine these materials. The exciting part of the refinement process is that we have complete control over the quality of what we adopt to support our classes! We love this!
Recently, our OER team received the SCC Innovation of the Year Award. Only 1 team per college in the Maricopa Community College District receives this award. As a result, we were invited to give a presentation in hopes of receiving the widely sought-after District Innovation of the Year Award. The presentation slides are available at: OER Innovation of the Year. Wish us luck that we are awarded our District IOTY Award very soon!
As part of our OER project, our learning community has restructured the course so that we provide meaningful support for students, both inside and outside of the classroom. 
Before class, students can complete a “mini-lesson” to help prepare them for the next class session. During class, they receive instruction and engage in paired board work. After class, they use iMathAS and problem solving activities to support their learning. The next class session then allows for more active learning and engagement with the mathematics. Outside of the classroom, students’ learning is supported by the OER textbook and video tutorials created by MathIsPower4U’s James Sousa, as well as the Khan Academy.
Students have been appreciative of our efforts to use free (or nearly free!) materials for their mathematics courses. In fact, feel free to watch a couple of student testimonials about their experience in an OER math class. It’s exciting to hear that they are using technology — their smartphone, their tablet, etc. — to complete online homework and to access the textbook.
It’s a wonderful time to be teaching college mathematics!
Exemplary open textbooks and methodology: ChemWiki and its Progeny
ChemWiki not only shines as an exemplary series of open-licensed chemistry textbooks, it has spawned
Professor Delmar Larsen of the University of California at Davis heads the ChemWiki project, a series of online textbooks including Analytical, Biological, Inorganic, Organic, Physical, and Theoretical Chemistry plus the History of Chemistry and Lab Techniques. All are licensed Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share-Alike. Students and instructors contribute to the textbooks that are constantly improved.
ChemWiki includes more than 6,000 pages with high-quality illustrations. Individual pages in ChemWiki can be printed or turned into Adobe PDF files. Contributors include more than 30 chemistry professors and students as well as web technologists and publicist Richard Osibanjo.
ChemWiki provides maps to popular commercial general, organic, and physical textbooks.
Here are the pages showing how other colleges and universities are starting to incorporate the UC Davis ChemWiki into their courses:
- Columbia University
- Contra Costa College
- Diablo Valley College
- Hope College
- J. Sargent Reynolds Community College
- New Mexico State University Alamogodro
- University of Minnesota at Morris
- Truman State University
College Open Textbook grantee communities include two based on the UC Davis series:
- 3-D Molecular Models in ChemWiki: Dr. Ron Rusay and colleagues at Diablo Valley Community College
- PhysWiki Dynamic Textbook project: Professor Erik Christensen at South Florida Community College and a colleague at Monroe Community College, NY. Erik was named a College Open Textbooks Outstanding Open Textbooks Advocate/Trainer in 2010.
A special feature of the UC Davis wiki texts is the Student Ability Rating and Inquiry System (SARIS) , a tool for tracking student progress based on PracticeZone.
PracticeZone is part of the ChemVantage academic program learning and assessment program for General Chemistry that includes jargon used in mastering video games. Chuck Wight of the University of Utah founded ChemVantage. “We have configured the software to allow students to submit proposed solutions to the problems as often as they want, in order to improve their scores. The objective is for students to use the feedback to correct their errors prior to the deadline for the assignment.” ChemVantage carries a Creative Commons Attribution license.
College Open Textbooks delights in publicizing the wiki texts from UC Davis, the use of these by several institutions, and the exciting approach to chemistry education from the University of Utah.
Emerging Battles Over Textbooks: Options from Apple to Open Initiatives
Andy Oram, editor at O'Reilly Media
by Andy Oram
The worlds of both education and publishing will be tugged from opposing directions, perhaps to the breaking point, by two recent trends. One is Apple’s well-publicized entry into the textbook market with its iBooks Author app, tied by license to its iBooks store. The other is the movement for open textbooks, on which the state of California recently placed its bets (for the second time).
But let’s slow down for a minute. The iPad, as an entertainment platform, will not morph easily into an educational tool, whereas developing open textbooks raises difficulties beyond the ones that open source software have encountered and surmounted. I recently discussed these topics with Open Doors Group’s Jacky Hood. She is part of a team trying to respond to the California open textbook challenge.
