Textbooks are often expensive, costing between $50 – $150 on average. The high cost of textbooks often causes students to hesitate in buying them, which negatively impacts Curtin University’s most vulnerable student populations who turn to the Library for access.
However, providing reliable access from the Library can be difficult even in the age of ebooks, with restrictive terms imposed by publishers sometimes preventing students from accessing their required texts easily. Picture having to wait until midnight when the other three ebook users have finally logged out so you can read your textbook online. Or maybe you’re only able to download a couple of chapters of a textbook, not the whole book. Using published textbooks can be a frustrating experience for students.
Open Educational Resources (OERs) are one way to address this issue. They are a great alternative to published textbooks as they are online resources that can be accessed, adapted and redistributed with no or limited restrictions. For example, case studies and examples can be changed to be more relevant and the order that topics are presented can be adjusted to best suit the unit’s calendar.
The Council of Australian University Librarians (CAUL) has run the Open Educational Resources Collective program since 2022 to encourage the publication of OERs in Australia. Books produced with the assistance of the program undergo the same stringent peer-review and editorial processes as traditionally published textbooks, and provide examples and case studies relevant to the Australian context. To date, the program has published 18 books, with more to come.
The books published by the collective above, as well as many more, are available from our catalogue – just search for “Open Educational Resources Collective” or filter your search by “Open Access” and “Books” and keep an eye out for licensing information. The Pressbooks.directory is also a great source with over 5,000 open textbooks published. For a list of other sources, visit our Open textbooks page and look for the section ‘Find Open Education Resources’.
The concept of openly licensing teaching, learning and research materials is exploding across the world so it’s a good time to jump on board and consider adapting an OER for a unit you are teaching or, as a student, provide feedback to your unit coordinator and suggest an OER for future students.
If you’re interested in learning more, get in touch with us at Library-UniSkills@curtin.edu.au.
