Over the decades I’ve assigned a lot of different types of books from nearly $200 textbooks that cover multiple classes to the reasonably priced Bedford series in History and Culture. Until 2006 I really had not put any thought into the price of books I assigned because when I was a student, in the 1990s, I never put any thought into the price of books I had to purchase. I just bought them. In fact, I would routinely purchase books assigned to other classes, even in other disciplines from biology to law. Anything that sounded interesting.
Over the years, I even assigned my own books. I’ve been fortunate that I’ve been able to get some work published by academic presses.
In 2006 I began teaching at a minority-majority campus and I started to pay attention. I learned about food deserts and housing issues from first hand accounts, starting with homeless students. Then I found out that the food, housing, health care and employment issues facing my students here in the Eastend of Houston are also being shared by students in West Houston.
The more I studied, read, and spoke with others in the field, the more I realized these seemingly local issues were actually national issues, generational issues. That the current college students face issues that I did not have to face. One of those issues being the skyrocketing price of textbooks and ancillaries.
Like I said, I was already published in academic presses. Nice for my curriculum vitae but that did not directly help students. How does spending years researching and writing a book on a focused, narrow subject going to benefit my students who need money to eat, sleep and provide for their health care? Then I wondered about the ethics of assigning your own books and the royalty system. That wasn't for me.
In 2006, I decided to cull my vast collection of openly available primary source documents, selected 5 documents per chapter of the textbook I was using and place it on the History Department’s webpage: publicly available to anyone in the world. And, my first OER was born -a reader covering the entire US history survey. It’s still there. Still being used.
About that time I attended a conference at Rice University on a new vehicle called Project Connexions. Project Connexions was a space where academics could publish OER. I began writing and editing condensed chapters immediately. More akin to an ancillary than a textbook. Combination of my lectures and other OER. Nothing too exciting.
Then my son was born, so things were placed on the back burner for a while. By the time I was ready to draft the 2nd edition of my ancillary, I had the idea of incorporating student-generated content into the chapters. In a coordinated, guided effort, I worked closely with my students to do so.
But the real Gordon Knot was the textbook industry, and so in 2017 I decided to turn the ancillary into a full-fledged textbook with images, hyperlinks and sources. I was turned on to PressBooks. Quite user friendly. Two years later, with the help of many students, we completed the first half of the new textbook: A Road Less Traveled: An Ancillary to Our Story. The “ancillary” in the title is not in reference to the type of book, but rather that the book is an addendum, an addition, an auxiliary to “Our Story,” US History.
https://ourstory.pressbooks.com/
So now I use OER exclusively because doing so directly benefits students. Again, getting another book published by a university press helps my cv, but putting out another OER helps students. They've told me so. Every class. “Our Story“ is about us for us by us. There’s no cost. No one gets remunerated. This is a labor of devotion, commitment and service.
In addition, I see my position as one of service to provide and enhance equity and access by facilitating a more affordable education opportunity. OER provides equity, access and affordability more so than another publication in an academic press.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
