Open textbooks: We have led the horse to water – now what?

Poster presentation at the Canadian Association of Physicists conference at SFU, Burnaby (June 3-7, 2019).
The use of open textbooks is increasing dramatically in first year physics courses. This poster presents the results of scholarly research around student perceptions, the use and impact of open textbooks, as well as suggestions for how instructors might change what they do in their classroom around their use of open textbooks. Comparing and contrasting student’s attitudes in first year physics, astronomy and biology classes to open textbooks is the theme of this poster. It also relates attitudes towards open educational resources (OER) to simple demographic information and the overall cost of textbooks to determine whether there are indicators that can be measured a priori to suggest that students in a particular course may be more or less receptive to the incorporation of OER. More than 300 students were surveyed in 10 courses over two years at Douglas College so there is enough data to form interesting correlations. The questions that were asked included demographic questions as well as questions such as “How often does your instructor encourage you to read your textbook?” and “What is your best estimate of the percentage of exam questions that could be correctly answered using only the textbook?” Results: Student perceive that the open textbook is as good as or better than commercial books. Satisfaction increases as the book is modified to match learning outcomes.