BC continues to push for open textbooks

SFU students may no longer have to bust open their piggy banks to buy course materials for popular courses.

Recently, the Minister of Advanced Education for the provincial government Andrew Wilkinson announced that BCcampus would add 50 new open textbooks to the already 70 strong database this fall. Open texts are freely accessible ones available digitally.

The Open Textbook Program began in 2012 when the government pledged $1 million to BCcampus to develop low- or no-cost materials for the most commonly taken courses. It is now used by around 5,000 students across BC.

Minister Wilkinson explained to The Peak some of the potential benefits he sees in open textbooks: “[Students] get [a] curriculum that is very much related to British Columbia priorities and British Columbia teaching standards.”

He acknowledged, “We all know that the published textbook is in danger of becoming obsolete the minute it’s printed.” However, open textbooks, as he explained, can be updated online on a constant basis.

The Simon Fraser Student Society (SFSS) has been involved with the Open Textbook Program since 2013, when former SFSS president Chardaye Bueckert emphasized it in her election platform.

Brady Yano, current VP University Relations, and other volunteers began to reach out to students by starting a petition which collected 2,500 signatures from undergraduates who were interested in the university exploring open textbooks.

Yano remarked that most students were unaware that such textbooks were freely available. He said, “The majority of students were interested in the potential cost savings that were associated with open textbooks.”

Wilkinson expanded, “Our goal is to provide affordable educational tools for students, and if that means we’re going to compete with the academic publishers who revamp textbooks every year or two with essentially the same content, we’re quite happy to compete with them.”

Yano acknowledged that a small number of students were opposed to open text. Their complaints, in his opinion, boiled down to the textbooks threatening student jobs at the SFU bookstore and that physical books were preferable to digital ones. Yano was quick to point out that all open textbooks can be printed for about $13.

Furthermore, the SFU bookstore exist as a break-even operation. Yano predicted that open textbooks would save SFU money by eliminating the need to return unsold textbooks back to the publisher at a loss. He referred to the bookstore’s losses from the 2013/2014 fiscal year, totalling $481,000.

According to Wilkinson, the most significant challenge for the open textbook program has been getting faculty on board. He noted that utilisation of the open textbooks was higher in teaching universities and colleges compared to research universities such as SFU.

Yano noted that while SFU provides the highest number of faculty that review these texts, no open textbook has been adopted at any of the university’s three campuses.

Said Yano, “I think if professors were reminded of the fact that tuition is significantly more expensive today than in previous times, hopefully they can empathize with students and help save students money.”

Wilkinson further explained that “one of the priorities of this program is to [understand] the decision-makers and sort out why they aren’t making more use of these texts.” He added, “if it’s because they’re concerned about content, then we want them to participate in improving the content.”

Where does Minister Wilkinson see the program in the next few years? “We’re hoping it continues to expand,” he said, “Now we have to get the instructors to catch onto the idea [. . .] that these materials are every bit as good as the ones available commercially.”