With tuition and living costs on the rise, obtaining a post-secondary education can be extremely costly. One of the higher costs of education are textbook fees; a first year life sciences student can expect to pay $825.15 in new textbooks.
To reduce the overall cost and increase the accessibility of post-secondary education, open educational resources were created.
OERs are any type of educational materials that are in the public domain or introduced with an open license. They can be freely used, shared or adapted by anyone.
There are many benefits of open education. For students, the use of OERs can alleviate the stresses associated with exorbitant textbook costs.
In addition to cost-saving benefits, there are correlations between the use of OERs and higher grades, and the use of OERS and lower course withdrawal rates. Even more, accessible OERs can remove barriers for students with print disabilities.
The use of OERs also avoids the problems characteristic of traditional textbooks. Problems such as bundled content, use of access codes that control and limit access to material and the assignment of “updated” textbook editions made for the sole purpose of profit generation are resolved by the use of OERs.
With all the benefits, it begs the question why hasn’t McMaster University done more to push for OERs?
Recently, McMaster professor Catherine Anderson created the first open-access linguistics textbook with support from the university and a $15,000 grant from eCampusOntario’s open textbook initiative. While this is a great accomplishment, Anderson’s textbook is not enough to create open education on campus.
The McMaster Students Union has advocated for OERs in the past. Last year, they ran the #TextbookBroke campaign with the support of the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance. This campaign aimed to encourage instructors to adopt OERs in efforts to address textbook affordability.
The 2018 McMaster University budget submission form also recommends that the university invest $50,000 to support professors in adopting or creating OERs that are specific to McMaster courses.
The document contains many suggestions for the university, moved forward by the MSU. However, in light of the recent changes to post-secondary education funding made by the Ford government, it is unclear if any of the MSU’s recommendations, let alone a $50,000 fund for OERs, will materialize.
But beyond advocacy efforts by the MSU, the university has yet to provide legitimate support for open education. According to Olga Perkovic, co-chair of the McMaster OER committee, the committee’s workings are not supported financially or with policy.
This is in contrast with Queen’s University, who are at the forefront of open education in Ontario. The OER committee at Queen’s is a top-down movement, that is, their provost specifically made open education a priority, which involved providing financial and infrastructural support.
According to the MSU budget submission, other Canadian universities including the University of Alberta, Simon Fraser University and the University of Calgary have thousands of dollars in funding allocated for OERs.
McMaster ought to follow suit and prioritize open education for its students. To do so would mean to commit dedicated funds alongside time and efforts to ensure faculty members have the capacity to implement OERs in the classroom.
In the meantime, instructors can help support the open movement by using open materials in their courses whenever it is possible. There are many available collections of OERs for instructors to use. For example, the non-profit organization eCampusOntario hosts a provincially-funded open textbook library that carries hundreds of textbooks and other educational resources from a variety of disciplines.
Students can also support the open movement through discussing implementation of OERs with their instructors, uploading and encouraging their peers to upload their research onto McMaster’s institutional repository MacSphere and contacting the committee to recommend a president to ensure open education is a priority of the incoming president.
To stay up to date on the happenings of McMaster’s OER committee, the group’s meeting minutes are publicly available through McMaster LibGuides.
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By: Geena Sandhu
Assigned readings are an essential component of university life. Having said that, students should be given the option of purchasing their hefty 400-page McMaster University courseware as a digital copy with an included audio component.
Finding the time to sit down and read five assigned readings in one week is undeniably strenuous. As students, we prioritize completing assignments, papers and tests to the point where readings often become neglected.
This is where the solution of audiobooks comes in. Oftentimes, they are formatted so that one may listen to the text while simultaneously reading it.
We hear about leisure reading audiobooks, however, academia has also developed audiobooks. Many professors at McMaster have made their textbooks accessible online with a convergence feature, that is, the text being read aloud to the listener.
However, the long lines at the campus stores at the beginning of each semester indicate that many professors still prefer old school physical textbooks. Before pushing for more audio textbooks, is listening to a textbook as beneficial for students as reading it?
As a first-year student, when my professor announced the textbook could be accessed physically from the bookstore or online, I was hesitant towards the idea of an audio textbook because it was not something I was familiar with.
Even though the idea did not appeal to me, this semester I was obliged to try audio textbooks as one of my textbooks was only accessible through an online app.
Since then, the process of accessing my audio textbook at any time of the day through my iPhone rather than carrying a copy in my backpack has become exceedingly convenient.
One of the critical differences between reading and listening is that audiobooks are great for multitasking — on the condition that one of the tasks being performed is a menial job that does not hinder one’s mental capacity.
Since audiobooks are easily accessible, the text can be listened to while commuting to school, between classes, running errands, cleaning your room and in innumerable other instances. This is a great way to occupy extra time through doing something productive.
Additionally, scholarly textbooks can include words that may be too technical or advanced for students that are learning a concept for the first time. This may interfere in the process of the student comprehending the message. Consequently, students may become unmotivated to continue reading the required texts.
However, when an audiobook is used, it allows readers to effortlessly decode the message as well as learn the pronunciation of unfamiliar words as the narrator speaks.
McMaster is also a very diverse school where English is not everyone’s first language. The use of an audio textbook would be especially useful for English-language learners as audiobooks not only improve vocabulary and comprehension, but they also increase students’ ability to communicate with others.
Overall, the university should encourage instructors to offer audio textbook options as they benefit a wide range of students. Through audio, students will have an extra one to two hours for other productive activity, and also have a better time understanding the syntax behind a language.
My recommendation for students would be to set the pace of the narrator's voice to a speed that feels comfortable and compatible to your own. Students should also read and listen concurrently so that during a test, the words may appear familiar.
