University students incur large expenses in pursuit of a degree, and one of the major costs is textbooks. However, numerous groups at the University of Saskatchewan continue to combat this expense with an open textbook campaign.

The open textbooks initiative seeks to lower costs for students and to increase the flexibility of learning materials in the classroom. The campaign, running until the end of the term and led by the U of S Students’ Union, the Campus Bookstore and the Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching Effectiveness, is promoting open textbooks as a valuable resource for both teachers and students alike, while saving students money along the way.

Brooke Malinoski, vice-president academic affairs of the USSU, is one of the major leaders involved in the campaign.

“Open textbooks is something that I ran on — it was one of my campaign points during last year’s election. It’s something I just think is really important as far as a way to alleviate costs for students,” Malinoski said.

For Malinoski, a key benefit of open textbooks is that they allow students to save money and  that they provide access to those who can not afford textbooks otherwise. This information format saves money because open textbooks cannot be sold for profit. Generally, the only charge associated with open textbooks is the cost needed to transfer the textbook from a digital to a physical platform, such as when the Campus Bookstore prints copies.

Heather Ross, educational developer at the Gwenna Moss Centre, shares what open textbooks have already done for U of S students.

“We have been [working on open textbooks] for about three years. Over those three years  we have saved students, through this initiative, about $400,000. There is around 2,700 students at the university this year using open textbooks and I suspect there is going to be more next term. We’ll see probably another big jump for the next academic year,” Ross said.

Ross also delved into the pros and cons of open textbooks, stating that there are many positive aspects associated with them.

“First of all, the thing that students seem to care the most about is the cost savings. Open textbooks are free for students and for anybody to access. The other big thing about them is that, because they don’t have copyright restrictions on them, they can be adapted to meet the needs of local programs [and] local institutions,” Ross said.

According to Ross, one college at the U of S has already added to the open textbook database by creating their own adaptation of a textbook.

“The Edwards School of Business completed an adaptation this summer of a book out of the U.S., an open textbook that they are using in one of their first-year courses. They were able to customize it, they made it Canadian [and] they made it specific to the course they needed, and now it’s benefitting this year about 450 students just in Edwards,” Ross said.

She explains that, with a flexible resource like open textbooks, large scale adaptations can easily be made and errors can be corrected quickly. However, she says that there are some downsides to this resource.

“The downside is, any time that an instructor changes textbooks for a course, there is a time commitment to that because they need to update their course notes. They may need to update their assessments they made to create new slides [and] other resources for class,” Ross said.

These responsibilities normally would be handled by publishing companies, but relying on publishing companies increases expenses for students. Ross explains that most open textbooks available now are for large, first-year classes, but that the availability will expand as more work is put into creating the resource.

Malinoski also details how students can access the open textbooks that are currently available.

“There’s actually a website, it’s open.usask.ca, … and it tells you what is open, open textbooks that are available at the university, the classes that are using them. I’m hoping that by educating themselves, [students] can start the conversations, be it with faculty members [or] be it with their fellow classmates.”

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Jack Thompson / Staff Writer

Graphic: Lesia Karalash / Graphics Editor