Course Awards
2017
Halvaksz has replaced the primary textbook in all sections of ANT 2053 with Perspectives: An Open Invitation to Cultural Anthropology, an OER textbook created and hosted by the American Anthropology Association’s Society for Anthropology in Community Colleges. In addition to using this free textbook, Halvakz also includes articles from the UTSA Libraries and freely-available materials as part of his curriculum.
More from Halvaksz:
“For the last two or three years I have not used a textbook in this class, relying instead on ethnographies as they tend to be less expensive and retain their resale value. I have also used articles that are made freely available to the students through Blackboard and the UTSA Libraries existing databases.”
“Textbooks have been an unnecessary expense for students for some time. Anthropology has been pushing, as a discipline, for open access journals and resources, and digital formats have facilitated this. I suspect that many of my colleagues would adopt a free textbook model if a positive impact can be demonstrated for student learning and success. I see this as an opportunity to encourage and facilitate discussion within our department and more broadly.”