CONCLUSION

Open textbook authors face many challenges and the need to make compromises in terms of balancing their open textbook development ambitions with the everyday demands of their academic careers. In some cases, their plans have to be scaled down; in other cases they have to be abandoned.

The journeys presented here highlight the complexities of conceptualising and creating open textbooks and the challenges authors face. Despite the highs and lows of the process, the heroic efforts of the academics undertaking this work with limited funding or other forms of institutional support is testament to their desire to improve the learning experience for their students.

DOT4D research (Cox, Masuku & Willmers, 2020) demonstrates that open textbooks have the potential to address social (in)justice in South African higher education, especially with regards to the high costs of textbooks for students, the need for curriculum transformation and the inclusion of student voices in their own learning.

DOT4D implementation activity suggests that demand is growing for open textbook development support as academics change the way they teach online; and that localisation is key to addressing curriculum transformation. This potential can however only be realised if there is broader institutional and inter-institutional support for open textbook production and use.

DOT4D advocacy efforts include engaging higher education stakeholders in a national-level ‘Open Textbooks in South African Higher Education’ forum. It aims to provide a platform for facilitating inter-institutional collaboration and the development of a national open textbook community of practice. The project’s recently published Call to Action 2021 (DOT4D, 2021) highlights the need for broader coordination of open textbook creation and use in order to address curriculum transformation, the undergraduate performance gap and COVID-19 learning losses.