A presentation given at the 2012 Association of Community College Trustees in Boston.

1. The Open Course Library:
Disrupting the $200 Textbook
• Thomas W. Malone, JD, MBA, Malone & Associates PS and Trustee,
Seattle Community Colleges, WA
• Tom Braziunas, Ph. D., eLearning Associate Dean, North Seattle
Community College, Seattle Community Colleges, WA
• Tom Caswell, Ed. S., MA, Formerly Open Education Policy Associate,
Washington State Board of Community & Technical Colleges, WA. Now
Director of Instructional Design at Western Governors University, UT.
• Stephanie Delaney, JD, Ph. D., Associate Dean for Distance & eLearning,
Seattle Central Community College, Seattle Community Colleges, WA
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2. The Open Course Library: Disrupting the $200 Textbook
What this presentation is about…
• The problem
• The “OCL” project
• “OCL” goals and action plans
• Challenges
• Strategies
• Successes
• Discussion – The road ahead
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3. The Open Course Library: Disrupting the $200 Textbook
The Problem:
The high cost of textbooks has reduced
Washington citizens’ access to higher education.
• According to the Advisory Committee on
Student Financial Assistance, 200,000 qualified
students fail to enroll in college each year due to
cost
• Full-time students spend approximately $1,000
on textbooks every year ($4.6M/yr/course for
the 46,000+ enrollments in Washington State
Community and Technical Colleges)
• 2005 GAO report: College textbook prices have
risen at twice the rate of annual inflation over
the last two decades 3
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4. The Open Course Library: Disrupting the $200 Textbook
“OCL” Project :
An initiative to develop affordable digital course materials for
Washington State’s community & technical colleges
WHO:
• Supported by the Washington State Board of Community &
Technical Colleges (largest state investment of its kind)
• 3-year $750,000 grant from Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
• Subsequent partnerships include Creative Commons, Saylor
Foundation, Connexions Consortium & MIT’
OpenCourseWare Consortium
WHAT:
• Creation of high-quality online educational materials
• Design & peer review by stipend-supported faculty members
and instructional support teams in the state system
• Built as 82 high-enrollment, gatekeeper college courses
• Total materials cost to student must be under $30 per course
• Free global public use through Creative Commons Licensing
• Able to be utilized in face-to-face, hybrid or online courses
WHEN:
• First 42 OCL courses released in October 2011 4
• Second phase being tested now for release by Summer 2013 TC

5. The Open Course Library: Disrupting the $200 Textbook
BIG Goals:
Lower costs…..
Improve success…
Expand resources…
Change culture…
The “OCL” Project Goals:
• lower textbook costs for students to under $30 per course
-- projected student savings if all courses used = $41 Million year
• improve student success, i.e. course completion rates
• provide new open resources for faculty to use in their courses
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• cultivate a culture & practice of using and contributing to OERs TC

6. The Open Course Library: Disrupting the $200 Textbook
Take a look – its “free”!
http://www.opencourselibrary.org
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7. The Open Course Library: Disrupting the $200 Textbook
Action plan for lowering costs:
• Faculty & instructional teams create OER courses
• Courses are peer-reviewed using Quality Matters
• Courses are openly licensed via Creative Commons
• Faculty colleagues accept utility of these OERs
• Content is adopted widely in whole or in part
• Content revised by adopters as fits their teaching
• Faculty provide constructive feedback so OERs see
continuous quality improvement & updating 7
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8. The Open Course Library: Disrupting the $200 Textbook
Action plan for increasing student success
• Students have ready access to course materials
before & during their courses (no delays in
receiving textbooks)
• Students experience better grades, completion
rates and satisfaction with their learning through
courses built by teams consisting of faculty,
instructional designers, e-learning specialists,
librarians & cultural diversity experts
• Students benefit from currency of content
(commercial textbooks become outdated quickly)
• Students develop information literacy skills through
use of the Internet to access, research & evaluate
many sources of data
• Students improve their technical literacy through 8
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skills learned in using educational technologies

