Textbooks are selected by instructors and paid for by students. This economic disjunction explains why the increase in textbook costs exceeds that of pharmaceuticals which are subject to a similar economic mismatch. Indeed, the cost of a new chemistry textbook often exceeds tuition for a three credit course at community colleges. Students find ways to avoid these costs, most damagingly by simply not using a textbook. States are beginning to recognize and deal with this problem. In September 2016 Rhode Island started an Open Textbook Initiative to zero out the cost of textbooks using open license materials. Commercial publishers market textbooks by providing ancillary services and support to faculty including test banks, presentations, on line homework systems, etc. To be successful replacing published textbooks, open educational resources must provide similar resources. This is important at research universities, but determining at teaching oriented higher educational institutions where teaching loads are high and help scarce. Over the last decade the ChemWIKI project, directed by Delmar Larsen, became a major on line textbook source, ranking high in almost any search for chemistry topics. While chemistry was the focus of the project, it has expanded to cover other fields including but not limited to biology, geology, math, statistics, physics and newly social sciences, engineering, and medicine. The goal is to become a single source for institutional textbook transformation. With this has come a new project title: LibreTexts. Faculty do not need to write their own book to generate a LibreText for their class but can create a map from existing LibreTexts to meet their own needs. Already created maps allow access to open on line texts which have been ported to LibreText. Given that the structure of most chemistry textbooks are similar, TextMaps also allow students access to maps of commercial textbooks using LibreText chapters. LibreText is also starting to include homework exercises, in class worksheets, case studies, visualizations and applets and lab and lecture demonstrations. On line homework and in class response systems are under development. Importantly, LibreText is open not only to readers but to those who have content they would wish to add or develop. Students too can join the development team. The MindTouch system requires posting privileges that can be arranged for through Prof. Larsen or other members of the team.

Instructor support is key to adoption of open educational systems

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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