Brandeis Faculty Publish Open Textbook with Support From Open Educational Resources Grant
Brandeis University lecturers in Peace, Conflict and Coexistence Studies Peter Gould and John Ungerleider have published an open textbook for PAX 120B: Inner Peace and Outer Peace.
The Inner Peace Outer Peace Reader was developed with support from the Open Educational Resources Grant. To address the high costs of textbooks and other academic resources, the Brandeis Library and the Center for Teaching and Learning sponsor grants each year for faculty who are interested in incorporating open and affordable educational resources into their courses.
Each grant recipient also works with a librarian and an instructional designer from the Rabb School on their grant project. Social Sciences Librarian Maric Kramer and Instructional Designer Lance Eaton supported Gould and Ungerleider on the development of their textbook.
Gould and Ungerleider together on Jan. 23 launched their open textbook at a ceremony during class, inviting students to download the free resource. The book is available at https://innerouterpeace.pressbooks.com/ .
Open educational resources (OER) are learning resources such as articles, books, audio recordings, images, video, software and digital tools that one is licensed to retain, reuse, revise, remix and redistribute. Examples of learning resources available include an open textbook for physics, an anthology of early American literature, and a small library of philosophy books that are open for instructors and students alike to use.
Instructors can take interesting materials like these and mix them together, as well as edit and augment them, then provide them to students as learning materials.
OER are part of the open access movement, which promotes the idea that all research should be freely available and accessible online once published. Traditional publishing can contain cost or use restrictions that prevent the full community of potential users from accessing the information.
The Library supports open access through several important initiatives. A guide to open access resources and information on the Brandeis Open Access Fund are available on our site.