Document Actions
FHSST Case Study Presented at Open Textbook Meeting
By Cynthia Jimes
On August 21-23, several open textbook project leaders, researchers, collaborators and open textbook publishers met at the University of California, Irvine (UC Irvine) to discuss how the development and use of open textbooks is best supported and sustained. At the meeting, which was hosted by the Hewlett Foundation and UC Irvine’s Distance Learning Center, there were presentations on open textbook projects, and on quality and technology issues within such projects. These included, for example, a demonstration of the textbook project Open Reference Mathematics, a presentation on balancing the needs of diverse open textbook communities, and a presentation of the Free High School Science Texts (FHSST) case study project.
The FHSST case study, presented by Lisa Petrides, discussed several topics of relevance to open textbook sustainability, including the role of teachers and learners as co-creators of open textbook content, and the potential importance of hybrid models of peer production that simultaneously draw on face-to-face group work and online content authoring platforms. The FHSST presentation served as a concrete example that meeting participants drew upon during the remaining days’ dialogue—which focused on, among other things, defining an “open textbook” in light of teacher and learner needs, and the necessity of developing online spaces where teachers, learners and other users can interact and collaborate around textbook use and reuse possibilities.
The FHSST presentation slides, titled “The Case of Free High School Science Texts: Leveraging Community and Technology to Meet Local Teaching and Learning Needs”, can be downloaded in the resources section of iCommons from here.
If you have questions about the FHSST presentation, please contact Cynthia Jimes at cynthia@iskme.org.
