Virginia Law Mandates OER Guidelines

Virginia is for open educational resources, or at least state legislators there think so.

The governor recently signed into law an amendment directing all public colleges and universities to develop guidelines for adopting and using open educational resources (OER) for their courses. The measure allows institutions to include low-cost commercially published materials in the guidelines, along with free and open materials.

While other states, such as Florida, have passed bills calling on their public institutions to take concrete steps toward reducing the cost of course materials for students, Virginia’s new law is apparently the first to emphasize OER to this degree. Virginia law already requires faculty to be aware of the retail prices of the course materials they choose and encourages them to select used editions when feasible.

Some university systems and individual institutions have set up programs to provide grants to professors for the creation of OER. The Virginia bill doesn’t include any funding for resource development, leaving it up to the schools to figure out how to motivate faculty.

The state’s Department of Planning and Budget, in its impact statement on the law, acknowledged, “It is unknown how many faculty members of Virginia’s public institutions of higher education would embrace the use of open educational resources and low-cost commercially published materials in their courses.”

The law takes effect July 1.

How Profs Dodge Royalties Bullet

College instructors teach courses in the subjects on which they are experts. Faculty also share their expertise by writing books on the same subjects. What should professors do when they’re tapped to lead courses on the identical subject matter covered by their books?

Some faculty choose to assign their own books as required reading, but are taking great pains to avoid profiting much—if at all—from the sale of books to their students, according to an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education. In these cases, the books in question aren’t particularly costly as textbooks go, so the issue centers on the royalties paid to the authors.

Some instructors negotiate special discounts with their publishers on behalf of students to offset the royalties. Others estimate how much in royalties they might receive from students’ purchases and donate that amount to a campus cause or scholarship, or treat the class to lunch. For some classes, professors may use just one or two chapters of their book and provide free printouts to students.

Another tactic is to allow students to borrow the instructor’s copies of the book, although one professor noted in the article that only one student had accepted his loan so far.

One adjunct professor interviewed for the article considers most textbooks on the same topic to be “interchangeable” and she “questioned the need for assigning one’s own work.” In the event a professor decides to adopt his own book anyway, she suggested asking the publisher to simply pocket the royalties on books sold to the class instead of paying it.

OER by Students for Students

LibreText traces its roots to Delmar Larsen’s frustration that his students had each shelled out $200 for a chemistry textbook that he discovered was riddled with errors. Larsen, an associate professor at the University of California, Davis, didn’t have the funds to assemble a textbook of his own, but what he did have was a valuable creative resource in those students.

Ten years later, the project that began in that class has grown into an extensive library of open course resources, accessible through a Creative Commons license, with much of the content created via crowdsourcing by students, instructors, and topic experts. A dozen subjects are covered, including math, statistics, biology, physics, medicine, and the humanities. Students participate via class assignments to address a specific question or mirror a chapter’s worth of content from an existing resource. Afterward, some continue to contribute as volunteers or paid content developers.

Like a wiki, there is no formal peer-review process for LibreText resources, although certain account-holders can correct errors instantly and anyone else can highlight mistakes through feedback. Larsen noted to EdSurge that even with peer review, traditional textbooks can be full of errors. In print, those persist until the next edition, while most mistakes in the LibreText library can be corrected within a half-hour of being pointed out.

“No textbook or resource is going to be 100% accurate, ever,” an executive of OpenStax, the open course materials provider based at Rice University, told EdSurge. The closest to perfect is content that can be fixed immediately.

In 2014, Larsen conducted an experiment by teaching two chemistry classes, one with a conventional textbook and one with LibreText. At the end of term, the open resource was judged in no way inferior to the traditional content.

A Focus on Course Materials Issues, Trends

Since the format and delivery of course materials are evolving faster than almost any other aspects of higher education, course materials specialists at campus bookstores must stay on their toes if they expect to help faculty and students. The first Course Materials eXperience (CM-X) on March 3-5 will give specialists an opportunity to network and learn more about trends and innovative practices involving textbooks and other course content.

