Associate Libraries Public Services Dean Gary White discusses the growing open-source textbook movement.
Instead of asking students to go out and buy a textbook, Scott Roberts, the psychology department’s undergraduate studies director, decided to create his own.
In 2010, Roberts was a graduate student working for the federal government while teaching introductory psychology at night. He didn’t set aside a summer, a month or a few weeks to prepare his book — he created it on a week-by-week basis, often putting sections together late at night or early in the morning.
Roberts, who provides his book free of charge to the university’s PSYC 100: Introduction to Psychology classes, is part of a national growing open educational resources movement. These resources are published under a Creative Commons license, which allows for free use and sometimes editing, much like Wikipedia. Roberts’ psychology textbook draws from free online information, videos and graphics.
The process, Roberts said, really forced him to think about what he wanted students to learn.
“There was something liberating about not having to think about the course the way somebody else outlined it but really having the opportunity to step back and make my own outline,” he said. “It took a lot more time than I thought at the moment.”
University officials are looking for ways to encourage staff to take advantage of these resources. For instance, there are plans to give incentives to professors who adopt open textbooks, said Gary White, libraries public services associate dean.
White believes such an approach could jump-start open-source projects. He added awareness is another major issue, as many students and faculty do not even know these resources are an option.
The movement is gaining steam, largely because of this country’s economic situation and rising education costs. In the past 34 years, according to the American Enterprise Institute, textbook costs have increased 812 percent, far outpacing the rate of inflation over the same period of time.
Students bear the brunt, paying more than $650 a year for required course materials, according to the National Association of College Stores. And when students can’t pay, the federal government is left to pick up the slack.
“States have been retreating from funding higher education,” said Richard Hershman, NACS government relations vice president. “State budgets have been cut, and higher education has been one of the first areas they have been cutting and removing support for. … That means more burden on the students with higher tuition and the federal government with providing Pell grants.”
A student in Roberts’ class, sophomore history major Ashley Peralta, said she wished more of her classes would move to using open textbooks. Peralta spent about $500 on books this semester, and her costs would have been much higher if she wasn’t using Roberts’ book.
“I work on campus as a community assistant,” Peralta said. “The paychecks that I’ve been getting, I’ve been saving for textbooks.”
Senior marketing major Matt Ellis recalled spending $600 on books one semester. He said he never had the chance to use an open textbook but was forced to scour the Web for the cheapest available options.
While students struggle, textbook publishers thrive. Course materials accounted for $5.5 billion in college stores’ sales alone, according to NACS. And college stores only receive about 22 percent of money spent on textbooks, with most going to the publisher.
Publishers reel students back into stores by releasing new editions. Roberts recalled a textbook request changing without his consent because the publisher released a new edition and stopped supplying old copies.
Even online-only versions have not slowed textbooks’ rising costs because printing and shipping costs do not account for much of a publishers’ overhead, Hershman said.
Some states are already on their way to an open-source future — Washington state has open-source materials for 81 courses in its community college system, and in 2012, California passed a bill to begin creating open textbooks for its university system.
However, this state has not followed suit. Because of state and federal budget concerns, state legislators haven’t even been able to free students from sales taxes on textbooks. During the past session, for instance, a version of the textbook tax break was killed because of effects from the federal sequester.
“If we really care about education, let’s stop taxing the kids to get educated,” said Del. Michael Smigiel (R-Caroline, Cecil, Kent and Queen Anne’s), a major proponent of the now-dead bill.
In the university’s PSYC 100 classes, professor Ryan Curtis starts by giving students a PDF file with basic information and links to videos, articles and other content.
Online course materials can be accessed from a smartphone or a computer. The book is always being updated — a perk of the open system — and can be freely molded to specific classes.
Still, maintaining an open textbook isn’t always smooth sailing. Sometimes, YouTube videos are taken down and content that was once free starts getting sold.
Open-source textbooks also aren’t practical for all fields — biology professor David Inouye said creating one for his introductory biology course would be tough because of a lack of free lower-level scientific information.
Even with the major time commitment of maintaining the book, Curtis believes his efforts are worth it, saying they save students about $100. But others, such as economics professor Robert Schwab, said time is a major deterrent. At least two faculty members would have to be excused for a full year to create an economics textbook, he said.
Still, across departments, professors seemed to agree on a solution: Find a middle ground between open materials and commercial materials. This would ease the pressure on faculty to produce these resources and ease pressure on student budgets.
Professors could provide learning materials and readings, while publishers could provide additional content, such as Aplia and other interactive educational platforms.
Roberts has found his place on the open-source spectrum. He continues to update and improve his text in preparation for its release online — for free, of course, and for the world to use.
Open educational resources are the future, he said.
“There was a time when purchasing textbooks made sense; it was necessary because that was the only way information was available and conveyed,” he said. “But so much has changed in a relatively short amount of time.”
