It may be as simple as my wishing to adopt an open textbook and posting the link for my students as we
have wording on our course curriculum guidelines that effectively gives instructors flexibility in choosing appropriate texts of a similar caliber and content. Our College mission and values would appear to support an initiative
such as the adoption of OTBs to enhance accessibility to name but one.

However, due diligence would be prudent and respect the collegial and hopefully sharing nature of learning
environments. I would engage our immediate colleagues n the discussion, bring it before our FEC, consult with our VP Academic, and consult with our Learning Resources.

I would also know that our Provincial Hospitality Articulation Committee is aware of the BC Campus OTB
initiative and many are participating in OTB development. Once developed I would consider.

I wish to develop OERs in the near future as well to support my provincial collaegues' work.

Mark

Thanks for the post Mark, is this for a badge activity? It would be great if it is - cause you would be awarded one :)

Mapping the way....
1) There are quite a few individuals that this "decision" would impact. I know students often complain about the cost of textbooks; some refuse to buy them thinking they can get by without the book. I am not quite sure how/where librarians fit in with this picture. Help Desk (Tech Support), I would think, would have a number of questions. My colleagues, I believe would be supportive.
2) Finding a text may a challenge. Although in the past, we have "created" our own "course pak" which was primarily culled from activities and readings we have used over the years.
3) First of all, I would need to present this possibility to my coordinator. We recently discussed the feasibility of teaching online, one drawback is that I work with first year students that often don't comprehend the importance of studying and struggle to adapt to the changes in expectations found in college. Many struggle to attend F2F classes, I would be concerned about their dedication to online courses. My coordinator is aware I am taking this course and we have chatted about Open Textbooks, although in our area, I am not aware of anyone who is using an Open Textbook (yet). I wonder if this adoption,could be done in steps/stages to ease the transition. Just a thought!
4) Posting....

You could definitely adopt in bits and pieces. For example you could find specific OER chapters that would be relevant to your field of study and have student use that material. I should point out that using an open textbook does not necessarily mean the work needs to be taught solely online. You can use OER and Open Textbooks in a face to face course. In which subject area do you teach in? Perhaps we could help you out.

I like the idea of bits & pieces. Usually I teach, reading & study skills courses. Once in a while I teach a critical thinking course.

1) Textbook Selection/Evaluation to be done by committee

2) Define what the OER Text needs to support using it.
-PowerPoints (need to have)
-Test Bank (need to have)
-New Chapter Content (need to have)
-Can the Book Be Cuter? (nice to have)
-Student Learning Tool (nice to have)
-Develop assignments (we have old assignments but
we could update them)

3) Notify the bookstore that this course is using OER.
Notify the Affordable Learning Committee and the Library about what we're doing.

4) Get resources to support faculty to create the above
items. (Support money from Student Success Grant)

5) Develop the support materials for online and face-to-face
courses.

6) Meet with adjunct faculty over the summer to introduce
the new text and materials.
-Benefit of OER – why we’re doing this.
-How students can access the materials.

6) Deliver the course in Fall 2015 using the OER Text and
materials.

7) Conduct a lessons learned session with all the faculty
who taught.

8) Publicize the hell out of our OER experience.

9) Write a super nice thank you note to the original author
and maybe send a gift.

Hi there! Great roadmap- you seem to have covered each of the major stakeholders. It would also be interesting to do an evaluation with students at the end of the experience to gauge their learning experience as a result. You may want to "apply for the badge" if you want to have a badge as a result of doing the activity.

I teach Introduction to Social Work and Introduction to Counseling. I have searched P2PU and there does not appear to be much content in these areas. I think more could be found for social work. It would be possible to develop some content areas (the bits and pieces model described in a previous post). Once developed, these content areas could be incorporated into the curriculum. This would involve:
- Obtaining approval from the Department Chair to include these in the course.
- Sharing the information with others in the department who may want to participate in the development and/or use of the content areas.
- Develop assignments or exams to test understanding of material.
- Incorporate the material into the syllabus.

