Open Educational Resources: Tailor Your Textbook, Not Your Course Design

Abstract

Instructors often design course content around commercial textbooks, which dictate the sequence of topics and impose financial burdens on students. This poster presentation explores an alternative: using existing open educational resources (OER) to create custom textbooks that align with your course structure. By adapting OER, instructors can organize topics in the order that best suits their teaching, providing students with free, accessible materials. Additionally, many institutions offer grants and technical assistance to support the development of these tailored resources, offering a flexible, cost-effective solution that prioritizes course objectives over predesigned textbooks. In higher education, the traditional textbook regularly serves as the cornerstone of course design, yet the widespread reliance on commercial textbooks has long been a point of contention. These textbooks often dictate the sequence and depth of topics covered in a course, forcing educators to adapt their course design to the textbook rather than designing a course that best matches the instructor's pedagogical approach. Additionally, the high cost of these textbooks places a financial strain on students, sometimes hindering their academic success. However, there is an alternative approach: adapting existing open educational resources (OER) to develop textbooks or other course materials tailored to the instructor's pedagogical approach and course objectives. OER are freely available, openly-licensed educational materials that can be reused, revised, and redistributed. They are most commonly released under a Creative Commons license which allows adaptation with attribution to the original author. These licenses enable educators to legally modify and share educational content, which is essential for freely creating customized textbooks that meet specific course needs. Adapting existing OER to generate customized textbooks represents a significant advancement in higher education pedagogy. Educators can break free from the constraints of commercial textbooks by adopting and adapting OER, allowing them to customize content, reduce student costs, and enhance pedagogical flexibility. This presentation draws on the examples of co-author Dr. Laura Neser’s adapted open textbooks, Introduction to Earth Science (2022) and Introduction to Earth Science, second edition (2025). Since its publication in 2022, Dr. Neser’s textbook has been downloaded over 170,000 times, not including additional views of the HTML version of the book at https://pressbooks.lib.vt.edu/introearthscience/. Moreover, at least 54 colleges and universities worldwide have adopted all or part of the textbook, which has been viewed in 100 countries. The poster presentation aims to equip educators with the knowledge and tools needed to identify, adapt, and integrate OER into their courses. This process includes: (1) identifying suitable OER materials that align with course objectives; (2) adapting these materials to fit the desired course structure and sequence; and (3) utilizing grants and institutional resources to support the adaptation of OER-based textbooks. The grants presented on this poster are specific to Virginia Tech faculty; however, similar resources may be available at your own institution to support the adaptation of OER materials in your courses. By adapting OER, instructors can create customized textbooks that are free, flexible, and aligned with their pedagogical goals. This strategy offers a practical solution to the limitations of commercial textbooks, fostering a more student-centered and flexible approach to course design.