Open textbook presentation at OpenEd2015 in Vancouver - Irwin DeVries and Naomi Cloutier

1. Yay! We found an open
textbook … now what?
OpenEd 2015 Vancouver
Irwin DeVries – Naomi Cloutier
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike
4.0 International, except where otherwise noted.

2. Background
 About us
 Study background and scope
 BCcampus open textbooks
 OERu
 Purpose
 Growing body of research on uptake, perceptions,
effectiveness
 Less on development and maintenance

3. Background
 Question: What were participants’ experiences and
views of the development and/or implementation
processes of five open textbooks at TRU Open
Learning?
 Methodology
 Notes from development meetings and
communications
 Video interviews with participants
 Direct participation and observation
 Surfaced themes
 Preliminary findings only – study to expand

4. 1. Convergences
 Experimental mindset (institutionally
supported)
 Opportune course
development/revision stage
 Aware, ready and willing faculty
(authors) and developers
 Body of available open textbooks
 Capacity to revise and add value

8. 2. Differences from traditional textbook
development
 Open peer review and collaboration
 Improved currency due to a shorter production time;
localization can be a higher priority
 Course content can influence textbook content
 Dynamic document; authoring, editing, publishing,
producing media – changes to workflow
 Consideration of “next user” – “5 Rs of openness”
 Reuse, revise, remix, redistribute, retain

10. 3. Sustainability
 Champions
 Maintenance plan - support ($) for expertise needed
 How to share and evolve from the “finished” product

12. Early observations
 No one approach – multiple and complex pieces need come into
play (convergences)
 Context specific (institution, jurisdiction, capacity, advocates,
development methods, awareness, course lifecycles)
 Advantages of relevance, currency, quality, open peer feedback,
collaboration, flexibility
 Challenges of version control, distribution, developing for own use
and for reuse, workflows, digital resources management, funding,
maintenance
 Questions raised  for further study
 Models for sustainability (Downes 2005) - what’s actually working?
 Centralization – decentralization (Wiley 2005)
 How are the open textbooks being used? – Track over time
 Open business models? (Stacey 2015)

13. “…the sustainability of OERs – in a fashion that
renders then at once both affordable and usable
– requires that we think of OERs as only part of a
larger picture, one that includes volunteers and
incentives, community and partnerships, co-
production and sharing, distributed management
and control.” (Downes 2005)

14. Endnotes
Images
 http://www.tru.ca/__shared/assets/coyote_banner29454.jpg
 https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d3/Kamloops.jpg
 https://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1407/542862353_3203ae6737.jpg
 https://www.flickr.com/photos/thompsonrivers/4670553830/in/album-72157624198863176/
 https://www.flickr.com/photos/thompsonrivers/21686048374/in/album-72157657731169744/
 https://www.flickr.com/photos/thompsonrivers/8974752994/ building
 https://www.flickr.com/photos/thompsonrivers/9359763007/in/album-72157657772035849/
 http://www.hellobc.com/kamloops.aspx
Notes
 See http://bccampus.ca/open-textbook-project/ for detailed description.
 See http://oeru.org/ for OERu overview.
 OERu courses referenced are located here: http://wikieducator.org/Art_Appreciation_and_Techniques;
http://wikieducator.org/Introduction_to_Research_Methods_In_Psychology Open
 E.g. http://lumenlearning.com/research/; http://openedgroup.org/review
References
Downes S. (2007). Models for sustainable open educational resources [Electronic version]. Interdisciplinary Journal
of Knowledge and Learning Objects, 3, 29–34. Retrieved from http://ijklo.org/Volume3/IJKLOv3p029-
044Downes.pdf
Stacey, P. (2015). Open business models – Call for participation. http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/45022
Wiley, D. (2005). Thoughts from the Hewlett Open Ed grantees meeting. http://opencontent.org/blog/archives/192

15. Thank you!
Irwin DeVries
Director, Curriculum Development
Thompson Rivers University,
Open Learning
idevries@tru.ca
Twitter – IrwinDev
idevries.com
Naomi Cloutier
Associate Director, Curriculum Services
Thompson Rivers University,
Open Learning
ncloutier@tru.ca