What if there were enough coursebooks for everyone?
In Finland and the Nordic countries, there is an internationally unique practice: academic libraries acquire the literature required on courses for the students of their own organisation. For example, in the United States and Canada, students purchase their coursebooks themselves, as they do in many European countries, which places students from different backgrounds in an unequal position.
However, the Library’s budget cannot be used solely for acquiring coursebooks. This means that if a coursebook is not available with a licence for an unlimited number of users, students must queue for access to the book in much the same way as when printed books were still the mainstream.
Where possible, the Tampere University Library seeks to acquire licences allowing an unlimited number of users for coursebooks, but not all titles are available under this model. Coursebooks and textbooks are often among the most profitable items for academic publishers, and therefore they may be offered only through annual subscription licences or licences tied to a specific number of uses. In effect, the resources are rented rather than permanently owned by the Library. Such licensing models are not only expensive for higher education institutions, but also somewhat unpredictable in terms of availability.
By contrast, open access books allow an unlimited number of simultaneous users, and thanks to Creative Commons licences, they are often easier to use for a variety of teaching and research purposes. OA books are available online anywhere and can be easily accessed.
Openness also brings greater certainty of long-term access to information resources. OA books are stored on several different platforms, reducing the risk of their becoming unavailable due to technical problems or company acquisitions compared with books behind paywalls. A Creative Commons licence cannot be revoked retrospectively either, meaning that a work cannot be returned behind a paywall.
Is it any good if it’s free?
As is often the case when discussing open access publications, quality and coverage emerge as the most common concerns. However, professionally run publishers ensure the quality assurance and editorial processes of OA books in exactly the same way as for other books. The Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB), a key database of OA books, already contains approximately 100,000 peer-reviewed works, some of which are marked with the PRISM label. PRISM is a standardised way of describing the peer-review process that each work has undergone.
According to some studies, students using open textbooks have achieved learning outcomes that are as good as, or better than, those of students using commercial textbooks, and course withdrawal rates were lower on courses using open educational resources (Clinton & Khan, 2019; Fischer et al. 2015; Hilton, J. 2016).
As for the coverage and richness of OA books, it can only be improved by ensuring sufficient incentives for authors and publishers of open access publications. In this respect, the reform of responsible research assessment plays an important role.
Find out more:
- Libguides: Teacher's guide: Open course books
- OA Books Toolkit: Common myths about open access
Author: Anna Ruth, Information Specialist
Translated into English using Microsoft Copilot
