25 years of EdTech: 2013 – Open Textbooks – The Ed Techie

"If MOOCs were the glamorous side of open education, all breathless headlines and predictions, open textbooks were the practical, even dowdy, application. An extension of the OER movement, and particularly pertinent in the United States and Canada, open textbooks provided openly licensed versions of bespoke written textbooks, free for the digital version. The cost of textbooks provided an initial motivation for adoption, but it is the potential of adaption that makes them interesting. Open textbooks are sometimes criticised for being an unimaginative application of the possibilities of open. But they also offer a clear example of several aspects which need to align for ed tech adoption in higher ed."