Students, faculty and other representatives from across British Columbia’s post-secondary sector have been selected to advise on Canada’s first publicly funded open textbook project.
In October 2012, Minister of Advanced Education, Innovation and Technology John Yap announced the move to offer students free, online, open textbooks for 40 high-enrolment and high-impact first and second year post-secondary courses.
Up to 200,000 BC students each year could benefit from this move, each saving hundreds of dollars a year or more on textbooks.
The open textbooks project will be co-ordinated by BC campus, a publicly funded organization that aims to make higher education available to everyone through the smart use of collaborative information technology services.
After a call for nominations that resulted in over 40 names being put forward, the BC campus Strategic Council has chosen 16 representatives to serve on its open textbook subcommittee.