To be held in Salt Lake City, UT, in conjunction with NACS’ annual Campus Market Expo (CAMEX) and Conference, the CM-X program will kick off with a discussion of issues surrounding textbook affordability and student access.

The second day of specialized educational sessions will explore inclusive access programs, textbook rentals, how to analyze course materials sales to determine student purchase patterns and cost savings, and advanced strategies in sourcing and dynamic pricing. In addition, a panel of publishing executives will discuss trends emerging now and on the horizon. Over lunch, participants will delve into performance data and talk about what practices work best.

On day three, CM-X moves to the Course Materials Theater on the CAMEX trade-show floor for a series of presentations on new programs and formats now available for textbooks.

Networking events for course materials specialists are also built into the three-day schedule.

For more details on the schedule and registration, go to Course Materials eXperience.

A Hands-On Approach to Textbook Affordability

If you attend the 2016 Textbook Affordability Conference (April 27-29 at the University of California, Davis), you’ll have a hand in developing potential solutions to ensure all college students have access to the course materials they need, regardless of format.

Conferees will spend part of the time collaborating in teams to further discuss the ideas and challenges presented by speakers. Teams will explore creation of a course content model that meets the needs of students as well as higher education campuses and their partners.

In the opening keynote, Adela de la Torre, vice chancellor, student affairs and campus diversity, UC Davis, will examine the importance of supporting student success.

At the conclusion of the conference, Lisa Petrides, president, Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education, and Mark Milliron, co-founder and chief learning officer, Civitas Learning, will talk about next steps and strategies in a “fireside-chat” session. Milliron was also a Thought Leader presenter at NACS’ 2014 Campus Market Expo (CAMEX) conference and trade show, identifying several rising trends for college course materials.

Registration will open soon. Sign up to receive notification when it does. Discounts are available to institutions who register three or more professionals. Five hotels within walking distance of the Davis campus are offering special rates to conference attendees for a limited time.

With coordination by NACS, planning partners for the 2016 conference include the Association of American Publishers-Higher Education, California Association of College Stores, The California State University’s Affordable Learning Solutions, NASPA: Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education, and OpenStax.

Cheap, Cheap: Early Birds Get Science Texts

There’s a science to shopping for science textbooks, according to two plant biologists.

In a report for the Journal of College Science Teaching, two researchers at the University of Georgia in Athens set out to determine if the prices of college-level science textbooks fluctuate in a predictable pattern that coincides with the start and end of academic terms and whether students could save more money if they were able to buy books sooner.

The researchers, doctoral candidate Jeffery Cannon and Professor Peggy Brickman, cited data (including some from NACS) showing that students perform better on exams when they study assigned course materials but that cost is often a barrier to obtaining those materials. If the cost could be reduced, the pair reasoned, then more students would acquire more textbooks and potentially improve their learning.

Cannon and Brickman tracked 45 science titles required for 39 chemistry and biology courses at the University of Mississippi. Every one to two weeks for a full year, they checked the lowest prices and quantities of used copies for sale on Amazon.com. Occasionally, new copies were available for less than used, so those prices were recorded instead.

They found that prices peaked Sept. 9 for fall term and Jan. 13 for spring term. Prices bottomed out, on average, on June 10 and Dec. 2.

If students had purchased their texts at the low point, they could have saved 33% in the fall and 20% in the spring. “However, the only way for students to realize these savings is if students are aware of which textbooks are required for a given course before the end of the semester preceding the course—that is, during class registration,” concluded the report, titled “Helping Students Save: Assigning Textbooks Early Can Save Money and Enhance Learning.”

The pair then examined when biology and chemistry classes at UGA (as Mississippi’s course catalog was no longer available to them) provided textbook requirements. Only 42% listed requirements sufficiently early to enable students to take advantage of the lowest prices.

Conference Ponders Cost of Textbooks

As college and university students head back to campus for another term, they may feel no one cares how much they pay for course materials—if the online complaints are any indication.

