BLACKSBURG, Va. (WFXR) – Virginia Tech continues its agenda to making school more affordable and accessible to students, as the university libraries are helping students afford course materials by publishing freely available textbooks authored by VT faculty.
According to VT, students consistently report that the costs of textbooks cause them to not purchase textbooks for class. With the costs of textbooks being a barrier for students for a long time, university libraries are aiming to help combat this issue, implementing free open textbooks available online under an open license.
“Everything that we do is freely available under an open license, which allows adaptation in different settings,” said Assistant Director for Open Education Anita Walz. “Professors can customize a work to make it fit their learning needs for their course.”
Open education is working with faculty around the to adopt, create and adapt open educational resources. Through using open textbooks, the university hopes to help students reduce stress and save money during their education.
“I completely empathize with the students,” said Laura Neser, an earth science instructor at the university who created an open textbook for her students. “It’s part of why I developed this free textbook book because I’ve been there. I completely understand the frustrations with textbook prices.”
For more information or for a full list of open textbooks available, visit https://guides.lib.vt.edu/oer/grantees.
