By Jessica Wind (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: October 31, 2012
Soon you may not have to stand in the never-ending lineup at the bookstore – provided you have a strong internet connection.
As part of their Families First Agenda, the BC government has announced they will be offering select textbooks online for free, possibly as early as the 2013/2014 school year.
These so-called open textbooks will be available for reading online, or in a printable version offered at a fraction of the cost of the currently published versions.
This is good news for students, depending on the courses they take; the BC government will offer the textbooks for what they have decided are the top 40 courses in BC.
Usability will also depend on professors choosing to teach with the online version.
In a news release, Minister of Advanced Education, Innovation and Technology John Yap said the decision to offer open textbooks is an attempt to increase accessibility and affordability for students.
“By taking advantage of technology, more people can get the learning they need in the knowledge economy and access to new or better jobs,” he stated.
Open textbooks are projected to increase overall maneuverability in the technological job force once students have studied from an online source.
Yap also stated in this release that BC is the first province to be offering online textbooks to post-secondary students.
“British Columbia is proudly leading Canada in committing free, open textbooks to students and [putting] technology to work for students,” Yap explained.
Open textbooks are expected to save up to 200,000 BC students over $1000 per academic year.
But, as every good student knows, you can’t just post something online for free without citing the information.
The Chronicle of Higher Education recently reported that three of the biggest textbook publishers are suing Boundless Learning, one of the start-up companies responsible for offering open textbooks in the U.S.
The publishers Pearson, Cengage Learning and Macmillan Higher Education, have taken issue with how the textbooks are produced.
“To gain access to the digital alternatives, students select the traditional books assigned in their classes and Boundless pulls content from an array of open-education sources to knit together a text that the company claims is as good as the designated book,” the Chronicle stated in its report.
The claim is that Boundless is essentially stealing the information it compiles in the form of open textbooks.
BCcampus, a publicly-funded organization that aims to make higher education available to everyone, will be working to avoid a similar lawsuit in BC.
“The open textbooks are expected to be created with input from BC faculty, institutions and publishers through an open Request for Proposal process,” stated the news release from October 16.
UFV English professor Dr. Trevor Carolan noted that online textbooks will have limitations.
“If students are only using the online books, it will narrow their breadth of learning,” he cautioned.
Instructors will have the option of teaching with or without the online version, similar to the current choice between course packs and full textbooks.
With open textbooks as an option, there will be increased pressure to lean towards the free version, thus limiting the available resources to teach from.
UFV administrators are excited for the option of online textbooks, according to vice-president students Jody Gordon.
“The university welcomes initiatives that will reduce student costs, especially if they don’t increase our costs of delivering quality education and service,” she said.
The program is still in the planning stages but Gordon looks forward to a way to make school more affordable to students.
The details for open textbooks have yet to be determined, although courses that fall into the top 40 are reported to cross the arts, sciences, humanities and business.
