Sidebar - Tackling Educational Reform in Academe
What is changing? According to SUNY College–Geneseo’s library director, Cyril Oberlander, “[I]t is that we are seeing much more interest by universities, states, and consortia. Many are starting or planning initiatives in open textbooks or alternative textbooks.” He says that these initiatives are unique, with each university developing editorial workflows that include various peer review either as a prepublication service or as a postpublication service, as well as incentives for authoring and adoption, and service design. Alternative textbooks, he clarifies, are “course textbooks that are designed by faculty that use library subscription resources and open educational resources instead of traditional textbooks.”
Through consortial or organizational efforts, grant-funded projects, and sometimes just the initiative of individual schools or faculty, higher education is already undertaking experiments and trial programs to look for innovations, alternatives, and inspirations for the future of learning and teaching in the 21st century. Connexions is one key development; here are just a few more leading-edge efforts:
eText@Illinois
etext.illinois.edu
Delivering “textbooks and other classroom materials with multimedia, notes, and assignments embedded directly in context, instructors can add original or existing materials easily, and students can save 40–75% versus traditional books.” Any currently enrolled student is allowed to “access eText content from any computer or mobile device, regardless of their visual abilities.” The system is based on a browser-based HTML5 etextbook implementation that is device-agnostic, ADA Section 508-compliant, and includes communication links and other features. The attention to accessibility earned the school a commendation from the National Federation of the Blind “for leading the way in higher education by showing other institutions and learning management systems the full power of a flexible, interactive, and well-supported platform that is accessible to the blind and geared to a variety of learning styles and abilities.”
Internet2 eTextbook Pilots
internet2.edu/products-services/cloud-services-applications/e-content
Conducted in the 2012–2013 time period with different major universities across the country, Internet2 and EDUCAUSE initiated these projects “to evaluate technologies and business models in the fast evolving migration from traditional textbooks to electronic content” and included consideration of “business models, terms, and conditions that make access to digital educational materials more flexible, economical, efficient, and simple for institutions and publishers alike.”
Open SUNY Textbooks
opensuny.org
This is “[a]n open access textbook publishing initiative established by State University of New York libraries and supported by SUNY Innovative Instruction Technology Grants. This pilot initiative publishes high-quality, cost-effective course resources by engaging faculty as authors and peer-reviewers, and libraries as publishing service and infrastructure.”
University of Minnesota Open Textbook Library
open.umn.edu
In order to adopt and use open access or OER materials, you have to first know that they exist and have real value to the subject matter and for students. The College of Education and Human Development’s innovation is the first peer review resource for etextbooks hosted at a major research institution. It is freely available and currently includes more than 100 texts. Nine faculty in the education college used the catalog to find OER texts to replace current course materials, which is expected to save more than $100,000 in student textbook costs.
University of Washington eTextbooks pilots
washington.edu/itconnect/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/UWeTextCampusReport.pdf
These pilots were conducted spring 2012–2013 and are now ongoing. The core of the research evaluated two popular platforms—Courseload (courseload.com) and CourseSmart (coursesmart.com)—in “a range of courses on all three campuses.” The results didn’t suggest an immediate adoption of either platform, so University of Washington will continue to monitor the evolving marketplace and “explore solutions beyond eTextbooks that provide options for online readings and other course resources.” Focusing on the “larger learning ecosystem” and the instability of the technologies and companies involved, further study was instead recommended.
These efforts go far beyond the borders of the U.S. In two South African schools, 10,000 entering students are being given Samsung Galaxy tablets preloaded with educational materials. Shanghai K–12 students are a part of a pilot “e-schoolbag program” begun in 2011 in which students choose to use any combination of print and etexts, with the goal of bringing the program to all Shanghai schools by 2015. In Azerbaijan, cloud computing is being used to improve the content of textbooks and to “improve the syllabus of the education,” etextbooks, and elearning in the country.
Oberlander sees a role for traditional publishers as well. “Commercial publishers have a profound opportunity to offer learning services and virtual schools directly to the consumer. The investments they are making to interactivity, subscription services, certifications, and learning analytics are all very important aspects to the changing education landscape.”
