Opencheme: open educational resources for material and energy balances

A survey of student opinions around open educational resources, with a focus on open textbooks, was undertaken in a second year material and energy balances course. Roughly one third of the class of 200 students participated in a voluntary online survey. One sixth of students reported having no easy access to a textbook. Students believed that free online resources and a low-cost online textbook would significantly improve their learning. Students were generally in favour, although not as strongly, of contributing to these free online resources. When asked which resources would be most valuable to improve their learning, students most often called for sample problems and solutions as well as videos of problem solutions or concept explanations. A search was then undertaken to find open educational resources that could be used to meet student requests. This search was successful in finding a variety of appropriate resources that could be adopted and built upon to meet student requests as well as finding a gap in terms of sample problems and solutions for students to practice applying their knowledge.