9. The Open Course Library: Disrupting the $200 Textbook
The Challenges
(Mis)perceptions by potential adopters:
• “Not invented here” means “does not fit” with teaching
style or program content
• Administrators want to dictate homogeneity and/or
replace faculty with technology
• “Open” educational resources are below college levels
& of questionable quality
• Adoption is “all” or “nothing” with content being
replaced by a “generic classroom in a box”
• “Another passing fad” – this perspective (expressed at
a faculty focus group) is likely to be heard less & less 9
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10. The Open Course Library: Disrupting the $200 Textbook
The Challenges
Legitimate concerns of seasoned online faculty:
• “Already invented here” – why change something that
is already working for students and instructor?
• “Where’s the beef?” – where are the data proving that
student success rates will increase?
• “Textbooks synthesize & organize” – Students learn
better when course materials and activities are clearly
designed and aligned
• “It’s a great first draft” – but time-consuming revision
is required before each specific adoption
• “Common” courses are not so “common” – OCL
spotlighted heterogeneity in content & outcomes within 10
the system & even within districts TB

11. The Open Course Library: Disrupting the $200 Textbook
The Challenges
Trepidation by faculty who are designing open content:
• “Why put myself out there?” – wide exposure to peer
review & judgment is risky for non-tenured, part-time
faculty seeking acceptance & full-time positions
• “Where’s the good stuff?” – Searching the Internet is a
full-time endeavor – where does one start?
• “Publishers have deep pockets” – Instructional
designers have the time & resources to create higher-
quality materials than what is now available for free use
• “I’m working full-time already!” – The money is okay
but my workload leaves little time for research, group
dynamics & intently-focused creativity 11
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12. The Open Course Library: Disrupting the $200 Textbook
Hopeful Strategies for Faculty:
Educate faculty adopters on “whole” and “piecemeal” options
• Create venues for developers and adopters to share experiences,
insights &tips with colleagues
• “Leading from the Classroom” is an example of a successful
trustee initiative
• Conduct campus-by-campus focus groups to bring developers
together to debrief
• Build OER presentations into “Sharing Days” and “Faculty
Institutes”
• Join national consortia such as the CCCOER -- “Community College
Consortium for Open Educational Resources”
(http://oerconsortium.org)
• Create templates to assist the collaboration of faculty and librarians to
adopt/adapt appropriate OERs (http://sccopenaccess.pbworks.com/)
• Produce up-to-date checklists on peer-reviewed sources of OERs for
adopters
• Integrate OER into all relevant trainings so that it becomes something
natural for faculty to consider. 12
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13. The Open Course Library: Disrupting the $200 Textbook
More Hopeful Strategies for Faculty:
Work with the strongest “critics” to address (and resolve!)
key concerns
Educate faculty designers on creating OPEN content
• Publicize available online tutorials and guides to using
“Creative Commons” to grant copyright permissions to
share your work
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses)
• Provide training in the use of Quality Matters standards to
produce effectively designed course content and activities.
Encourage Faculty Course Reviews
• Department or eLearning sponsorships of faculty peer
reviews.
• Use a Quality Matters peer review model for reviewers to
follow for reviewing content
• Include standards on “ease of adoption” and space to share
practical suggestions for adopting specific OER material 13
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14. The Open Course Library: Disrupting the $200 Textbook
Other Hopeful Strategies:
Work with the publishers to reduce the cost of textbooks
• Use of selected chapters and customized textbooks
• Reduced price ebooks
• Limited book access
“Tag” your courses in your schedule to help students find
low-cost courses
• This might encourage more adoption by faculty
who are teaching more expensive course
sections
Encourage other cost reduction strategies
• Textbook rentals
• Used books
• Coursepacks 14
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15. The Open Course Library: Disrupting the $200 Textbook
Strategies that have not worked:
• If we build it, they will come – Simply having affordable resources built by system colleagues is
not enough to get faculty to adopt
• Expectation of rapid adoption – OER work will take time to bear fruit. Doubters and true
believers are both constrained by the time limitations of full workloads
• Faculty stipends alone – It is NOT about the money or workload but about student success.
Seasoned online faculty turned down $2500 to adopt OCL materials for a variety of pedagogical
and logistical reasons (paraphrased below)
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16. The Open Course Library: Disrupting the $200 Textbook
Successes:
Uses of OCL and OER nationally
• Saylor Foundation – 8 courses adapted
from Open Course Library
• 2 of these courses are now in iTunes U
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17. The Open Course Library: Disrupting the $200 Textbook
Successes:
Uses of OCL and OER nationally
• Kaleidoscope – 8 colleges with national grant
uses OCL for math cohorts (student success)
• Cerritos College
• Chadron State College
• College of the Redwoods
• Mercy College
• Palo Verde College
• Santa Ana College
• Santiago Canyon College
Credit: Timothy Valentine & Leo Reynolds CC BY- 17
• Tompkins Cortland CC NC-SA TC