Empowerment versus entertainment
To evaluate Apple’s textbook strategy, compare it to the goals of the “One Laptop Per Child” initiative. The biggest problem with the Apple initiative–missed by most commentators—is that the iPad is an entertainment device, and has many interesting ways to interact with content but not to create it. In contrast, OLPC’s XO system was planned from the start to let children create and share text, video, and other content. It is an empowerment device. (Google claims that its Chromebooks are similarly empowering.)
The same reasoning drove the OLPC decision to distribute all free software on the XO. The use of free software promotes learning and exploration. Numerous other considerations (lower cost, rugged design, and orientation to underdeveloped regions with limited capabilities) also separate the XO from the iPad.
Now the iPad is obviously a beautiful product, so we can assume that its qualities will be put to good use by textbook authors. But authors will need help creating an effective user interface for their own textbooks.
If school districts respond positively to Apple’s textbook initiative, I hope they relinquish some of their zeal for aesthetically superior, expensive hardware and license some cheap device (several options are available) for student use.
The Limits of Open
Do open textbooks present as robust an alternative to the Apple model as open source presents to the Microsoft’s of the software industry? Not in practice. The development model used by Open Doors isn’t as radical as you’d expect when you hear of open textbooks.
Textbooks are extraordinarily detailed and have high standards for correctness in all those details. Good writing values–pacing, selection, the introduction of topics–all have to be top-notch too. Textbooks may be criticized as bland or timid, but they make their points without the nuanced ambiguity that authors can get away with in other settings.
Numerous open source activities exist in education, but they tend to deal not with textbooks but a broader set of material known as “open courseware.” (A survey of available courseware can be found in the appendix of UNESCO’s A Basic Guide to Open Educational Resources). It may turn out that, in a collaborative and action-oriented classroom, textbooks will turn out to be an obsolete concept and the pastiche of other courseware will be all that is needed. But this article starts with the premise that a textbook is still useful.
Of all the weapons that free software can wield in its battle for world domination, the heaviest guns are the ease of making and distributing derivative works. But textbooks are not used in a community the same way software is. Textbooks are designed for courses, and are chosen by instructors. Most instructors would need strong assurance that any derivative work was superior to the original before using it.
When I look at the demands made by students and instructors, and the constraints placed on textbook production–whether the Apple model or the open model–I sense there is a place for both and a place for expert authors and publishers to create the experiences that modern educational environments require.
To read more about my viewpoint on these initiatives, look at my in-depth article on O”Reilly Radar.
ABOUT ANDY ORAM:
He is an editor at O’Reilly Media. An employee of the company since 1992, Andy currently specializes in open source technologies and software engineering. His work for O’Reilly includes the first books ever released by a U.S. publisher on Linux, the 2001 title Peer-to-Peer, and the 2007 best-seller Beautiful Code. He can be reached at andyo@oreilly.com.
Washington State Open Course Library hits 10,000 visitors in 11 Days
Tom Caswell, Program Manager for the Open Course Library, reported 10, 000 visitors to their site since its official launch of the first 42 courses on October 31, 2011. He sums up the project which will contain 81 open courses targeted at the highest-enrolled general education classes for lower division college students as thus:
1. High-Quality
“The Open Course Library is a collection of expertly developed educational materials designed by faculty and openly shared with the world. It includes textbooks, syllabi, course activities, readings, and assessments for 81 high-enrollment college courses.”
2. Affordable
“42 courses have been completed so far, providing faculty with a high-quality, affordable option that will cost students no more than $30 for course materials.”
3. Adaptable
“Faculty (anywhere) can modify and build on some or all of the course materials. There are no strings attached. We only ask that faculty cite the Open Course Library in their course and fill out our short adoption form.”
Preview or download courses now.
Read the full blog posting here and press release available here.
Image Credit: Timothy Valentine & Leo Reynolds CC-BY-NC-SA
MyOpenMath.com, a free and open online homework system for mathematics, now available online!
In the last several years, we’ve seen the release of many excellent open textbooks, yet adoption still remains a challenge. From my perspective as a math instructor, I see two major barriers: discovery and ancillaries.
The first challenge for adoption of open textbooks is an instructor finding one. There are many instructors who are not even aware that open textbooks exist. Second, if an instructor is interested in open textbooks, even the reasonably well-culled listing at collegeopentextbooks.org can be daunting, and very few listed books resemble complete, ready-to-adopt textbooks. For a busy instructor, the prospect of having to remix resources from multiple sources is often more effort than they’re willing to put in.
