Ryerson needs open textbooks, but won't get them for a while | Ryersonian.ca

"Open textbooks save students money, but Ryerson is not sure if their implementation will be mandatory. Simant Upreti, chair of the chemical engineering department at Ryerson, said that open textbooks have to be held to the same academic standards as physical ones. Even if those standards were met, there’s no guarantee that open textbooks would be integrated into the curriculum. “It lies in the realm of the instructor,” he said. “When these books come out we make them available to the relevant course instructors who evaluate them and see if they could be adopted in courses.” Open textbooks, or open educational resources (OERs), are digitized texts that have non-restrictive licenses. “It is too early to say if such resources will be mandatory, but we are pleased with the progress to date,” wrote Ryerson president Mohamed Lachemi in an e-mail.

Since 2013, Ryerson librarian Ann Ludbrook has done two workshops a year focused on educating faculty about how to create and implement open textbooks in their classes. Under the library’s Infrastructure for Open Publishing of Curriculum Resources Project, there are four faculty members currently working on developing their own open textbooks...."