SUNY Open Textbooks

Purchase College has signed on to participate in SUNY’s current initiative to promote the use of Open Educational Resources (OERs).  Part of SUNY’s support for OER use has been the development of SUNY Open Textbooks (https://textbooks.opensuny.org).  This library of freely-available course texts includes the catalogs of open texts from Lumen Learning and from OpenStax, volumes produced by SUNY faculty as part of OpenSUNY-supported projects, and a variety of other OER text sources.  I’m using a Physical Geology text developed as part of an initiative from British Columbia for my Geology course this fall.

The SUNY Open Textbooks catalog is available at https://courses.lumenlearning.com/catalog/suny. Just a few of the example texts include:

• Biology for Majors II - https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-wmopen-biology2/
• College Success - https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-collegesuccess-lumen1/
• English Composition I - https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-englishcomp1v2/
• Introduction to Psychology - https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-intropsychmaster/
• Western Civilization - https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-hccc-worldhistory/
• Etc…..

The texts available through SUNY Open Textbooks can be used as is, or you can be set up with an editable copy specific for your course at Purchase, that you (and your students, if you want to involve them) can customize.  Some campuses have print-on-demand arrangements with their bookstores to allow students to get inexpensive printed copies of the textbooks if they want.  We don’t have this set up yet, but will explore the issue as part of the work of the OER task force that was authorized by College Senate this week.