assignment for OER class

1. Assignment 6-1 by David Straayer is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
OER Textbooks at TCC
Dave Straayer
Assignment 6-1 by David Straayer is licensed under a Creative
Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

2. Benefits of OER Textbooks I’ve discovered
• Greatly reduced text book cost: my previous Statistics textbook cost over
$140, the new one is under $20
• The electronic version of the text book is available to students also.
• This allows them to always have it with them (in their smartphone).
• Electronic version can be on the PC that they use to do online homework
• Electronics search-ability catches words missing from a traditional Index
• Students feel free to write in their texts
• Students even take notes in their texts.
• Students can save their texts to use after the course is over.
• I’ve collaborated with the author to fix errors, and insert new material
• We’ve put in custom material for our classes.

3. Challenges of OER textbooks that I’ve had
• Finding good textbooks proved difficult
• I rejected two statistics textbooks before I found one I felt good about.
• I found only one OER Java text. Fortunately, I love it.
• Getting our bookstore on board was difficult. They had never seen a creative
commons license before, so it took some teaching to get them to be OK with
using the text.
• Getting our print shop to print it took some hand-holding. The Java book had to
be split into two volumes to accomplish tape-binding.
• Getting any other Math instructors to even consider OER is going to be a
challenge.
• Having texts current with changing technology was an anticipated challenge, but
oddly, we seem to be in great shape with both.
• Politically, pushing to make this happen has been a “making waves” effort.