Internet Learning Volume 6, Number 2, Fall 2017/Winter 2018 | Page 45

Internet Learning Journal
When universities started using
textbooks, there simply were not many
alternatives or ways for students to access
information. Yet, as technology
and pathways to learning have changed,
people’s views have not always followed
suit. Textbooks are frequently simply a
synthesis of the major works in the field.
So, does it matter whether the information
is synthesized by a subject matter
expert being paid by a publishing company
or one being paid by a university?
Software Considerations
Colleagues outside of the social sciences
purport that there are fields in
which textbooks are essential; and we
have no doubt that it is more difficult
to find alternatives texts in some disciplines.
OERs may not be the answer
for every course. However, we have
been able to replace costly materials in
courses where we were told it would be
infeasible. For instance, we had a lot of
pushback against removing commercial
software from language classes. We
decided to have a colleague try it in an
Arabic course. Not only was the professor
able to replace the commercial
software with her own audio files, video
lessons, and use of library software,
she was able to increase retention in the
class significantly.
Time Concerns
Some of our colleagues also thought it
was a waste of their time to reinvent
the wheel, so to speak, when textbooks
already exist. In some instances, book
publishers will not only offer the textbooks
themselves, but a whole host of
other corresponding classroom materials
that, in a way, takes some of the
thought out of faculty curation of course
materials. In such cases, the textbook is
used as a framework for the course, and
the publisher provides additional materials
including supplemental articles,
videos, etc. However, we are not reinventing
the wheel. Rather, we are making
our own custom-made one. There
is a real advantage to students when
professors purposefully select OERs because
they can update and adjust readings
in response to current events and
student needs. Ultimately, OERs provide
faculty members with an opportunity
to change their teaching styles
and create courses that better suit their
students’ learning styles (Haricombe,
2017). Graduate programs should require
dynamic courses in which the
currency of literature is paramount.
Seminal Thinkers
In fields like international relations and
intelligence studies, in which we teach,
this is especially true given the constantly
evolving state of the discipline
and external events that drive it. We
should be changing content based on
what is happening in the world, rather
than the revision schedule of a textbook
publisher. Textbooks can be obsolete as
soon as they reach the market. In some
cases, when an entire book is of high
quality and worth reading, we list it as
recommended/optional material so that
students can decide if and when they
read it. Some of our program’s faculty
members argued that students need
textbooks in order to be exposed to
44