Undergraduate Student Perspectives on Textbook Costs and Implications for Academic Success

To provide more affordable course content to our students and faculty, local data on how students perceive textbook expenses and how the costs impact student success would be necessary in order to advocate to faculty and other stakeholders. This survey, conducted at a mid-sized research public institution, aims to explore student perceptions of textbooks and how these perceptions influence academic success. The results reveal that students feel that the cost of required textbooks is unreasonable and that students are more likely to purchase required textbooks for in-major classes than for elective or general education courses. The most common means of reducing costs are purchasing from a vendor other than the campus bookstore, renting, or sharing books with classmates. Implications for academic success included not purchasing required textbooks or withdrawing from a course due to not having the materials. Students whose majors are housed in the College of Business have the highest textbook costs

Open Praxis, volume 11 issue 4

This Open Praxis publishes 10 selected papers among those presented in the 2019 Open Education Global Conference, hosted by Politecnico di Milano (Polimi) and held in Milan (Italy) from November 26 to 28, 2019

Digital Technologies for Learning at Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU): Investigating Needs and Challenges

The present study investigated the need of digital technologies for the distance learners of AIOU (Allama Iqbal Open University), and the challenges in its implementation. Within mixed-method approach, an explanatory sequential design was employed to conduct this study. Quantitative data was collected through questionnaires from 963 students to find out the needs for digital technologies. Later 3 administrators and 1 library in-charge were interviewed to find out the challenges in its implementation. Quantitative data was analyzed using descriptive statistics. For qualitative data analysis, inductive analysis was done. Most of the students said that digital technologies were needed for increasing accessibility and flexibility of learning. The challenges for its implementation were in the requirement of diverse online learning resources, access, cost and lack of expertise. The paper recommended that there should be provision of portable devices to students with Wi-Fi, and guidance about its use. Annual need-assessment system was also suggested

Open Education for a Better World: A Mentoring Programme Fostering Design and Reuse of Open Educational Resources for Sustainable Development Goals

An international online mentoring programme Open Education for a Better World (OE4BW) has been developed to unlock the potential of open education in achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The programme provides an innovative approach to building Open Educational Resources, connecting developers of educational materials with experts volunteering as mentors. The model of the programme has been carefully designed and tested in two subsequent implementations in years 2018 and 2019. Results have proved the model to be useful for building capacities in open education, while producing concrete educational materials with great potential for social impact. Analysis of results has been used to suggest further improvements needed for enabling the program to be used on an even larger scale. The paper presents the development of the OE4BW model, its main characteristics, implementation results and guidelines for the future

Book Review of Transactional Distance and Adaptive Learning: Planning for the Future of Higher Education

Book Review of Transactional Distance and Adaptive Learning: Planning for the Future of Higher Education

Quality and Cost Matter: Students’ Perceptions of Open versus Non-Open Texts through a Single-Blind Review

Although prior research has examined student perceptions of open materials, research investigating students’ perceptions of open versus copyright-restricted textbooks through a direct, experimental approach is lacking. To better understand how students perceive open textbooks outside the context of the classroom, we examined students’ perceptions of unfamiliar open and non-open (copyright-restricted) psychology textbooks. Forty-four introductory psychology students reviewed chapters from two open textbooks and two traditional/copyrightrestricted textbooks and then ranked the textbooks from most to least favourite. Students rated each chapter on several quality measures, including layout structure, visual appeal, ease of reading, and instructional features. Next, bibliographical information and cost were revealed, and students re-ranked the textbooks accordingly. Before knowing the bibliographic information and cost, students were more likely to prefer the two traditional textbooks. There after, they were more likely to select the open texts. Students often referred to textbook price as a determining factor for their change

Brief report on Open Praxis figures and progress

This brief introduction in the first Open Praxis issue in 2020 reports on some and information and data about the Open Praxis development in the period from January 2013 to December 2019, with a special focus on volume 11, published in 2019. After the brief report, what follows is an introduction to the first Open Praxis issue in volume 12, which includes nine research papers, one innovative practice paper and one book review.

Instructional Designers and Open Education Practices: Negotiating the Gap Between Intentional and Operational Agency

In their role as support to faculty in the course development process, Instructional Designers (IDs) can play an important part in alleviating some of the well-known barriers of open education practices (OEP): faculty time, institutional or faculty resistance to change, and institutional support for faculty (Annand & Jensen, 2017; Barker et al., 2018; Jhangiani et al., 2016). This study examines how IDs negotiate OEP in the course development process or in the process of working with faculty. The findings suggest that IDs are negotiating institutional constraints while attempting to be OEP advocates in their work. To use Campbell, Schwier and Kenny’s (2009) framing of intentional and operational agency, the IDs in this study described a high level of intentional agency, but their operational agency could be enhanced with greater clarity of expectations with respect to their role, resources and capacity to engage with OEP, clarity of directives and support from senior leadership, as well as a broader awareness of the moral and practical affordances of OEP within their institutions

Culture, Identity and Learning: A Mediation Model in the Context of Blogging in Teacher Education

National culture has been an influential framework for comparative and international research. However, current theories suggest that people and societies are rather more complex constructs than their cultural layer. This work is based on a previous study in which, when students from Spain were compared to German students, the former showed higher levels of identity with their blogs and learning impact. The current study is a step forward as it presents the differences in identity and learning impact in blogging between Spanish and Israeli student teachers and offers a mediation model in which the relationship between culture and learning is mediated by the identity factor. The results show that Spanish student teachers feel more identified with their blogs and thus perceive a greater learning impact. Accordingly, this work suggests that blogging could act as learning spaces that may raise students’ identity with their learning products and their self-perceived learning impact

Introduction to selected papers on Open Education for an Open Future

This Open Praxis publishes 10 selected papers among those presented in the 2019 Open Education Global Conference, hosted by Politecnico di Milano (Polimi) and held in Milan (Italy) from November 26 to 28, 2019