The first Canadian open textbook in the field of Tourism Management has Royal Roads University roots

Posted on March 4, 2016

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A recently published text in the BCcampus Open Textbook collection includes chapters written by current and former Royal Roads faculty and students. School of Tourism and Hospitality Management professors Geoffrey Bird, Rebecca Wilson-Mah and Eugene Thomlinson, along with associate faculty member Ray Freeman and graduate student Kelley Glazer contributed chapters to Introduction to Tourism and Hospitality in BC, the first Canadian open textbook in the field of tourism management. Another half dozen former RRU instructors and students contributed chapters or reviewed the text.

Open textbooks are free for student and instructor use and can be modified to suit specific needs. BCcampus embarked on a project to develop and adapt Open Textbooks for BC post-secondary institutions in 2012. Today there are over 130 titles available.

Geoffrey Bird commented that “there is a really strong community in B.C. of educators with a collaborative approach to curriculum development”. An open textbook is an obvious next step. Rebecca Wilson-Mah praised the new text for having a Canadian perspective. She also observed that it included recent developments in the field and would remain current because it used a much more dynamic revision system.

BCcampus is currently accepting proposals for the creation of ancillary materials (PowerPoint sets, quiz banks) for existing open textbooks. Open Education Week is March 7-11 with online workshops about open educational resources and open textbooks. CTET has more information about open textbooks and their integration into specific courses.