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 particular traction is that of open access textbooks, which will be addressed in the next section.

Open Textbooks

As the Hewlett definition of OERs sets out, they can include textbooks. The field of open textbooks has proven to be one of the most amenable to the open approach, and provides solid evidence of cost savings, and pedagogical benefits. Indeed, in much of North America, open textbooks have become almost synonymous with OERs. The premise of open textbooks is relatively ­simple – ­create electronic versions of standard textbooks that are freely available and can be modified by users. The physical versions of such books are available at a low cost to cover printing, for as little as US$5 (Wiley 2011b). The motivations for doing so are particularly evident in the US, where the cost of textbooks accounts for 26% of a ­4-​­year degree programme (GAO 2005). This creates a strong economic argument for their adoption.

There are a number of projects developing open textbooks, using various models of production. A good example is OpenStax, who have funding from several foundations. They target the subject areas with large national student populations, for example, ‘Introductory Statistics’, ‘Concepts of Biology’, ‘Introduction to Sociology’, etc. The books are ­co-​­authored and authors are paid a fee to work on the books, which are peer-​­reviewed. The electronic versions of these are free, and print versions available at cost. The books are released under a CC-​­BY license, and educators are encouraged to modify the textbooks to suit their own needs. In terms of adoption, the OpenStax textbooks have been downloaded over 120,000 times and 200 institutions have decided to formally adopt OpenStax materials, leading to an estimated US$3 million savings for students