Documentation:Open UBC/Guide/Finding OT/Why
What Are Open Textbooks?
An open textbook is a textbook with an open license that allows the material to be freely accessed, shared and adapted. Open licenses allow instructors to adapt, remix, or customize existing open textbooks to maximize instructional content to meet their own learning objectives. Many open textbooks are developed through traditional peer review, others are vetted by experts. As with any textbook, the instructor is the final judge of whether an open textbook meets the needs of the course. They are free for anyone to view and download in an online format and can be made available in a print format at a nominal cost.
Why Use Open Textbooks?
A major motivation for me was certainly the desire to save students money. However I also want to make the material easy to access, for example, by sending students PDF documents, or by copying and pasting sections of the text into emails and so on. So it is not just that the books are free but they are also easy to access.
Dr. Matthew J. Holian, San Jose State University, California State University, CA
Some of the reasons why faculty and instructors are adopting open textbooks, include:
- Open textbooks allow for increased flexibility in course design
- Open textbooks reduce student costs
- Open textbooks are of similar or higher quality than closed textbooks
- Student outcomes are high when assigned open textbooks
- Administering reading lists is easier