Found this link to Joe Moxley's "Open Textbook Publishing" story_ http://www.aaup.org/article... _ Interesting story, one take-away is the Author's deep commitment and investment of time, noted that this was "a textbook on which I’d worked for over a decade".

Thanks Don. I've fixed the broken link above.

For me the key take-away is the idea that the current publisher-based model of textbook development and selection limits faculty's rights to provide students with the tools and information they need to be successful in the class that we teach. Unless I work with a publisher to "customize" a textbook, I don't really get a say in what is or isn't provided. I've been concerned about what this means for students (paying for a textbook which is only used in part) but had not stopped to think about the way it limits the professor's creativity and originality.

Yes, this is exactly where the power of adaptation with what is allowed by the CC license plays a critical role. If you, as the faculty or even as a student project, are able to customize the text based on what YOU teach and the learning outcomes you have for YOUR course, think of the power of that resource for the students in your course. The resource (textbook) no longer becomes a $250 investment for 2 chapters and perhaps the glossary.

Neat article. I was struck by Joe’s commitment to student learning. In retention, tenure and promotion, you don’t get credit for being an active citizen in an online community for writing a text….at least you don’t at my school. But, people probably should. It certainly could demonstrate excellence in teaching.

The profits of Pearson were surprising.

Hi Guthrie _ Didn't see Pearson profits cited in this article but the references given [Perry + SPIRG] are very familiar. I've done a bit of research on the topic of textbook affordability and I'm surprised how simple it's been to get people to believe the folks in educational publishing are bad guys exploiting us. There has been a disappointing lack of critical thinking around the topic of textbook costs. Recent Pearson financials many interest some _ 2012 _ http://ar2012.pearson.com/ _ 2013 _ https://www.pearson.com/ar2... __ there have been more complicated financial issues faced at McGraw-Hill, HMH and Cengage - it's not a very pretty picture.

Hi Don. I took a look at the 2013 Pearson report (https://www.pearson.com/con.... I'm no economist so I might be reading it incorrectly, but on the first page they reported making a 736 million pound profit in 2013 (which is about $1.1 Billion US dollars). True, publishing is a shifting industry under challenging times as the business model shifts, and I have no doubt that there are some who are struggling. But that is a pretty healthy bottom line for Pearson.

Hi Clint - Is there a profit percentage that raises red flags, where we should view a company as being exploitive? Thought you might find this article interesting _ "Everybody hates Pearson. . . Okay, not everybody." - Fortune _ http://fortune.com/2015/01/...

I hope faculty members start pushing for changes to these sorts of old tenure & promotion processes that don't reward participating in new communities. This is where we can use our voice on our own college levels to try to push for those changes.

That being said, I think Moxley's point is a good one that he started with a work that he had given back to him by Pearson (I assume after the original copyright expired). It was certainly scholarly, published materials, so I'm sure he was "credited" for it.

The other way I think we can respond is by insisting that we get shared copyrights when our work is published, in journals, for example. It's crazy to think that we give away our rights to our own work, and, in fact, our own students may not be able to use that work if our library stops subscribing to that journal. I think it's largely about not just handing our work over to others but controlling it the way we want it controlled, which, by being in this course, seems to be by sharing it in some way via Creative Commons licenses. I think the statistics show that the average journal article gets fewer than 10 readings. How many more people can benefit from something online!

I thought that the comment about the website being less like a course and more like a community was interesting. I would take more work than a straightforward online course but the students would appreciate this more. I think that would include an open textbook developed by the instructor to which they know to be flexible.

I also did not get the article by the link, but found it here http://www.aaup.org/article.... I am a bit surprised that Moxely chose a more restrictive CC licence, and I am not sure I agree with his logic. But little steps, I guess.

Thanks for catching the broken link. It's been fixed.

donmcc I understand his reasoning for NC. When I put NC on my work it's not that I want to be the only one to make money off of, say an educational resource that I create. I have no intention of making money off of it. I simply don't want a major company like Elsevier or Pearson to make money off of it. I want what I create to be and remain available to everyone for free. How can I argue for open textbooks when something I create could end up in a textbook that students are charged for?

I really enjoyed the Moxley article. For those of us who work at smaller institutions where we may have an active role in governance and in policy-making, we definitely need to work to help bring hiring and p&t guidelines into this discussion. Since I teach at a state university, it seems imperative to me that we not only allow people to publish in open-access settings, but we encourage and reward it. We need to find a better way to measure professional and scholarly impact, that doesn't fall prey to the current under-critiqued models that we currently use.

The issue of peer review of on-line resources strikes me as critical. I'd love to adopt more internet based resources for a number of reasons but ensuring there is an outside standard is important, particularly as long as we expect our courses to articulate through the BC articulation system.

Also, Pearson has been very good at working with us and the rates for some of their resources are significantly cheaper than we can provide through our own staffing.

__One can download the BCcampus Open Textbooks Review Criteria at _ http://open.bccampus.ca/cal... _ I have read many of the BCcampus Open Textbook reviews and wondered if reviewers might consider including comparisons to currently used Textbooks [i.e. Textbook A - 4.0 out of 5 vs Textbook B - 4.3 out of 5] to offer Faculty a benchmark for the reviewer's opinions and points ratings.

