Another observation I was able to make while analyzing these textbooks is that standard commercial textbooks tend to show their legitimacy and prestige by association with prominent scholars or scholars from reputable institutions and long lists of contributors, reviewers, and editors. Meanwhile, OER textbooks tend to not have affiliations with big names in the fields and more conservative lists of contributors. For example, looking at the authors of the traditional textbooks, it is easy to find distinguished scholars within Sociology and Anthropology, such as Anthony Giddens, Deborah Carr, Lisa Wade, Dalton Conley, Mitchell Duneier, Serena Nanda, Richard Warms, Kenneth Guest, and William Balée. For those who are not familiar with scholars within Sociology and Anthropology, a quick Google search can show their academic affiliation and publishing records. The attached screenshot below shows the long list of acknowledgments in one of the traditional textbooks in my sample.
On the other hand, sometimes OER textbooks are not associated with any authors. In fact, one of the OER textbooks in the sample is adapted from a work produced and distributed under a Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-SA) by a publisher who has requested that they and the original author not receive attribution. A number of the OER texts included in this study only have affiliation with the publishers (if any) and the open-access origins. In other cases, OER textbooks can be a project shared among a dozen people or even a solo venture. For example, the sole affiliation that one of the OER Sociology textbooks in the sample has is with LibreTexts Project, a multi-institutional collaborative project to develop open-access texts supported by the U.S. Department of Education’s Open Textbook Pilot Project, the UC Davis Office of Provost, the UC Davis Library, the California State University Affordable Learning Solutions Program, and Merlot. One can speculate that since the authors of these OER materials wrote the books with the intention of allowing people to freely share, remix, and edit, they do not have as strong a motivation to have their names attached to the texts.
Another way of boosting their legitimacy and prestige is the pages of descriptions of the special features present in the textbooks, as well as the “major themes” or “what’s new in this edition” sections preceding the first chapter. What these pieces of information intend to tell the readers is that the publishers and authors (1) have put in a lot of effort to revise and update the textbooks, bringing an elevated experience for the readers; and (2) wrote the textbooks with intention of helping students learn the materials.
Higher-quality OER textbooks also have their ways of conveying these qualities. OpenStax, for example, is properly funded by the list of philanthropic support from renowned organizations, such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Google Inc., and the Laura and John Arnold Foundation. Perspectives: An Open Invitation to Cultural Anthropology (Brown, Gonzalez, and McIlwraith 2022) is backed by the American Anthropological Association, the most prominent professional organization of scholars and practitioners in Anthropology.