Hi! I did some searching for you and came across some open textbooks and OERs that might be of interest to you in Social Work.

http://open.umich.edu/educa...

http://www.open.edu/openlea...

http://freebooks.uvu.edu/SO...

Hope this helps!

My roadmap got a little long for the comment section, so it's posted here (https://docs.google.com/doc....
Basically the scenario involves adopting a particular open textbook that I know is available to support a workshop I facilitate (through a university teaching centre) that does not currently use a textbook. The roadmap considers four categories of stakeholders (myself and other facilitators, our management team, the students, and the institutional client for this workshop), outlining the benefits and potential areas of objection I might anticipate for each.

It then outlines a process of:
1) reviewing the textbook and creating a draft proposal;
2) presenting the draft proposal for informal consultation with other facilitators and with the management team for feedback and approval to develop a more detailed proposal;
3) developing (in consultation with other facilitators, and ideally developing the proposal with a team of interested facilitators) a more detailed proposal including ancillary materials (specifically ones showing how the textbook could be integrated to support learning in the workshop, e.g. sample agendas and lesson plans);
4) Presenting the detailed proposal to the management team, followed by consultation open to all interested
facilitators on the teaching centre team;
5) Presenting executive summary of proposal to client for brief consultations;
6) Piloting use of the textbook in the workshop by a facilitator who wants to try it;
7) Assessment & continuous improvement: Gathering facilitator and student feedback after the workshop to assess and improve how the textbook is used.

The next course for which I want to replace my old text with an OER is Composition II which is a writing course focused specifically on writing about literature. I believe I'll have the backing of my institution, BUT all materials for this course do have to be approved by a curriculum committee.

Step 1: To make the adoption easier for me and, equally important, to make it easier to get approved, I'd like to start with a text that already exists. I'm going to investigate "Exploring Perspectives: A Concise Guide to Analysis" (available at http://www.saylor.org/site/... simply because I know it's been incorporated into the eCore Composition II course offered by the USG, so I think I'll get a free pass from the curriculum committee if I use it as a my base text.

The next, and more difficult step, comes in finding appropriate readings from the required genres (prose, short fiction, poetry, and drama) that are either in the public domain or can be accessed by our students through the library's electronic databases. This becomes a little tricky as some of the library owned e-texts can only be "checked-out" one person at a time even though they are available fully online. I want to avoid the easy/cheat option of just linking to websites where the texts can be found online since most of those websites have actually put the work up without proper permissions, and I won't compromise my own integrity by linking up with them (literally or figuratively).

Next, I'll have to rewrite the appropriate portions of the text provided by Saylor so that its examples link to the primary texts that I plan to use. I'll also need to add a research section and access to MLA formatting lessons since those aren't in the book at all.

Step 2: After I have assembled and remixed the content as needed, I'll work with our Office of Institutional Technology to create a text that is easily accessible as a pdf but also to be read and e-readers and tablets. Balancing the need for a text that looks nice with a text that meets all aspects of ADA compliance is a task I can't take on by myself and may be the most difficult part of the job.

As part of this step, I know our library will also partner with me to create a user guide for students to learn how to navigate and use the text.

Step 3: Upon receiving departmental approval, I can run the course once semester as a pilot with the new text. During that semester, I'll need to survey students as to the ease of use as well as the effectiveness of content. Depending on those results, I will either revise or submit the text for curriculum committee approval (although that doesn't mean that there can be no revisions to follow their approval)

What does adopting an open textbook look like for you? Is it as
simple as finding one and sending the link to your students? What
institutional support would be helpful for you?

In your own way (via your blog, within the comments below, a shared
Google Document, a drawing) create a roadmap or an outline of what steps
you might take towards adopting an open textbook.

Carla's Roadmap for Adopting OERs

There are a number of smaller steps underpinning each of these large blocks of activity. The institution is willing and mostly ready to proceed and there is also work to do with some of the external stakeholders. Soliciting buy in and active participation would likely need to occur through a "model and mentoring" style of presentation.

