Free textbook for students: U of T Mississauga gets its first open access digital resource

noreen.rasbach — Wed, 23 Jan 2019 17:19:31 +0000

noreen.rasbach Wed, 01/23/2019 - 12:19

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"Before I post a lecture, I edit the book to integrate parts of the chapters into my lectures, and parts of my lectures into the textbook,” says Sanja Hinić-Frlog, an assistant professor at U of T Mississauga (photo courtesy of Sanja Hinić-Frlog)

Blake Eligh

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Our Community

Biology

Graduate Students

Textbooks

Undergraduate Students

University of Toronto Mississauga

Biology students at University of Toronto Mississauga are using a new resource this semester at a price point that every student can afford.

U of T Mississauga’s first-ever open access digital textbook, Introductory Animal Physiology, launched in January as the primary text for 480 undergraduate students enrolled in the second-year biology course. Custom-tailored to the course, the textbook is available to students free of charge.

Sanja Hinić-Frlog, an assistant professor, teaching stream, in the department of biology, led the creation of the textbook. She says she was frustrated with traditional textbooks that were expensive, outdated and didn’t meet the specific needs of her students or her course structure.

With a provincial grant, Hinić-Frlog worked with staff from the University of Toronto Mississauga Library and U of T’s Centre for Teaching Support & Innovation to create a nine-chapter textbook that is built around Hinić-Frlog’s biology course and includes review questions and learning objectives as well, as links to external podcast and video resources.

“It fits exactly what I want to do in every lecture,” Hinić-Frlog says. “This is a living document and can change as we are using it. Before I post a lecture, I edit the book to integrate parts of the chapters into my lectures, and parts of my lectures into the textbook.”

The textbook uses material from peer-reviewed open access journals and publishers, says project collaborator and science liaison librarian Jessica Hanley, who helped to source content and manage licensing agreements. “The materials are scientifically sound and from reputable resources,” she says.

“It was a big project,” says Hinić-Frlog, “but we had a lot of support, so it wasn’t as overwhelming as writing a textbook from scratch. The content was already there – it was a matter of putting it together.”

A $15,000 provincial grant provided support to hire three students to source and create images for the textbook, and to adapt the content to the Pressbooks platform, which makes the content accessible to users on a variety of Apple and Android devices, as well as desktop computer and printable PDF files.

Introductory Animal Physiology is among 21 higher education projects funded through eCampusOntario’s Open Textbook Intiative by the Ontario government. The project launched in 2017 to promote the adoption, adaptation and creation of open textbooks to help eliminate or significantly lower the cost of course materials for learners and help educators to adapt materials to suit the needs of learners and programs. A similar initiative in British Columbia is estimated to have saved students nearly $4-million in textbook costs since 2012.

Two other U of T texts also received funding, including $40,000 for an open access text about Indigenous Peoples and natural resources, and $14,430 to support an open access text about neuroscience.

Hinić-Frlog says that students from U of T Mississauga's Master of Science in Biomedical Communications program have been enlisted to create new digital images and figures for the open access textbook. “We’re very pleased to collaborate with graduate students who will be creating content with their expertise in science and art,” she says. The team also hopes to collect student feedback for future improvements.

U of T library project takes the cost burden out of course packs

Romi Levine — Thu, 22 Sep 2016 16:47:00 +0000

U of T library project takes the cost burden out of course packs

Romi Levine Thu, 09/22/2016 - 12:47

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Romi Levine

Author legacy

Romi Levine

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Libraries

Undergraduate Students

Education

Courses

Textbooks

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The zero-to-low cost course project is estimated to have saved students over $400,000

When 1,900 University of Toronto students sat in on their first lectures of the year, they were in for a pleasant surprise.

Their professors stood in front of the class and proudly proclaimed that students didn’t have to pay a thing for their course readings. They would be able to access all of their readings online thanks to the zero-to-low cost course (ZTLCC) project.

The project connects professors with librarians to find ways of sourcing course material digitally.

“Students were paying exorbitant prices for these course packs for things that were already available for free,” says Graeme Slaght, copyright outreach librarian at U of T libraries’ scholarly communications and copyright office.

The program, run by the copyright office, is estimated to have saved students over $400,000 since 2015.

Slaght says the cost of non-digital course packs can range from $40 to over $200.

The project was launched in the fall of 2014 after U of T decided to manage its own copyright dealings instead of utilizing the non-profit licensing service, Access Copyright.

Most of the material the university sources is part of U of T libraries’ electronic collections. The rest was obtained through the fair-dealing provision of the Copyright Act, which allows academic institutions to use copyrighted material, for which they may not have a license, as long as they meet certain criteria.

Professors from all three campuses can contact the copyright office if they want to participate in the project.

Kate Neville did just that. The assistant professor of political science, cross appointed with the School of the Environment, took advantage of the project as soon as she began teaching at U of T last year.

The copyright office says each of Neville’s students has saved $118.

“I really like the idea of using resources that U of T already has to help students minimize their additional costs for an already expensive education,” she says.

Neville says the program has allowed her to be flexible with the content she includes in the course.

“One of the nice things about the online readings is you can add readings later on that puts them with the rest of [students’] readings,” she says. “I liked the idea of a streamlined system that was integrated with a course website that they already had to be checking.”

And the library made the process easy and straightforward.

“Rather than me having to find those resources, photocopy them, provide them as you do for most of the course pack work, they did that groundwork,” says Neville. “I’m really appreciative of the library thinking of innovative ways to help students access materials.”

And the students are grateful as well.

“I had a student after an exam come up to me specifically to say that they were very pleased I had used this online reading source. They were glad to not to have had to buy a course pack,” Neville says.

Managing electronic resources is very complex and the resource librarian role is relatively new, says Slaght.

“So a lot of these issues like the value for electronic resources in teaching specifically and cost mitigation, there haven’t been many librarians who have been able to do a calculation on the value," he says. "Identifying that through these courses has been making that possible.”

Beyond this program, course reserves and syllabus services are also offered at all three campuses to help instructors deal with copyright issues, make readings available digitally and convert print to digital materials.