BCLocalNews.com - UVic students make push for open textbooks
lterrat's bookmarks 2017-01-10
Summary:
"The high cost of post secondary textbooks is hurrying the advent of free textbooks though the online model of open educational resources (OER).
On Thursday and Friday of last week Maxwell Nicholson, the campaign and community relations director of the University of Victoria Student Society, and UVSS director at large Carl Haynes greeted students with their #Textbookbroke promotion as they exited the UVic Bookstore.
Students could post the dollar amount from their purchase on a whiteboard and pose with it on social media for a chance to win $300 towards textbooks.
'We’re trying to raise awareness of the malpractice of how [textbook] publishers stifle competition to protect profits, forcing students to lose tons of money from an unnecessary update,' Nicholson said.
At the same time, UVSS is touting the financial benefits and the altruistic teaching-learning concept of OER (by making people aware of sites such as BC Open Campus (open.bccampus.ca).
The UVSS projects that open textbooks will save UVic students $100,000 in 2017."