Aniket Bhattacharya [Champion of Open – Physics]

Describe Your Open Educational Resources And/Or Practices:

I have been using the OpenStax College Physics textbook for College Physics II. Several of my colleagues are also using the same textbook for College Physics I. Jim Paradiso, an instructional designer from the Center for Distributed Learning, has imported the entire textbook in my course module for easy access by the students. The textbook and other resources are entirely free which takes away big financial burden from the students.

Describe the impact open educational resources and/or practices has had on your teaching and/or students’ learning: 

In addition to the free textbook, I have extensively used many features of Webcourses@UCF, spending quite a lot of time in preparing asynchronous multiple choice tests and quizzes. Asynchronous tests and quizzes allow me to give more time for tests and quizzes. A large number of quizzes and tests measures ability of each student in small increments as well as in many different ways. My SPI far exceeded the department, College and UCF mean.

What is one piece of advice for other faculty interested in OER/P?

A survey shows that priority to buy textbooks comes only after lodging and food. Thus many students opt for not buying the book. As a result, they fall behind and perform poorly compared to others who can afford to buy expensive textbooks. Adopting Open Educational Resources brings equity on that score. It requires quite a lot of effort to make your tests and quizzes. It is better if it is done collectively by many faculty and share resources. We are doing that very efficiently in physics department.

Related Resources

• OpenStax College Physics: https://openstax.org/details/books/college-physics