Thank you for sharing Moxley's article. I also like the idea of building in a peer-review process and I support Bruce's comments about ensuring a process is in place to foster articulation between institutions.

For me, what I read between the lines is that sense of vulnerability that comes with creating and sharing your own OER. I am curious as to whether or not this is one of the barriers to having more OERs available? Prior to publication, publishers will employ a series of reviewers to critique the work and you may equate this process with the 'approval' that you feel you may require to validate your own work. Building in a peer-review process as suggested by Moxley could address that.

My second point is around the culture shift that post secondary institutions will need to engage in if more professors are moving into development of OER as compared to traditional publishing. Many tenure track positions still use an old model of measuring academic contribution to the discipline, such as the number of publications and/or research being conducted. As stated by actualham - wouldn't it be interesting to see professors encouraged and rewarded for this type of open academic contribution.

HI Carla- I posed this question out to some colleagues and across the list servs and I did get some responses back.

"I know in my five year review, the book features heavily in my "professional and curriculum development" categories, and it always is mentioned by the Deans in their reviews as well.

With the push towards accessibility, I can't see why such work *wouldn't* count for something in a tenure portfolio.

My advice is to tie in that work with the goals of the school. Certainly, OER work makes college more affordable, and hence, accessible, so it is important work."

as well:

I am an example of such a person. I am a tenured faculty member at Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, VA, and I earned tenure, in part, due to my work on an open textbook, Fundamentals of Matrix Algebra. I am applying for promotion this year to full professor, and I think that my application gains a lot of strength from my work in writing APEX Calculus, an open calculus textbook.

You can learn more about what we are doing here at VMI at www.vmi.edu/apex; you can learn way too much about the calc book at www.apexcalculus.com.

Are the examples/best practices as to how to handle instructor resources for open textbooks? Test banks and solutions to assignment problems, e.g., would become less useful if they were openly shared. Once they're CC-licensed, they're in the wild, and nothing (in the license) prevents anyone who gets their hands on them to distribute them to students. So how do I make my instructors' materials open?

Re: limiting the materials for just instructors... you can't make those open. We have had a similar situation where we created an instructor-only Psychology testbank and although it is open to all instructors to use, it technically isn't 'open' because it isn't available to everyone.

I like the idea of creating a community around a resource.... Isn't that what "should" happen when teaching an online course?

Question: Once you have released your work to CC is there a way that it is "tracked" or followed as to where it is used, or in what way it is used? Or is that dependent upon the type of license you have chosen?
Much of this is new to me, I have yet to come across anyone in my area that has ventured into Open Textbooks.

Hi Barb, once you put a CC license on something - regardless of the way it is licensed there isn't a way of keeping track of the versioning. You would only be made aware of various versions if the author of the derivative work let you know.

I found Joe's story to be inspiring and to illustrate the power of open source resources. I was slightly surprised that he chose to go with a CC license after having his book be sold through Pearson. He probably could have made more profits but he ended up having a more powerful voice and being able to reach way more people via the web with the CC license. I wonder if he would have made the same choice if he had not first sold the book through Pearson. Is it realistic for someone who spends over a decade on a book to just put it online and "give it away?"
I think Joe's choice to publish with a CC license has allowed him to give a lot and offer accessibility without a cost to the students. The article also illustrates that his choice allowed him to network and create a name for himself within his discipline and on the web.
I am eager to find the CC open sources that may be available for classes that I teach such as Public Speaking.

On open sources for Public Speaking classes: I recently ran across this open textbook (http://www.saylor.org/site/... from the Saylor Foundation. I haven't had the chance to review the whole thing thoroughly yet, but it covers a lot of ground (ground I'd want it to cover), and seems well-organized both across and within chapters (e.g. lays out clear objectives and "Key Takeaways" for each section, provides exercises, etc.). It's used in one of their courses (http://www.saylor.org/cours... but can be used on its own on a CC BY-NC-SA basis. So I thought I'd pass it on. Like you I'm eager to find more open resources for these kinds of classes!

Commenting rather late, but this is an awesome story. I like the idea of an academic taking back their own work! The idea to move forward as a team and embedding multimedia is inspired and would appeal to students. I'm just sitting here thinking about all the waste in the education system - retired teachers who's work ends up in a skip, out of publication text books that would still have some instructional value.

Working in the community college system in Washington State has been a refreshing change. We are strongly encouraged to create and distribute OER. Many of the CC's have had to change their policies surrounding instructor created materials to reflect the States Boards push for a culture of openess.

By branching out and moving away from the traditional publishing route, I think that the way Joe decided to share his work is cutting edge. He make an interesting point with his reference to “learned helplessness” and moving away from the notion of relying on publishers and exploring the wide variety of ways to share material through open textbook publishing. I can appreciate his reasoning behind selecting the BY-NC-ND 3.0 license. I also would want to have some control over a publication that I worked hard on to create but at the same time welcome the creativity of others.

Question: It is important to provide material at no cost or low cost to students, but is there any compensation for the creator who publishes an open textbook under a Creative Commons license?