To start addressing the second part of the discovery challenge, I built OpenTextBookStore.com. This site lists a subset of open textbooks I felt are really ready-to-adopt without requiring remixing or supplementing, and that are available in printed form. I’ve started with math books, but I hope to expand the listing with recommendations from subject matter experts in other fields. The site recreates the experience of browsing a publisher’s website; each listing shows a summary of the book, license information, the available formats, a table of contents, and a list of any available ancillaries.
David Lippman
Instructors have become accustomed to publishers providing extensive ancillary materials for textbooks, providing the second challenge for adoption of open textbooks. Many excellent efforts are contributing to addressing the ancillary challenge, including open courseware efforts like the Washington Open Course Library (which I was part of). In mathematics, online homework has become commonplace, and for a majority of faculty is a key part of their textbook adoption decision.
To help address this, I’m happy to announce MyOpenMath.com, a free and open online homework system for mathematics. It is built on open-source software I’ve been developing for six years, and that has been used by tens of thousands of students. It provides randomized, algorithmically generated homework with automated grading of numerical and algebraic answers, similar to WebAssign and other publisher products. It also provides a course management system with gradebook, file posting, discussion forums, etc. (To their credit, WebAssign has produced online homework for several open textbooks, but this comes with a cost to students and is not open.) MyOpenMath has homework aligned with open textbooks in pre-algebra, beginning and intermediate algebra, pre-calculus, and trigonometry. The courses can easily be copied and modified by an instructor and used with students as graded homework. Many courses include video lessons, classroom activities, or other supplements as well. These courses are also available to students for self-study, review purposes, or as ungraded practice. These courses were contributed by faculty in Washington and Arizona; please see our “About us” page for credits.
Increased adoptions of open textbooks will only come by making it easy for faculty to find open textbooks, having open textbooks that can easily replace traditional textbooks, and providing ancillaries that instructors rely on. I hope OpenTextBookStore.com and MyOpenMath.com can contribute to that effort.
–David Lippman
iTextbooks? Continuing the dream – a commentary by Dean Florez, President of 20 Million Minds Foundation
With the passing of Steve Jobs, I had time to reflect on the painful lug of my then newly purchased Apple Macintosh around the UCLA campus during my senior finals week back in 1986. I remember shouting over a blasting boom-box about the futuristic power of personal computing as my classmates skeptically eyed me typing on the glowing box while they frantically hit return on their typewriters amidst bottles of whiteout on desks piled high with expensive textbooks.
Dean Florez
Today, I write this blog from an iPad the size of a composition book while listening to Pandora and watching my email annoyingly pop up as past college friends Tweet the latest gossip or post updates on Facebook. I think few realize that Steve Jobs gave us the future back in the 1980′s. But there is one constant relic that somehow persists as a reminder that we have yet to reach Steve Jobs’ vision for the future. THE EXPENSIVE COLLEGE TEXTBOOK. That book still sits on the desks of over 20 million college students today, right beside their iPods, iPads, and the plethora of e-devices glowing with the social rants pouring out of Facebook and Twitter.
Today we have the iPod, iPhone, and iPad, but what we really need is the iTextbook—and it should cost students under $30. Steve Jobs created NEXT, a great company, but today we need somebody to complete his vision for education by pushing every college and university to make the final transition into what I call the “NextBook” era, removing the unnecessary weight on the wallets and backs of our college students.
I left the California Legislature to head up a new non-profit, the 20 Million Minds Foundation (20MM). Our goal? To completely disrupt a complacent and lucrative textbook publishing industry by asking the simple question: do we really need bounded, heavy, overpriced copy-write protected books in today’s ebook, ibook, and Nextbook environment?
Just days ago, 20MM and powerhouse educational software company Kno, released our answer to that important question by announcing a new digitally enhanced NextBook for college students based on open content. We have our eyes set on producing open source NextBooks for the top 25 undergraduate courses in the nation, starting with general statistics. Why? Consider that in our California Community Colleges, nearly 120,000 students take general statistics EVERY year with an average new book price of $150—that is an estimated cost of $10 to $15 million per year for just one course!
Our next step at 20MM is to empower our faculty. Beyond offering professors NextBooks, 20MM will focus on the reusing, redistributing, revising and remixing capabilities of e-textbook material, utilizing faculty’s unique talents and expertise. Who wouldn’t take quality, customized, and student-centric material enhanced by the instructor over a high-cost, standardized, static, and closed publication?
