How do Hong Kong teachers like
to use open textbooks?
Dr K S Yuen and Dr K C Li
The Open Textbooks for Hong Kong project
Project development to date
Feedback from planners and administrators
• Government officials
• Legislators and head of professional bodies
• University staff
Feedback from teachers
• Views on open textbooks
• Participating in a tryout
• Ways to use open textbooks
• Concerns
Considerations
Benefits of open textbooks
Saves money
Benefits of open textbooks
Benefits of open textbooks
Teachers can tailor the content according to the
needs of their school and classes.
Works of different teachers can be shared
among themselves.
The Open Textbooks project
The project contains 4 components:
▪ An online open textbook platform
▪ Online textbooks and teaching materials
▪ Quality assurance
▪ Community and capacity building
Current status of the project
Funding of $17.5M for the project has been
obtained from HKJCCT with support from
EDB.
Project officially started on 1 January 2013.
Current status of the project
For primary and secondary schools, only
textbooks on English language have been
planned in this project.
Writers and instructional designers are now
busy writing the textbooks.
Current status of the project
We will start trying out the textbooks in
September 2014.
The set of 12 textbooks are expected to be ready
for use in the September 2015 school year.
Feedback from planners,
administrators
Government:
The under-secretary and secretary for Education
were supportive of the OER concept and
approved the project funding in 2012.
HKEdCity, a quasi-government body set up to
provide online learning resources to teachers,
works closely with the project.
Feedback from planners,
administrators
Legislators and heads of professional bodies:
Publicly elected legislators are in general
supportive of such initiatives.
Heads of principals and teachers’ associations
acknowledge the usefulness of such projects,
and have offered assistance in publicizing the
project.
Feedback from planners,
administrators
University admin and academic staff:
A survey was conducted in 2012 to solicit the
views of administrative and academic staff on
the use of OER in tertiary institutions (Yuen and
Wong, 2013).
Feedback from planners,
administrators
They appreciated the potential benefits of OER
in:
• institutional and personal reputation,
enhancing users’ knowledge,
• sharing best practices and
• improving students’ access to learning
resources.
Feedback from planners,
administrators
However, only a few (three) out of the 57
participants in the study had submitted and
published materials as OER. Among those who
had produced OER, the majority was willing to
share them only within their own institution,
whilst only one third wished to share the
materials globally.
Feedback from planners,
administrators
They recognized that OER could help them know
about the most up-to-date developments and
create a sense of community in the course.
They agreed that OER save time for teachers,
allow them to do things they could not do
otherwise, provide convenient access and let
them stay up to date with colleagues.
Feedback from planners,
administrators
In a broader context, respondents believed that
OER could help build fruitful partnerships with
colleagues and institutions worldwide, and
benefit students by providing a range of
approaches to the subject available.
In addition, respondents believed that OER
would enhance the reputation of the university,
and attract better students and better staff.
Feedback from planners,
administrators
As well, OER are a useful way of developing new
courses.
Exploring the available OER worldwide could
enhance the respondents’ teaching and raise
standards across the university.
Nevertheless, the majority of the respondents
would only use OER in their teaching if they
were able to edit and personalize the materials
for use with their students.
Feedback from planners,
administrators
Respondents were divided over whether or not
to make their teaching practices and course
materials open to any users. The latter would do
so only if they had good control over the reuse.
Feedback from planners,
administrators
They used OER in their teaching or course
delivery for practical reasons, such as:
• gaining access to the best possible resources,
• promoting scientific research and education as
public open activities,
• reducing costs for students and course
development,
• reaching out to disadvantaged communities,
• assisting developing countries,
• creating more flexible materials,
• conducting research and development and
• building sustainable partnerships.
Feedback from planners,
administrators
The respondents considered the following to be
important barriers to the use of OER in teaching
by their colleagues:
• the lack of awareness, skills, time, hardware
and ability to locate quality OER, and
• the lack of reward and support from
management.
Feedback from planners,
administrators
During a workshop on OER and Open Textbooks
for vocational training teachers of Hong Kong, a
quick survey found that the attending teachers’
responses tallied well with the findings of the
case study survey.
Feedback from teachers attending
briefing sessions on the tryout
A total of 142 school principals, subject panel
heads and teachers from over 93 primary and
secondary schools attended the sessions.
A questionnaire to investigate the teachers’
opinions about open textbooks was
administered
95 returned (37 from primary and 58 from
secondary schools). Nearly half of participants at
the sessions were panel teachers of the subject.
Current use of teaching materials
Type of teaching materials used Primary Secondary
Commercial Textbooks 25 (67.6%) 28 (48.3%)
School-based materials 6 (16.2%) 2 (3.4%)
Commercial Textbooks +School-based materials
5 (13.5%) 24 (41.4%)
Commercial Textbooks + EDB materials
1 (2.7%) 2 (3.4%)
Commercial Textbooks +School-based materials +EDB materials
0 1 (1.7%)
Did not responded to this question 0 1 (1.7%)
Current use of teaching materials
Senior secondary school teachers use a lot of
school-based materials to help students to
prepare for public examinations
Teachers teaching students with special
educational needs (SEN) find mainstream
textbooks not suitable for their students;
they have to tailor-make texts for their classes
all along.
Views on open textbooks
Can open textbooks/OER reduce workload?