However, the stakeholders involved in the development, selection, and distribution of course materials are taking students’ concerns seriously. They will explore challenges and solutions at the inaugural Textbook Affordability Conference on Feb. 11-13 in San Diego, CA.

NACS is joining with the Independent College Bookstore Association (ICBA), Verba Inc., and the California State University System’s Affordable Learning Solutions (ALS) program to co-host the event, which is open to anyone interested in textbook affordability.

The conference will approach the question of affordability from various aspects—teaching and learning, content and platform development, libraries, campus administration, sales and distribution, governmental policies, and open resources—with a particular focus on the role of campus bookstores, where the majority of students still acquire the bulk of their course materials. Stores already work with instructors, publishers, and distributors to obtain materials for students and generally serve as students’ go-to helpdesk when they have questions.

TAC attendees are also invited to take part in the ALS conference on Feb. 13.

Is It Time to Omit Textbooks?

There have been plenty of studies showing college students are not always running out to buy their assigned textbooks. At the same time, every collegiate retailer knows that collecting textbook adoption information in the first place can be like pulling teeth, so why not just drop them altogether?

“Banning textbooks is not capitulation to their misguided frugality. It’s recognition that students don’t view their textbooks the way we expect them to—and they may have a point,” The Good Enough Professor wrote in a recent blog post.

The problem with textbooks, according to the blogger, is students know they probably can find the same information online for free, making the assigned book redundant and expensive. Besides, students come to understand during their K-12 days that learning is more about locating the right information to pass a test than it is working through concepts and ideas.

“Students want to adroitly navigate the world of information—hence their zeal for finding workarounds,” she wrote. “By abandoning textbooks, we can better work with that grain rather than against it.”

Covering the Cost of OER

While free to users, most quality open content still incurs costs for development and distribution. How can costs for academic content be recouped while still ensuring students have free access?

In his Thought Leader presentation March 7 at CAMEX 2014 in Dallas, TX, Charles Key noted that a number of business models for open educational resources are emerging. "There's a lot of money coming in from government and college systems," said the director of adoptions, grants, and the College Open Textbooks project for the Open Doors Group, a nonprofit dedicated to education affordability.

These funds are paying for development of course content intended to be shared among institutions. For-profit publishers are also providing some digital content at no charge while offering other formats and enhanced services for a fee.

The concept of assessing a special student fee "hasn't caught on but is increasingly being looked at," Key said. Typically, the fee runs around $100 per term.

In some cases, individual schools and academic departments are choosing to produce course materials out of their own budgets. The mathematics faculty at one community college, for example, decided to collaborate on writing textbooks for all classes; the books have been used by some 600,000 students so far.

Some professors are also willing to take time to create their own course materials, a trend Key said is on the rise since textbook affordability has become a hot issue.

Textbook Cost-Cutting Tests Tempers

Many colleges and universities are looking for ways to shrink the out-of-pocket expense of course materials in response to pressure from students, parents, policymakers, and legislators. However, as campus administrators investigate possible solutions, they’re sometimes coming under fire from faculty.

For example, at Alamo Colleges in Texas, faculty were not at all happy with the chancellor’s recent proposal to cut textbook costs by requiring each course section to use the same materials, according to the San Antonio Express-News. Alamo comprises five community colleges, with a number of the same courses taught by different faculty at different campuses.

Faculty viewed the proposal as infringing on their academic right to assign whatever course materials they deem most suitable for the class. The chancellor saw it as the means to negotiate bulk purchases of textbooks or license digital materials to secure a lower per-unit cost.

For at least some courses, only a digital version of the textbook would be available to students, which also raised a red flag for faculty. They expressed concerns about students without Internet access at home.

The University of Utah is trying to avoid that kind of conflict. The UU Academic Senate appointed a committee to come up with ways to snip as much as $500 annually from each student’s textbook tab, according to The Daily Utah Chronicle. The committee has representatives from faculty, staff (including the bookstore), and students, who will work together to develop recommendations.