Page:The battle for open.pdf/88

 (Green 2013). Similarly, a report by the Open Course Library (Allen 2013) estimated that OCL had saved ­students US$5.5 million since its inception, with students saving an average of US$96 per course compared with using traditional t­extbooks – ­some 90% reduction over the previous cost, which would equate to US$41.6 million at adoption across the state of Washington. The College of the Canyons has estimated its savings from open textbooks to be in the region of US$400,000 (Daly et al. 2013) using a formula based on previous purchasing patterns. It should be noted that these savings are often against projected spending of students, and so claiming them can be contentious, as it assumes students would buy the books.

As well as the financial impact, there may well be an educational one, simply because the costs of textbooks prevent many students from purchasing them. Feldstein et al. (2013) reported that while just 47% of students purchased the paper textbooks, most due to finding them unaffordable, when they switched to open textbooks, 93% of students reported reading the free online textbook.

Perhaps one reason why open textbooks are proving to be a fruitful area for OER implementation is that they readily map onto existing practices. One of the problems that learning objects encountered was that in order for them to be successful they required too many alien or novel practices to be a­ dopted – sharing teaching material, uploading it to repositories, tagging it with metadata, using other people’s material in elearning courses, etc. Open textbooks simply require an educator (or institution, state or country) to recommend a different textbook. As long as the quality of this book is deemed to be as good, if not better than the standard text, the cost savings alone become an irresistible driver for their uptake. Choosing between two alternatives of equal educational value, the price becomes a factor, and free is difficult to beat. Other factors, such as open licenses and the