On June 6, eCampus Ontario and the provincial government announced the launch of the Open Textbook Library. Adapted from the BCcampus model used in British Columbia, the Ontario Open Textbook Library will act as a repository of Open Educational Resources (OERs) from a range of disciplines that faculty can adopt as course materials for the classes they teach.
Open Textbooks are available for use by students and educators at no cost under Creative Commons licensing arrangements. Online versions are available for free, and can be printed at a low cost. Under these licensing arrangements, existing resources can be adopted as a course text in their current form or, in many cases, edited and adapted for a particular course or pedagogical goal.
You can browse the collection of course materials currently available in the Open Textbook Library here. eCampus Ontario is encouraging faculty who adopt an Open Textbook for their courses to let them know.
OERs have the potential to make higher education more affordable for students by significantly reducing their textbook costs, while providing faculty with a flexible and more accessible resource for course materials. However, for Open Education Resources to be useful, professors actually need to use Open Textbooks in the courses they teach…
This is where faculty come in! We want to hear what you think about Open Textbooks. Would you use them? Are the texts currently available in your discipline any good? Would you be interested in developing an open textbook where gaps currently exist?
Take this short survey (5 minute) survey, and let us know what you think!