Hawaii to Establish OER College Textbook Task Force | The Digital Reader

"College textbooks are expensive. Some states and universities are countering the cost by developing archives of OER course material and even degree programs that eschew paid textbooks entirely, and now Hawaii is joining the fun.

There is a bill before the state legislature which would require the University of Hawaii to establish a task force to promote OER course materials.

SB 2328: 'Establishes the University of Hawai‘i open educational resources task force to conduct a comprehensive analysis and evaluation on all general education courses and high attendance courses taught at the University of Hawai‘i system to identify open educational resources for those courses. Establishes and appropriates funds for an open educational resources pilot project grant program to incentivize faculty that adopt, develop, and implement open educational resources.'

The bill is weak tea compared to the first version; an early draft of this bill required the University of Hawaii to adopt OER textbooks in all general education and high enrollment courses by 2020. It also placed onerous requirements on lecturers by having them provide course material where none was already available; that was dropped from the bill...."