Program Support:

1. Health & Human Services Dept. has already
adopted a constructivist philosophy towards education = good to go here

2. Program needs to advocate for use of OERs within
the context of regulatory body requirements [College of Registered Nurses of
British Columbia- CRNBC], provincial/federal curriculum regulatory bodies [i.e.
Collaboration for Academic Education in Nursing - CAEN]

3. Need to present idea and examples of OER at
provincial articulation meetings to ensure stakeholder buy in throughout
province. Need to be able to have students
articulate with any nursing program in BC

Implementation with faculty/students:

1. Model and mentor one course with the use of OERs
by redesigning course resources using mostly/or all OERs

2. Facilitate usability testing - both from faculty
and student groups

3. Build in evaluation throughout project - be
prepared to change and adapt as required [also part of modelling and mentoring]

4. Invite students to be part of the redesign
process right from the beginning

Hi Carla, really like the start of your process which really involves a lot of consultation and education. I think sometimes we make assumptions that many of our colleagues already know what OPEN means and what it entails. Also great pedagogical example of inviting students to be a part of the redesign process.

The way this roadmap came to me is more of an ideal than a reality, but I’ll entertain it. Steps are arbitrary and could be broken down into smaller activities, if needed:

Step 1: Since I am a sessional instructor, I would start by consulting my department chair to gauge how receptive an open textbook would be among faculty colleagues and with the students. The course, University Writing, is frequently taught by sessionals, and practices, curricula, and texts vary by instructor. Given the flexibility in course design, I wouldn't anticipate much resistance other than the expected concerns: increased workload, quality assurance, technological problems (for example, digital content not working as well in the classroom), etc.

Step 2: Identify texts worth incorporating or adapting to my course. There are a few available texts that are suitable, and whose quality is comparable to the ones I already use. _Writing for Success_, _A Concise Guide to Analysis_, _Writer’s Handbook v 1.0_, and _Writing Commons_ all contain serviceable chapters that I could substitute for the existing course text. I would also compile useful handouts from online writing centres that could be added to a remixed textbook or used as supplemental resources within the structure of the course (depending on the license).

Step 3: Remix or adapt the text(s) to ensure consistency in pedagogy, formatting, style, organization, etc. I expect this would be time-consuming work, quite similar to creating a textbook from scratch, but it would be the only way to ensure both curation of quality, instructive, comprehensive chapters and ease of use within the course. I would also consult with librarians or copyright specialists about quoting, citing, and consulting copyrighted works in CC-licensed content. One question: does this hypothetical use of copyrighted works for 'research purposes' fall under fair use?

Step 4: In conjunction with step 3, solve the problem of incorporating non-fiction readings (essays) into a course that uses an open textbook. Instead of relying on a non-fiction anthology, I would prefer to adapt essays available online (not necessarily ‘open’).

Step 5: Restructure and/or redesign course to be compatible with the products outlined in steps 3 and 4, including lecture materials and assessments.

Step 6: Publicize and release the new textbook in agreeance with the licensing terms of the original(s). Inquire with the book-store about making a few print copies available on a cost-recovery basis. Consult with librarians, other faculty members, and academic skills specialists to ensure that students looking for a resource on academic writing are aware of it.

Hi Trent, great outline of your adaptation process. When you ask the question "does this hypothetical use of copyrighted works for 'research purposes' fall under fair use?"- do you mean quoting reference materials and citing based on copyright materials?

Hi Amanda,

Thanks for your response. I think you accurately picked up my meaning. I suppose I was referring to "research purposes" broadly when I really meant "cite/consult copyrighted research" within the open textbook itself. I hope that makes sense. I haven't come across any information about this process. It goes without saying that an open textbook would generally aim to not include anything copyrighted, but what about textbooks that require quotations from primary and original research? I've only looked at a few OTBs in my field, and they seem to work around the need to cite. However, I recall many valuable texts from my undergraduate years citing quite frequently.

