As public funding for higher education decreases and the cost to students to attend college increases, universities are searching for strategies that save students money while also increasing their chances for success. Using free online textbooks is one such strategy, and the OpenStax College initiative at Rice University is one of the most widely…

The rise of Open Educational Resources (OER) research provides data that Open Textbooks and other forms of OER may be one cost saving approach for college and university students. Yet little research has been conducted around the attitudes and perceptions of the students using these Open Textbooks. This paper examines the perceptions that students…

This study analyzes the concepts, attitudes, and practices of 327 pedagogy students from two major Spanish universities related to the process of finding academic information utilizing open access. A training program has been developed through an innovation project (PIMCD) to address the problem of the lack of university training designed to…

The high cost of textbooks is of concern not only to college students but also to society as a whole. Open textbooks promise the same educational benefits as traditional textbooks; however, their efficacy remains largely untested. We report on one community college's adoption of a collection of open resources across five different mathematics…

Textbooks too often hinder rather than help students because of their prohibitively expensive prices. Colleges and universities facing intense pressure to lower education expenses while increasing access, retention, and achievement now find addressing the textbook problem more and more urgent. Used textbook sales have grown dramatically over the…

This study reports findings from a year-long pilot study during which 991 students in 9 core courses in the Virginia State University School of Business replaced traditional textbooks with openly licensed books and other digital content. The university made a deliberate decision to use open textbooks that were copyrighted under the Creative…

The IADIS CELDA 2012 Conference intention was to address the main issues concerned with evolving learning processes and supporting pedagogies and applications in the digital age. There had been advances in both cognitive psychology and computing that have affected the educational arena. The convergence of these two disciplines is increasing at a…