A New Value Proposition for Open Textbooks | Higher Ed Gamma

"The Business Case for Open Textbooks Can Be About More Than Lowering Costs

This meta-capability for knowledge practice work is emerging as a key graduate attribute for our students, and one where open textbooks could play a critical role. The business case for open textbooks – or, more accurately, Open Innovation Networks in Educational Resources – would then go beyond a quantitative argument around cost savings to a qualitative advantage in enabling innovative student outcomes.

We’d need some new infrastructure to manage such knowledge spaces, of course. It’s more than just an index of changes, such as the several dozen adaptations, customizations and extensions that faculty have created for some of our OER classics (e.g., Collaborative Statistics). The design rationale and knowledge advance in each change would need more explanation for students to relate it to their experiences in using the text and to their future experiences as knowledge adaptors and creators in the workplace.

And let’s not forget that there are other ways we can support student development of skills and agency in knowledge practice work. For example, they can use their own work of learning in our ‘workplace’ of teaching and learning as a testbed for improving their own practices by adapting exemplary learning practices and applying research evidence about learning."