The Adoption of an Open Textbook in a Large Physics Course: An Analysis of Cost, Outcomes, Use, and Perceptions | The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning Skip to main content Skip to main navigation menu Skip to site footer The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning Home About About the Journal Submissions Evidence of Student Achievement Editorial Team Privacy Statement Contact Current Archives Resources Conferences Search Register Search Search Register Login Home / Archives / Vol. 18 No. 4 (2017): Special Issue: Outcomes of Openness: Empirical Reports on the Implementation of OER / Research Articles The Adoption of an Open Textbook in a Large Physics Course: An Analysis of Cost, Outcomes, Use, and Perceptions Christina Hendricks University of British Columbia http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9461-4200 Stefan A. Reinsberg University of British Columbia Georg W Rieger University of British Columbia DOI: https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v18i4.3006 Keywords: open educational resources, open textbooks, online learning Abstract Assigning open textbooks in college and university courses can help students save money on increasingly expensive commercial textbooks, and recent research shows that this savings can often be achieved with little to no sacrifice in textbook quality or student learning outcomes. We add to this body of research by examining the use of an open textbook in an introductory physics course at a large research university in Canada that enrols approximately 800-900 students per year. In this course, the instructors revised an open textbook and combined it with other learning resources onto a single website, whereas more than one source of learning materials was used previously. We used the COUP framework to structure our analysis, focusing on cost, outcomes, use, and perceptions in relation to the open textbook assigned in the course. Through the use of a survey of students and data about student learning outcomes in the form of final exam and course grades, and shifts on the pre-/post- Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey, we show that student savings by moving to an open textbook were accompanied by little change in learning outcomes. We also show that the vast majority of survey respondents perceived the open textbook to be of the same or better quality than commercial textbooks used in their other courses. Further, many of them appreciated the fact that the textbook was customized to this particular course—which is made possible by the use of a textbook with an open license. Author Biographies Christina Hendricks, University of British Columbia Professor of Teaching, Philosophy Stefan A. Reinsberg, University of British Columbia Assisant Professor, Physics and Astronomy Georg W Rieger, University of British Columbia Instructor, Physics and Astronomy HTML PDF MP3 EPUB Appendix to "The adoption of an open textbook in a large physics course: An analysis of cost, outcomes, use, and perceptions" Published 2017-06-16 How to Cite Hendricks, C., Reinsberg, S. A., & Rieger, G. W. (2017). The Adoption of an Open Textbook in a Large Physics Course: An Analysis of Cost, Outcomes, Use, and Perceptions. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 18(4). https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v18i4.3006 More Citation Formats ACM ACS APA ABNT Chicago Harvard IEEE MLA Turabian Vancouver Download Citation Endnote/Zotero/Mendeley (RIS) BibTeX Issue Vol. 18 No. 4 (2017): Special Issue: Outcomes of Openness: Empirical Reports on the Implementation of OER Section Research Articles Copyright (c) 2017 Christina Hendricks, Stefan A. 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