There’s more than money to the case for open access textbooks

Times are even tougher for students than the financially awful normal, which is why Sarah Lambert (Deakin U) encourages using “cheaper and more inclusive on-line resources.”

“Whether you’re teaching educational foundations, the sciences, maths and stats, how to learn at uni, anatomy or Australian politics and policy   — some smart searching may be able to locate a high-quality, peer-reviewed free textbook for you and your students.”

As well as access there is also inclusion, “editing open textbooks to make what counts as academic knowledge and expertise more socio-culturally and gender representative.”

Ms Lambert is chief investigator on the National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education open digital textbook project. The study’s survey for teaching staff, on cost, accessibility and suitability of digital textbooks for the Australian multi-cultural context is here.