Some of you may have participated in the recent open textbook webinar (The Impact of Open Textbooks in the USA and South Africa: When? Why? How?) where I co-presented some of the findings of our recent educator surveys with open fellow Megan Beckett (Siyavula) and linked fellow Daniel Williamson (OpenStax College, OSC).

The webinar was a great opportunity and Megan and Daniel provided so much of the detailed context and background which really helps to better situate the survey findings.  As our methodology enables comparisons to be made across collaborations/contexts, we were also able to focus in on the results of a couple of questions that were asked in both the Siyavula and OSC surveys and hear Megan and Daniel’s interpretations of the findings. If you missed the webinar, you can view on YouTube, watch via Blackboard or view the presentation on Slideshare.

Megan during her visit to the OERRH (CC-BY OER Research Hub)

Megan during her visit to the OERRH (CC-BY OER Research Hub)

Thanks to collaborative partnerships with Siyavula and OSC, we’ve done some great open textbook research in South Africa and the USA over the past eighteen months. OER Research Hub (OERRH) open textbook work began with OSC in early 2013 and, following an introduction via one of our linked fellows, Una Daly (CCCOER), we began work with Siyavula later in the year. In both instances, we conducted surveys with educators using both types of open textbooks. We also conducted surveys with students using OSC textbooks and held interviews with a small number of educators who make use of OSC materials in a variety of different contexts. Megan and Daniel were also able to visit the OERRH here at the Institute of Educational Technology (where our project is based) as part of their fellowships, which was a great opportunity to exchange ideas and information and to work together. You can read more about Megan’s experiences here and here.

Work with Siyavula and OSC continues; we’re currently looking in more depth at the survey findings whilst also working on OSC user case studies. We are also extending our open textbook work and have begun collaborating with the BCcampus Open Textbook Project; we currently plan to launch a survey with educators using open textbooks in British Columbia during the autumn. Exciting times ahead and a big shout out to all our participants and collaborators: you make our research possible!

In short, there’s lots to report and certainly lots of research findings ready to go… to help get the research “out there” we’ll be blogging throughout week commencing 30 June on all things open textbook related.

So what have we got in store? Planned posts to date include:

  • An update on the preliminary findings of the OSC educator surveys reported at the end of March (see original blog post here);
  • A first look at the OSC student survey results;
  • A series of blog posts co-authored by Megan and myself on the Siyavula survey findings;
  • BCcampus will be reflecting on their experiences of this week’s Geography open textbook sprint (check out their blog on the sprint here);
  • …and we’ll also hear more from educators using OpenStax College materials.

Stay tuned for more and here’s to our (unofficial) open textbook research week!

Daniel during his visit to the OERRH (CC-BY OER Research Hub)

Daniel during his visit to the OERRH (CC-BY OER Research Hub)

Photo credit for main featured image: “Open Textbooks” Giulia Forsythe (CC-BY-NC-SA: http://www.flickr.com/photos/gforsythe/9088794209/ via BCCampus.