Last year at the OpenEd 2012 Conference held at UBC, the BC government committed to being the first province in Canada to offer students free, online, open textbooks for a variety of popular subjects. It was an exciting announcement for all people who have been tracking open educational resources and the open movement in education. The project will result in free and openly licensed textbooks available online for web or mobile consumption, or for download which can be printed by instructors and students for use in their courses.
My understanding is that the textbooks are not being required or imposed upon instructors, who can still choose the textbook which suits their needs. The textbooks are to be aimed at broad introductory courses which tend to have a common curriculum throughout the province. Instructors may choose to use the texts in full or mix and match parts of the online textbooks to suit their curriculum needs.
Last week the BC government provided an update on its progress with the project and released the 40 texts which are being developed. The 40 textbooks which are being developed are listed below:
- English – 1st year
- Math and Stats – 1st year
- Psychology – 1st year
- Economics (macro and micro) – 1st year
- Biology- 1st year
- Math and Stats – 2nd year
- Accounting – 1st year
- Chemistry – 1st year
- Physics and Astronomy – 1st year
- Sociology – 1st year
- Philosophy – 1st year
- Computer Science – 1st year
- Chemistry – 2nd year
- Business, Business Administration and Management – 1st year
- Psychology – 2nd year
- Criminology – 1st year
- Accounting – 2nd year
- Economics (macro and micro) – 2nd year
- Marketing – 1st year
- Biology – 2nd year
- Commerce – 2nd year
- Anthropology – 1st year
- Business Information Systems/Business Computer Systems/Business Information Technology – 1st year
- Visual Arts, Media and Design – 1st year
- Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Science – 1st year
- Kinetics/Kinesiology- 1st year
- Communications – 1st year
- English – 2nd year
- Geography – 1st year
- Human Resources and Organizational Behaviour – 2nd year
- Applied Science – 1st year
- French – 1st year
- History – 1st year
- Political Science – 1st year
- Visual Arts, Media and Design – 2nd year
- Communications – 2nd year
- Sociology – 2nd year
- Applied Science – 2nd year
- Political Science – 2nd year
- Human Resources and Organizational Behaviour – 1st year