Building Communities of Practice to Encourage Open Textbook Use

SloanC-MERLOT Conference July 12, 2011

With generous support from DynamicBooks

Slide 1

The challengeIncrease adoption, effective use, and

sustainability of open-licensed textbooks

The solutionCommunities of Practice

Slide 2

Why we are here today

Hear from our panelists about the lessons they’ve learned in

forming working communities of practice around open

textbooks

Hear from you about lessons you’ve learned

Slide 3

Goals

Share the practices that have worked and those that have

not

Apply the results to other kinds of learning communities.

Discuss the differences between the communities that start

with a theoretical vs. pragmatic approaches

Compare the use of synchronous and asynchronous

communications methods.

Discuss how instructors and others can feel comfortable

sharing their materials.

Share the plans for the future of these seven communitiesSlide 4

Logistics

Each panelist represents a different academic discipline and

will take 5-7 minutes to share his/her learning around a

specific area of communities of practice.

We will start discussions after the presentations

Slide 5

Joanne Mu Joanne Munroe

Community: Organic ChemistryEmphasis: Learning Communities and Communities of Practice (Cox, 2004; Wenger, 1998; Wenger, White, and Smith, 2009)

Slide 6

Una Daly

Community: Educational PsychologyEmphasis: Collaboration & Remixing

Curriculum DriversSmall programsVaried majorsState licensure

Slide 7

Connexions textbookDrs. Seifert & Sutton

Online collaboration

Reorder, remix, authoring tool.

Online repository

Slide 8

Slide 9CC BY-SA Some rights reserved by Gideon Burton

Bill BuxtonCommunity: EconomicsEmphasis: Pragmatic, Participatory, Permanent, Powerful

Slide 10

Bill Buxton, Founder, Textbook Equity

EconomicsPrimary (seed) Open Textbook:

“Microeconomics”, by R. Larry Reynolds, Professor, Boise State University. (2011) CC-BY-NC-SACurrent Ancillaries:

15 Interactive Excel® models 6 Flash® modules with voice over 2 Quicktime® movies with voice over 13 Powerpoint® lectures Math and calculus reviews Topics in PDF and Word® formats Homework and exam examples with answers

Slide 11

Teamwork

Slide 12

“Corequisites” for Success

Lynda Lambert

Community: College WritingEmphasis: Starting from Scratch

Author/Facilitator

Goals:To get unbiased opinions on the usability of an unpublished, as yet un-adopted bookTo create ancillary materials on a course site that could then be accessed and used by adopters.

Slide 14

Goals Achieved?At this point....

There has been some feedback on the book from three people, with minor suggestions.

There was an attempt to offer a possible ancillary, but the posting caused technical problems that tied us up for 3 weeks.

Slide 15

Things learned so far

A larger, more varied pool of possible participants will help move us forward.

Asking for a specific response is better than asking for a general contribution.

Specific tasks do-able in short timeframes are best.

Methodical, regular contact and updates are a necessity to keep things going.

Slide 16

If you’re interested...For those in the audience who are interested in joining this Learning Community, you can begin by taking a look at the book on which it is based, Deconstructing American English, at:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XtU840Cftqmsq6fOAxowW9pZT58N-CQV4LZhZfZ_sc4/edit?authkey=CNqNkpIG&hl=en_US&pli=1

Slide 17

Barbara IllowskyCommunity: StatisticsEmphasis: Author responses to inputs & evolution

Slide 18

Barbara IllowskyPDF: free always! (download and/or print)

QOOP: hard copy of pdf – purchase ( <$30)

Connexions: free (Web 1.0)

Kno/20 Million Minds: $4.99 enhanced with interactive multimedia (Web 2.0)

WebAssign homework system: $25

iTunesU: free chapter videos

Slide 19

Navigate table of contents

Click here to print out

Key term links to definition

Slide 21

Jacky Hood: Four Communities with Varied

Challenges

Accounting: great book, publisher support challenge: fledgling communityMath: excellent book, many adopters, excellent Subject Matter Expert challenge: no facilitatorSociology: great tool and structure, huge opportunity challenge: only four adopters, noneavailable to manage communityProject management: large well-qualified community, three great tools, challenges: writing a 1000-page textbook, funding, business model

Slide 22

Discussion

Tell us about your needs …

Join the College Open Textbooks Communityhttp://collegeopentextbooks.ning.com

With generous support from DynamicBooks