Clearly, we understand that as we move toward this type of customization, the major issues will be quality and built-in assessment. Our statistics Web 2.0 NextBook is better than statistics books out on the market given it is specifically designed for college students to improve their learning experience and results with built in assessment capacities. We are partnering with assessment companies like BenchPrep so that every open source NextBook in our library of 25 has assessment as its lifeblood.
According to the latest report by the social learning platform Xplana, within the next five years digital textbook sales will surpass 25% of sales for the higher education and career education markets. But even with the changing winds, enhanced academic freedom, creative assessment tools, and a price point under $30, our major challenge remains. Will faculty adopt these books for use in their classrooms? We may have the best free and open general statistics e-book on the market, but will faculty place it on the syllabus the first day of class?
Much like those skeptical past college friends in 1986 who stared at the glowing box during finals week, I am confident that our faculty can get past the incertitude and finish the next chapter of the revolution Steve Jobs helped usher in decades ago. They just need to say yes to the future and embrace it as their own.
—Dean Florez
About 20 Million Minds Foundation
20MM Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to greatly reducing textbook costs. Headed by past California Senate Majority Leader Dean Florez, the foundation is currently leveraging leading edge technologies to create more affordable, engaging, and effective educational materials for college students throughout the nation.
OCW People's Choice Award: Most Open! And the winner is College Open Textbooks!
Great News!
Education-Portal.com just announced the winners of their first annual OCW People’s Choice Awards, which honor the best of the Open Education Movement. Over 4000 people voted for their best educational resources in this inaugural contest.
College Open Textbooks was recognized as the OCW People’s Choice Winner for Most Open. According to Education-Portal.com, “Openness is a key part of any OCW – after all, it’s in the name. But what providers excel at giving their users a wealth of material to access and lots of different ways to do it? The nominees in this category all understand that to make courseware truly open, variety and depth are key.” The finalists included Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) and UC Irvine OCW.
Other winners included Open Course Library, FGV Online, African Virtual University OER, Open Study, MIT Physics and more. For more information on the complete list of winners, go to http://education-portal.com/articles/OCW_Peoples_Choice_Award_Winners_Final_List.html
Saylor Foundation to Launch Multi-Million Dollar Open Textbook Challenge!
Writing about the rising costs of textbooks here would be a classic case of preaching to the choir. So I will not waste time rehashing what you all know and will instead jump right to what we hope will be a valuable contribution to the efforts of this site and the OER community to provide cost-free textbook alternatives to students: the Saylor Open Textbook Challenge.
The challenge aims to license open texts for over 200 courses currently residing on Saylor.org used in twelve of the most popular college majors enrolled in by U.S. students. Before we delve into some details of the Challenge, let me give you some background on our Foundation.
Our Mission:
The Saylor Foundation is a 501(c) (3) nonprofit organization working to drive the cost of higher education to zero. Working with over 150+ credentialed professors and peer-reviewers from higher-education institutions, we are compiling open-licensed course content styled after a traditional academic program.
In deciding which courses to offer, Saylor first devoted resources to develop courses that would fit under traditional college majors in popular, high-enrollment areas of study. We then engaged professor consultants to build course blueprints to fill out the majors. These courses are designed to route a student through the material he or she would need to know in order to earn credit from an accredited institution in the U.S.
The Saylor OER Approach:
We decided that we could best make a unique contribution to the OER movement by developing a structured content aggregation and curation process, by which our professor consultants seek, vet, frame, and—where appropriate—add to existing resources in order to yield complete courses, hosted on a central site and tied to user outcomes, assessments, and predefined learning taxonomies. Each course is also peer reviewed for further fine tuning.
Importantly, in addition to utilizing OER materials, we decided to include and link to copyrighted materials in our content aggregation process. Through our Permissions Initiative, many copyright holders are allowing us to host their materials on the site within the relevant course context. When permission to host is NOT granted (and when OERs do not exist), we work to paper over the gaps in each course and/or replace the linked resources by stimulating the development of original content and the Creative Commons re-licensing of complete and newly open texts.
Back to the Open Text Book Challenge:
To spur authors to openly license their work, the Saylor Foundation will offer a $20,000 award for submitted textbooks accepted for use in our course materials after a round of peer reviews. To be eligible for the award, the author(s) must agree to license the text under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY) license. We plan to formally launch the Challenge just after Labor Day so please visit our site at that time and keep your eyes out for more information. If you have questions or suggestions, please comment below – we would love to hear your thoughts!
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