So there aren't many free and open textbooks in my field, because most of the "textbooks" I use are anthologies-- for example anthologies of literature or anthologies of canonical philosophical texts. So I wondered what kind of OER would be helpful to me, especially since reading texts and open blogging about them is the simple recipe that structures most of my courses. So I decided to do two things: try converting one of my toughest (ie- tough in terms of OER) courses to all OER, and to use the opportunity to also educate my students about what open access is all about.

You can check out the syllabus that I crafted here: https://actualham.wordpress.... I found that I could not find all of the resources through open access channels, so I supplemented the OER with database and subscribed e-book selections. I found the OER materials through Merlot and google, for the most part. I used regular library searches to fill out the rest. What excited me most, though, is the way that I supplemented my syllabus with what I can "OER annotations," which explain the difference between open, free, and subscribed resources. It all looks the same to students because it is all without additional cost, but it's important to show them how much they are actually paying to access them.

Bottom line: you CAN find lots of OER for courses that don't have simple textbook models, and when you can't fully achieve OER for a complete syllabus, it might be a second-best option to at least help your students understand the expense involved with our current closed system.

Hi there,

Here are my thoughts for some steps to
adopting an Open textbook but also adapting it to suit not only a classroom
scenario but more of a self-self resource.
My scenario is to gather a group of interested librarians wanting to
adapt some resource materials or an open textbook for an area of common
interest -informational literacy skills
for students. Secondarily, it would be interesting to see how the open textbook
could be adapted and the content presented as self-serve modular units using a
variety of media to enhance selected content appropriate for online access like
audio casts/videos/recorded and live webinar sessions. The steps to work on a
project like this might be:

1. Identify group of librarian-instructors interested
in collaborating.

2. Identify an open textbook or resources such
as “The Information Literacy User’s
Guide” http://textbooks.opensuny.o...

3. Collectively review the open textbook
and decided if adaptable to our needs and what changes would need to be done.

4. Divvy up the work and adaptations
amongst participating team.

5. If the actual work can be done in a day
– consider doing as a sprint-like event where the time allotted is intensive
and concentrated to 1-2 days.

6. Pilot test the adapted opent textbook with
a class.

7. Feedback cycle – get feedback from any
stakeholders, the instructional librarians and students using the guide. Also,
we could incorporate an assignment(s)
which improve the open textbook itself or associated materials for use by
future students.

Implementation Roadmap

As I don't teach a course that uses a textbook, I am looking at this project more in the role of a facilitator. I see the project being broken down into several sections:

Garnering Interest
Discuss the project with others on campus to find out what level of interest there is. This could include the Learning & Teaching Office, the faculty Digital Media Projects Office, Librarians, individual faculty members, Directors of Learning, Teaching and Learning Chairs. General information sessions and poster presentations could be made at the annual faculty conference to increase awareness of open textbooks. This could also be done during Open Access week.

Identifying Collaborators
From the above a group of collaborators could be identified. It might also be useful to get some input from students as to how they would like to see an open textbook. We would also need to communicate with other individuals and departments on campus that might be impacted by the project (Eg. Bookstore)

Pilot Project
Identify one course to be used to pilot the open textbook. Once the course was selected the collaborators would need to identify a potential open textbook and decide whether it should be used as is or adapted. If the content were to be adapted then a working group would need to be formed. Depending upon the amount of adaption required, a sprint or several work sessions would be required. Rollout this open textbook and get informal feedback. At this stage we would also need to look at infrastructure requirements such as where the book is to be hosted and what possibilities there are for print-on-demand.

Larger Rollout with Metrics
After piloting with one course and working out the kinks, rollout to a larger course in such a way that we can gather metrics on retention and GPA using a control group and the open textbook group. Use these metrics and feedback from students to make the case to University administration to support the adoption of open textbooks.