Primary Secondary
Yes 18(48.7%) 34 (58.6%)
Not sure 15(40.5%) 18 (31.0%)
No 4(10.8%) 5 (8.6%)
Have not responded to this question
0 1 (1.7%)
Views on open textbooks
Will you use open textbooks/OER in future
Primary Secondary
Yes 21 (56.76%) 38 (65.52%)
Not yet decided 15 (40.54%) 20 (34.48%)
No 1 (2.70%) 0(0.00%)
Views on open textbooks
Will you develop open textbooks/ OER in future
Primary Secondary
Yes 11 (28.95%) 12(21.19%)
Not yet decided 19 (50.00%) 44 (75.86%)
No 7 (18.42) 0(0.00%)
Views on open textbooks
Many teachers believed the use of open
textbooks would become a trend in future;
others opined that open textbooks could help
students with learning difficulties (because
they are free to adapt the content).
Some teachers said open textbooks could help
students from low-income families because
they are free of charge.
Negative views on open textbooks
There were also some negative views on open
textbooks.
Some teachers felt uncomfortable if their work
would be shared among peers.
One teacher was reluctant to change to new
open textbooks because she did not want any
changes. [She may just add some of the open
textbook content to her existing textbook.]
Trying out on open textbooks
Agreeing to try out Primary Secondary Total
Yes 5 7 12
Maybe 18 40 58
No 9 9 18
Not yet decided 2 2 4
Ways to use open textbooks
Methods Primary Secondary
Using the original content as-is 3 (8.1%) 8 (13.8%)
Edit content 22 (59.5%) 32 (55.2%)
As reference materials 16 (43.2%) 26 (44.8%)
As self-learning resources 8 (16.3%) 14 (24.1%)
As supplementary exercises 0(0.00%) 1(1.7%)
Formats of open textbooks
Primary schools Printed PDF ePub3
Always 14 8 6
Often 4 8 9
Sometimes 4 7 7
Seldom 1 0 1
Never 0 0 0
Not answered 14 14 14
Formats of open textbooks
Secondary schools Printed PDF ePub3
Always 12 3 2
Often 16 12 10
Sometimes 10 18 14
Seldom 0 3 6
Never 0 1 4
Not answered 20 21 22
Concerns
• Need support from their peers, and from
their school principals.
• Worries about the increased workload when
they use the new textbook (compare with
responses increased workload).
Concerns
They have to consider the adoption thoroughly,
and to discuss with their fellow teachers on
issues such as the option of a complete
change to the new book, or whether they
should use the open textbook as an additional
resource.
They have concerns on the quality of the open
textbook (will it be approved by the Education
Bureau at the time when they use it?).
Concerns
• Need to assess the book with regard to the
suitability of the level of the book for their
students.
• Concerns on the availability of the whole
series of the books and whether there are
associated supplementary teaching and
learning resources (assessment tasks,
quizzes, a question bank, a picture bank,
additional readings, etc).
Concerns
• The sustainability of the Open Textbooks
project. Will the textbooks disappear from
the website when the funding of the project
is used up?
• Are there professional development
activities, i.e. training workshops for using
the open books, and experience sharing
sessions for teachers and users?
Concerns
• Schools heavily involved in e-learning would
like to see more interactive elements in the
e-version of the textbooks.
• Could the ePub version could be edited and
adapted?
• Is there an interactive PC version ─ for use
by students who have a desktop PC but may
not have a mobile device?
Considerations
• Government support or blessing to the
concept of OER seems crucial to initiate the
development, and in the subsequent work.
• School principals and teachers are more
willing to join projects which have gained
government consent.
Considerations
• An earlier study on the awareness and
implementation of OER at the tertiary level in
Hong Kong has helped the project team with
the positioning of our project.
• Knowing that very few academics have
engaged in the production of OER or open
textbooks in Hong Kong, the project team
acknowledges that publicity on the subject
of OER and Open Textbooks is a mandatory
precursor of the project.
Considerations
• The majority of teachers indicated that they
will make changes to the books before they
use them. It is therefore important that we
have the ‘Editor’ function ready when the
open textbooks are offered to the public.
• Teachers expected to use the printed version
of the textbooks most often, but they will
also need to refer to the other versions ‘often’
or ‘sometimes’.
Considerations
• It will be an interesting study about how
actually the three versions are used in the
classroom and after class to achieve the
most effective learning.
• To satisfy the needs of teachers interested in
e-learning, more features of the ePub format
should be considered, as these would add to
the attractiveness of the e-textbooks.
Considerations
• We will seriously consider making the e-
versions available on multi-platform, as this
is requested. In our initial plan, we only
provide an ePub version for iPad, or ePub in
iOS format at the first stage.
Considerations
• Teachers need support from peers and the
principal when they adopt open textbooks. A
supportive atmosphere has to be built.
• Frequent seminars and presentations on the
concept and practice of open textbooks, as
well as experience sharing sessions by
teachers, will surely help with the movement.
Considerations
• Teachers’ concern on quality can be resolved
by OUHK’s quality assurance mechanism,
and EDB’s textbook vetting system. Quality
is further enhanced by the peer review and
revision facility on the Open Textbooks
platform.
Considerations
• The sustainability of the project is also an
important issue.
• We are certain that if the project is welcomed
by users, we will have no problem finding the
funds and the human resources to sustain
its development.