In a robust testomony to the affect of open instructional assets, Advertising to South African Customers by Affiliate Professor James Lappeman has surpassed a exceptional 250 000 downloads. This milestone highlights the rising position of open textbooks in democratising entry to data in South Africa, the place affordability and contextual relevance stay urgent challenges in larger schooling.
Affiliate Professor Lappeman, the top of promoting research on the College of Cape City (UCT) and the top of tasks on the UCT Liberty Institute of Strategic Advertising, initially hoped the e-book would attain 10 000 downloads inside its first 12 months. That concentrate on was surpassed inside months. 5 years on, the textbook continues to exceed expectations, with its highest month-to-month obtain depend recorded as lately as April 2024.
Relevance, entry, and fairness
Hosted on UCT’s OpenUCT platform, the textbook fills a crucial hole in South African advertising and marketing schooling. Not like many industrial options, it’s rooted within the lived realities of native customers and types. For college kids, this makes advertising and marketing idea not solely accessible, however related. For lecturers, it presents a much-needed different to costly, foreign-produced texts.
The textbook’s attain isn’t just a metric of recognition – it’s a marker of fairness. In a rustic the place the price of course supplies generally is a barrier to participation, open textbooks provide a significant intervention. “College students are below immense monetary strain,” stated Lappeman. “And the enjoyment it brings to have a category full of scholars understanding that none of them will probably be with out the textbook is a superb feeling.”
Constructed on collaboration and social justice
Making high quality supplies freely obtainable to all college students, no matter revenue, is one solution to problem structural exclusion in larger schooling, Lappeman famous. The event of Advertising to South African Customers was grounded on this dedication to social justice. The e-book was produced with the assist of the Digital Open Textbooks for Improvement (DOT4D) venture within the Centre for Innovation in Studying and Instructing (CILT), and in collaboration with UCT Libraries. Collectively, this workforce shared a imaginative and prescient: to create a high-quality, open-access useful resource particularly designed for the South African context.
Whereas the venture relied closely on volunteer authorship, its success additionally hinged on institutional infrastructure and publishing experience. “After we conceived of the textbook, we believed that we might put collectively a workforce to jot down a world-class useful resource without cost,” Lappeman mirrored. “However it wasn’t simply the authors; with out CILT, DOT4D, and UCT Libraries, the venture wouldn’t have taken off.”
Increasing attain, inspiring change
Since its publication, the textbook has change into a core useful resource in advertising and marketing programs throughout the nation. Additionally it is getting used as a supplementary textual content in different disciplines, testifying to its flexibility and worth past its authentic scope. For lecturers, one of many key advantages lies in its accessibility: college students may be referred to particular case research or ideas with out concern that some could not be capable of entry the content material.
“Prime-quality open textbooks stand on the nexus of those beliefs.”
That is particularly vital at establishments like UCT, the place balancing excessive tutorial requirements with inclusive practices is a continuing crucial. As Lappeman put it, “Prime-quality open textbooks stand on the nexus of those beliefs.”
The worldwide attain of the textbook has additionally been a welcome shock. With downloads recorded in over 130 international locations, Advertising to South African Customers shouldn’t be solely shaping native lecture rooms however contributing to a broader dialog about how context issues in advertising and marketing schooling. It’s a highly effective instance of how African data may be shared on a world stage and by itself phrases.
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A name to motion for open publishing
Lappeman encourages different lecturers to contemplate open publishing, even when the trail shouldn’t be straightforward. “Giant tasks that make a distinction are tough. If it was straightforward, extra individuals would do them,” he stated. “However with sufficient nice content material and keen volunteers, even a fledgling thought can construct momentum. We had no thought the e-book could be so properly acquired – 250 000 downloads is a large return on our collective funding.”
At a time when the decolonisation of the curriculum, the price of schooling, and the relevance of studying supplies stay on the forefront of public discourse, Advertising to South African Customers stands as a tangible case examine in what is feasible. Open textbooks are greater than free PDF; they’re instruments of transformation.
