OERs: the future of education? | Research Information

"When University College London launched UCL Press, in 2015, the library services team wanted the open access university press to become the OA publisher of choice for authors, editors and readers around the world. Six years, 180 research monographs and more than four million downloads later, the press has, without a doubt, been embraced by many.

Paul Ayris, pro-vice provost and director of UCL Library Services, tells Research Information: ‘With only 180 books, we've reached more than 240 countries and territories across the world... as the UK's first fully open access university press, we've seen the impact the press has had.’

Over this time, one of the top ten downloads has been an e-textbook on burns and plastic surgery produced by Deepak Kalaskar from Medical Sciences at UCL and director of the  MSc course in burns, plastic and reconstructive surgery. According to Ayris, the book's 70,000 downloads are proof that e-textbooks and open educational resources have a clear future at UCL, a point that's only been underlined by the current pandemic.

‘UCL has now given us funding to produce an e-textbook service,’ he says. ‘We have 45,000 students at UCL and when the libraries physically closed and students couldn't get access to physical copies... we saw that digital education and providing open educational materials was the way to go.’

‘I wouldn't have said that 12 months ago, but I'm saying it now,’ he adds...."