On day two of International Open Access Week we explore Open Educational Resources, an important method for sharing knowledge with students and the public.
Griffith University’s new textbook Introduction to Criminology and Criminal Justice: An Australasian Perspective is the result of a shared vision amongst educators and the Library. The new e-book is part of a growing movement providing students with access to contemporary and high-quality textbooks. These new locally written and produced texts also have the advantage of providing current and emerging practice and thought from our region, using examples from Australia, New Zealand, Asia and the Pacific Islands.
Associate Professor Nadine M. Connell co-editor and author, explains that the vision for this textbook extends beyond just high-quality content. It’s focused on ensuring accessibility and flexibility. The textbook is free to students and lifelong learners, designed with inclusivity in mind and adaptable to different learning needs. Additionally, it allows for the integration of new research and ideas, bypassing the lengthy processes of traditional publishing.
The textbook also incorporates additional resources such as self-assessment quizzes and links to research presentations about projects discussed in the textbook. In this way, students can actively engage in the material beyond the written word and immerse themselves in the field of criminology.
Since it’s publication the textbook has had over 11,000 page views from over 5800 visitors.
Image of the book cover: Elicit the Change you Seek’ by Rachel Dioso-Villa is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International Licence.
We asked Nadine what tips she would provide other educators interested in publishing an open textbook. Here are her top five:
- Be targeted in your content goals: Griffith criminology educators took the approach of developing a resource they wanted their students to have. In their case a first-year cohort of 1200-1500 students each year meant it was a good investment in time and resources.
- It takes longer than you think: This is especially important if you are going to be creating additional resources.
- Use templates: It makes life so much easier for all the people involved. It also gives a multi-author textbook a unified feel and ensures that everyone is on the same page about content expectations.
- Involve students and compensate them: Students can co-write chapters with academics, interview academics about their research projects and write up the results or create presentations sharing their own research experiences with their peers.
- Work closely with your copyright team from the beginning: The Griffith Library team worked with us every step of the way, which helped us save time and gave us good insight into how to incorporate additional resources such as images and graphs in appropriate ways.
In 2025, first year Criminology students will use the text as a core resource. Outside of that, the book is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License making it free for everyone to read, reuse or adapt as they need, for non-commercial purposes. That includes use as course materials and readings for students or for use in community knowledge development and research.
To enhance your teaching and learning please access other recently published Australian open education resources . If you want to find out more please, contact the Library.
