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Can the Physics Community take the OpenStax books from Good to Great?

Join Expert TA for a fireside chat followed by an open-forum discussion.

How is collaboration done to improve Open Education Resources (OER)? Specifically, regarding the OpenStax textbooks, what would it take for physics educators to turn them into the best books available?

The premise of affordable OERs is a wonderful idea, but we think what is missing is a centralized, organized approach. We would like to help with that part. We are contributing to this cause by providing a platform that allows faculty to effectively collaborate to make these resources better. We have also established editorial teams and have started a broad conversation with physics educators about joining an effort to take the OpenStax textbooks from good to great. Over 250 instructors have demonstrated the need for change in these textbooks by requesting access to our eBook Editor and dozens have submitted detailed reviews of the OpenStax texts. We want more people in this conversation, either to informally submit recommendations, or as paid members of one of our editorial teams.

Join Expert TA CEO, Jeremy Morton, and Authoring and Editorial Team members Mike Tammaro, and David Marx, for an interactive discussion about this project and our efforts to change the way textbooks are published.


Expert TA Online Homework for Introductory Physics

  • Textbook Independent Library: Over 6200 questions and growing. Developed by active faculty, the Expert TA problems have been designed to work well with any textbook. Expert TA also offers enhanced versions of end-of-chapter questions for both College and University Physics.
  • Problem Authoring: Our authoring tool allows instructors to create any of our powerful question types.
  • Advanced Question Types: Symbolic expressions, interactive Free Body Diagrams, Advanced Graphical questions such as drag-and-drop labeling, ranking, sorting, etc. allow for compelling questions.
  • Supplemental Materials: We provide a collection of resources such as: Lecture Replacement Videos for studio physics and the flipped classroom, Physics Analysis Videos, the Nexus Collection, and instructor generated libraries.
  • Cost: $35.00 per student per semester, $23.34 per student per quarter, and we cap the cost per student at $70.

Editable eBooks with OpenStax

As a proud partner of OpenStax we aim to enhance their materials and offerings by providing technology solutions that they may not have themselves. Currently there is no way directly via OpenStax for instructors to customize or edit the texts in an eReader format.
We are happy to help the adopters of these texts by now providing such an editor and corresponding eReader. Instructors will be able to rearrange, rewrite, change/add images, add new sections/chapters, or easily do more advanced things like embed videos or PheT simluations. Your edited version of the textbook will be distributed through an eReader and available to students from the main class management page in Expert TA.

Expert TA Online Homework for Astronomy

  • Alignment with the Book: Expert TA has partnered with Andrew Fraknoi to develop a collection of enhanced assessments that are designed specifically to work with the scope and sequence of OpenStax Astronomy.
  • Test Bank: The official multiple-choice test bank questions that go beyond fact memorization by encouraging students to apply their understanding of the material. Expert TA is the only platform providing a custom collection of True/False problems that go along with the original test bank questions.
  • Advanced Graphical Question Types: Drag-and-drop labeling, ranking, sorting, matching, etc. developed with Blooms Taxonomy in mind and designed to test students understanding of concepts in a different manner.
  • Interactive Chapter Summaries: We all want students to read the book. You can now incentivize students with these assignable interactive fill-in-the-blank problems.
  • Textbook Independent Questions: Over 3,000 questions in the library have been designed by our content team and can be used alongside the OpenStax text or any other Astronomy textbook.
  • Cost: Free for instructors and just $35 per semester per student.

Expert TA Astronomy eBooks

Not all Introductory Astronomy textbooks or courses present material in exactly the same way. Expert TA’s editorial team began by doing a survey of different approaches and then modified the OpenStax Astronomy text into a form that worked for those approaches. The major efforts were to reorder the material in original text and often group material in different ways.

Interactive Simulations: In the Expert TA Alternate versions, dozens of interactive simulations have been incorporated. These simulations, generously provided by the Astronomy Education group at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, have been embedded throughout the texts.