ROMe Project

As part of the JISC Collections funded e-textbook project the University of Nottingham is creating, and self-publishing two e-textbooks in two different subject areas. This will help address the question of whether institutional publication models can help provide a more affordable higher education, and promote a better, more sustainable information environment for libraries, students and faculty.

The title of the first e-textbook is ‘Applied Ethics’. This will be authored by academic staff members from the Department of Philosophy. Nottingham's Department of Philosophy is a centre of excellence in research and teaching and especially strong in the areas of metaphysics, mind and language, and ethics.

The title of the second e-textbook is ‘Corporate Responsibility & Sustainability in Practice.’ The authoring of this publication will be led by a team from the International Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility (ICCSR) at Nottingham University Business School. The ICCSR was established in 2002 with the aim of leading the international development of responsible and sustainable corporate practice. The Business School team will partner with the Institute of Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability (ICRS), which the new not-for-profit body being established to identify, recognise, promote and support high standards of practice by individual Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability professionals.

The University of Nottingham will act as publisher of both titles but different business and distribution models will be used for each. ‘Applied Ethics’ will be published as an Open Educational Resource (OER) under a Creative Commons licence. ‘Corporate Responsibility & Sustainability in Practice’ will be published using a Freemium model, with some versions of escalating functionality and support being offered.

More information will be added when the e-textbooks are ready for publication or you can contact steven.stapleton@nottingham.ac.uk