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Last week, the Silhouette News team wrote up platform critiques for each of this year’s McMaster Students Union presidential election candidates. The critiques collectively point out that while the candidates are trotting out some interesting ideas, many are patently unfeasible.
Madison Wesley advocates for a McMaster campus store textbook rental program, but the director of retail services at McMaster told our News contributor that the program would be impossible to implement.
Justin Lee hopes to unveil “Uber for Busses,” but does not establish how he will work with app developers, the Hamilton Street Railway, McMaster and Hamilton city council to bring this to fruition.
Jeffry Campana aspires to build a McMaster ice rink by 2020, but as our News Reporter highlighted, plans to do the same in previous years collapsed in the face of insurance and accessibility obstacles.
Josh Marando wants to increase the deferred maintenance budget by $12,000,000 a year. Nevertheless, as our Features Reporter articulates, Marando’s plan hinges on acquiring Ontario government grants. Under the Ford government and recent budget cuts, this plan is just not feasible.
This is not to say that this year’s candidates have a limited knowledge of the MSU and what students care about. With a renewed focus on issues like accessibility and food security, the candidates seem to be cognizant of at least some pervasive student concerns.
They just also failed to do their MSU due diligence and consultation homework.
Whoever wins tonight should keep in mind that the MSU president does not have jurisdiction beyond the maroon-coloured walls of the union’s office.
Our next MSU president should fight to uphold their promises, but also shrink their imagination down to what is possible during their term.
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After paying a couple grand for course enrollment per year, students have to dole out another hefty sum to purchase courseware. Many classes require textbooks, with midterm and exam questions being drawn from their pages. Reluctant to spend what is often upwards of $100 on a textbook that is likely to be only opened once or twice, students are forced to either forego the textbook marks or pay the cost and walk out of the campus store textbook in hand.
MSU President Ehima Osazuwa has been very vocal about his hope to reduce tuition, and now he turns his attention to the other major absorber of student funds: courseware.
“We tried to see if we can tackle the issue by having more courseware printed at Underground, because right now the majority of courseware is printed by the University and it is significantly more expensive than printing through Underground,” Osazuwa explained.
Printing through Underground, a full service media and design center located in the Student Center, would reduce costs per textbook by around $20 according to Osazuwa.
Ultimately, however, it is at the discretion of professors to decide to make the switch. The biggest challenge lies in incentivizing professors to print through Underground.
“We are trying to tackle the issue as a one-on-one relationship with the professors, especially those who teach big classes and have a lot of students.”
Implementing this philosophy is up to the President of VP Finance Daniel D’Angela as well as Underground employee Justin Barnes, whose goal has long been to increase courseware printing.
“Last year we ended up with $19,000 in sales from courseware, with the first semester making up only $3,000 of that portion,” said Osazuwa. He hopes that the increase will continue in the years to come.
Yet Osazuwa does not want to stop there. “The second thing was to make a Materials/Textbook Committee, because in my opinion the future of textbooks is online.”
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By: Christine Chow
Whether it’s the continuous Facebook notifications, the Campus store queue that never seems to dwindle over the first week of September, or the throng of people glancing doggedly at their phones and then at each other outside of MUSC Starbucks, nothing says “new school year” quite like the painful business of buying textbooks, or the subsequent hassle of getting them off your hands.
Gone are the days of meaningless cost replacement values, where returning your badly battered textbook to the teacher at the end of the semester was all it took to pay your due. University is a whole different ball game, and when a brand new textbook can cost you anywhere from $50 to $200, you’re better off saving yourself some money and buying them used.
In most cases, this is true, so long as you take the proper precautions to ensure you’re buying the current edition, or, if you do the latter, that it won’t compromise your learning experience.
If you’re having difficulties dumping your books on someone else once you’re through with them, know that you’re not alone. In the evolutionary arms race between used textbook sales and store-bought copies, the odds are stacked against you.
New textbooks now often come in packages with codes for online software that make up part of a course’s marking scheme. Even in cases where a used textbook for the course appears ideal, waiting to sell proves risky with sudden switches to newer editions.
Whether the so-called newer edition actually contains any useful, updated information or just a newly designed cover with renumbered pages is debatable. What is not, however, is the decreased market value of your textbook. Spamming the used sales group on Facebook is no longer going to cut it. So what are your alternatives?
Consider expanding your buyer base by using the MacInsiders marketplace or posting a Kijiji ad, the latter of which supports finding ways to reach out to students at different universities using the same textbook. Chances are they might be interested or even willing to pay more, depending on how the textbook in question is packaged and sold at their school.
If your book has truly reached the end of its lifespan, consider keeping an eye out for events like McMaster Science Society’s Textbook Swap Day, or donating it to Shinerama’s Textbook Drive in MUSC 201, which is taking textbooks until October.
Selling your textbook ASAP can make a huge difference. The sooner you get it off your hands, the less likely it is that you’ll have to deal with the blowback of a new edition. So if you’re taking a course in first semester, try to sell it in the second instead of waiting for the next year to swing around. Selling sooner, for example, right after exams, might also mean that the Campus Store will buy back your textbook at the Hole in the Wall for a higher price.
To keep up with new editions, ask your professor to tip you off at the beginning of the term about whether editions will be changed in the upcoming year. This could prove useful in deciding how much to invest in a copy, as loose-leaf and PDF versions, despite being harder to sell, might offer a more viable alternative. Whatever you do, don’t let your textbook sit on your shelf, where it’ll only collect dust. Don’t fool yourself. You’ll never pull it out again for a bit of light—er, heavy—reading.