18. The Open Course Library: Disrupting the $200 Textbook
Successes “in the commercial world”:
“Show them the money!” – How much will our students save?
Potential student savings for Spring 2012 at North Seattle CC =
41 courses x 25 students x $books = $71,750 - $102,500
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19. The Open Course Library: Disrupting the $200 Textbook
Successes “course by course”:
Case studies – faculty respond for Fall 2012!
• Survey of Anthropology $140 $0 (free “OER”)
• U.S. History $100 $65 (customized textbook)
• Intro. Philosophy $100 $60 - $0 (student choice)
• Music in U.S. $100 $0 (own online textbook)
• Microeconomics $100 $20 (e-book)
And is Wikipedia a qualified OER?
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20. The Open Course Library: Disrupting the $200 Textbook
Successes “student by student”:
Campus bookstore data – students respond!
Savings at the register in 2011/2012 $205,926
• Sales of new textbooks declined -8% to 16,873 units
• Sales of used textbooks declined -9% to 6581 units
• Sales of rental textbooks rose +14% to 1696 units
• Sales of digital textbooks rose +6% to 195 units
compared to previous year
Trends that are accelerating in Fall 2012
• Sales of used textbooks declined another - 38%
• Sales of rental textbooks rose another + 64%
• Sales of digital textbooks still only represent 1% of sales
compared to Fall 2011 20
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21. The Open Course Library: Disrupting the $200 Textbook
Student Feedback:
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22. The Open Course Library: Disrupting the $200 Textbook
Student Comments -- Pro:
• I loved that we didn't have a text book. We were able to get different
types of readings from different authors. Also, we didn't have to
spread money,
• I found that articles are so much more in depth about the real world.
As opposed to textbooks that can be very general. Good work on the
interesting, informative articles plus supplemental reading is nice and
visual.
• i am happy i got all the materials that we read for this course on the
internet because i did not spend money to buy book which is
expensive , how ever if there is not alternetive , i do not mind to buy
book to study to my cource since it is important.
• I love not having text books because books are large and having
everything I need at my fingertips is convenient.
• I think it is great that we don't have to buy a text book. The only
time I really had to print out the readings was when I planned on
doing them outside my home. I think it's more eco-friendly. 22
Something we learned a lot about this quarter. SD

23. The Open Course Library: Disrupting the $200 Textbook
Student Comments – Con:
• I prefer to buy text book. The students came from different community and
country and we have different style of reading system. So for me I love to
use book.
• I seem to retain information better reading from printed text. I like the idea
not having to purchase a book. However it is spendy if I want to print them
out so if there was an option to pick up the printed package that would be
nice also. I just think reading from printed text is better for our motor skills
and I believe we retain the information longer and better through written
text. This is because we can feel and touch the paper or book the words are
solid and in the physical form. Its hard to explain.
• Only at King County library systems you can print off 75 pages black and
white per week. That is the only way i was able to print for free. If someone
did not tell me this helpful information i would of paid an arm and a leg for
ink to print at home.
• As selected above I really wish I had a text book! I like the idea of not having
to purchase the book however to me I think that having what I need at my
fingertips is worth the money. I enjoyed the readings this week. It opened
my eyes to a lot of things I did not know. 23
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24. The Open Course Library: Disrupting the $200 Textbook
Discussing…
The Road Ahead
URL of this slideshow: http://bit.ly/Pi2FTu
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25. The Open Course Library: Disrupting the $200 Textbook
Questions Answers
•What other resources do YOU know about?
Educate us!
Our contact information:
Tom Malone: tmalone@malonelegal.com
Tom Braziunas: tom.braziunas@seattlecolleges.edu
Tom Caswell: thomas.caswell@wgu.edu
Stephanie Delaney: stephanie.delaney@seattlecolleges.edu 25
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URL of this slideshow: http://bit.ly/Pi2FTu