UCT Open Textbook Journeys

The UCT Open Textbook Journeys monograph tells the stories of 11 academics at UCT who embarked on open textbook development initiatives in order to provide their students with more accessible and locally relevant learning materials. These academics’ stories detail the intricacies of open textbook production and the challenges and triumphs that are part of this endeavour.

The UCT Open Textbook Journeys monograph was authored by Bianca Masuku, Michelle Willmers, Henry Trotter and Glenda Cox of the Digital Open Textbooks for Development (DOT4D) project and published in collaboration with UCT Libraries on its continental open access book publishing platform.

The monograph contributes towards a better understanding of open textbook production by providing granular details related to authors’ processes and their reflections on their work. The collection aims to provide rich anecdotal evidence about the factors driving open textbook activity and shed light on how to go about conceptualising and producing open textbooks, and to aid the articulation of emerging open textbook production models at UCT that advance social justice in higher education.

The DOT4D project hopes that each story told will provide insight into the varied ways in which open textbook production can be undertaken, the practical outcomes that can be achieved in the classroom and the lessons learned about the challenging nature of this work. The monograph concludes with a list of recommendations to university managers, academics and students that address the sustainability of this work as part of the mainstream academic enterprise.