BCLocalNews.com - Free, open textbooks available for students and instructors

"Fifteen open, online textbooks in subject areas ranging from math and chemistry to marketing, psychology, and business have been reviewed by post-secondary faculty and are now freely available for download from BCcampus. 'We’re leading the country with our development of open, online textbooks, using technology to make education more flexible and affordable,' said Advanced Education Minister Amrik Virk. 'Instructors  around the province can now download the textbooks, read reviews by their peers, and decide whether they want to use them in their classes, saving students lots of money in textbook costs.' More than 38 instructors and professors from post-secondary institutions around the province reviewed existing open textbooks for quality and relevance in British Columbia. These 15 textbooks have been found to be of high quality and appropriate for use in B.C. institutions. The open textbooks will be another option for faculty and instructors who ultimately choose the textbooks they wish to assign to their students. The textbooks and the reviews are now available online for faculty and instructors to consider for future courses. Some faculty that were involved in the reviews have already decided to use them, including instructors at Langara College and Kwantlen Polytechnic University. 'It really helps if we can connect with a colleague who has first-hand experience with a particular book,' said Takashi Sato, physics instructor at Kwantlen Polytechnic University ..."