Going ZTC: Four Open Textbooks pave the way to a zero textbook cost course

It has been the Library's great pleasure to collaborate with Associate Professor Carmen Reaiche and her co-authors to present a series of four Open Textbooks in our growing JCU Open eBooks collection to help make a Graduate Certificate program "ZTC" (zero textbook cost).

This suite of books contains three original creations and one adaptation to provide students in the Graduate Certificate of Project Management with no out-of-pocket expenses for text books.

Associate Professor Carmen Reaiche, from the College of Business, Law and Governance is a keen supporter and champion of the JCU Open Education Initiative which strives to improve subject accessibilty and affordability for JCU courses. Carmen shares her insights and her commitment to benefiting students in the JCU article "Managing a way to the Top".

The four books in this series are:

Book 1: Project Management: A Strategic Approach

"Project management is becoming a core competence and not just about managing processes to ensure that the strategic goals of a business are delivered on time, within budget and specification. These days, project management is more about managing strategic goals while adapting to change and responding to ongoing disruptions. The pandemic, rapid urbanisation, digital transformation and environmental challenges are only some of the types of disruption faced by contemporary businesses. It is up to the project manager to ensure that the project management processes, as well as the projects and/or services themselves, are part of the readjustment required for business to survive these new challenges.  This freely available ebook introduces some of the core values, concepts and tools as recognised by the Project Management Institute (PMI). This book will be of value to both students and practitioners in Australia and overseas seeking professional development in the field of project management."

Book 2: A Manual for Project Governance and Asset Management

"Students, practitioners, and businesses will all benefit from this free eBook, which focuses on project governance and asset management. We are breaking new ground by establishing the value proposition associated with the integration of both AM and Governance. Both areas, in our opinion, are inextricably connected in project management. In this eBook, which we have written as a manual, the ideas of assets and governance are brought together, and an agile governance framework is introduced. We hope to examine how these ideas may be used in project management in order to provide you with beneficial methodologies and approaches."

Book 3: Management Methods for Complex Projects

"This freely available project management eBook is the start of your journey in the field of complex project management methodologies, introducing you to some of the core methods, processes and tools as recognised by the project management discipline. This eBook lays out methodologies such as XP, Agile, Scrum, Kanban, Six Sigma, PRINCE2, Waterfall, PRiSM, Soft Systems Methodology as well as introducing Project Design as a method so you can leverage the right project management approach. This eBook will be of value to students, practitioners, and businesses in Australia and overseas seeking professional development in the field of project management methodologies."

Book 4: Risk Assessment and Quality Project Management

"This freely available eBook provides a comprehensive coverage of the fundamentals of project quality management and risk management. It makes breakthroughs in project quality by combining risk project management with quality management processes. This eBook is one of four in a series of manuals in the field of project management. It provides a short summary of current best practices in project risk management while introducing the connection and relevance of quality project management, so that practitioners, students and those responsible for managing risk and quality in projects may do so successfully."

The JCU Open Education Initiative

The JCU Open Education Initiative is a project in the Education Division, spearheaded by JCU Library. The aim of the project is two-fold: 

  • To support lecturers in adopting, adapting and creating Open Educational Resources including textbooks and workbooks in order to better support the learning of our students at JCU 
  • To make information about the people and places of the Tropics more widely accessible and understood. More than 40% of the world's population live in the Tropics and 40% of the world's surface is within the Tropics, but the area is often under represented in teaching materials.

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