An overview of textbooks as open educational resources

The shift from machine-centered automation to user-centered services and tools is enabling users to be more creative and achieve more. Electronic textbooks become more and more open, free, accessible and affordable. Recent years have seen an unpredicted growth of electronic, digital and iBooks as well as authoring tools for its design, development and implementation. This article analises the diversity of textbooks as open educational resources elaborated in recent years for K-20 education. It has identified four major trends in order to prove the metasystems transition theory from programed textbooks to open textbooks for individual and collaborative learning. This presents unique insights into perceived relative significance of impact of different pedagogical resources and authoring tools for learning in global learning environment.