Featured Member Talya Bauer:
Award-winning open textbook author shares the gift of knowledge
By Dionne Soares Palmer

The ability to offer access to their textbook free online was what inspired Talya Bauer and her coauthor Berrin Erdogan to publish with Flat World Knowledge under a Creative Commons open license.

Students can read a web-hosted version of Bauer and Erdogan’s complete, peer-reviewed book, Organizational Behavior, for free online, or purchase a softcover print book, e-book for devices like the iPad and Kindle, audio book, PDF download and interactive study aids. Faculty who adopt the textbook can edit down to the sentence level, add their own section, move or delete chapters and insert videos and hyperlinks. The book offers an instructor’s manual as well as lecture slides and a test bank.

“I knew I wanted to write a textbook on organizational behavior,” said Bauer, a professor of management at Portland State University. “But I also knew I wanted it to have an impact rather than just sitting on the shelf of a few faculty members’ offices. Writing an open textbook that also had a print option seemed like an ideal choice.”

Organizational Behavior received a 2011 Textbook Excellence Award from TAA.

“I think that what’s special about an open book is that it is the gift of knowledge,” she said. “Instead of charging $100 or $200 for access to the knowledge, anyone who is interested can benefit from it for free online.”

She chose to publish with Flat World Knowledge, she said, because they were looking to do something no one had done before. ”By offering a high quality product that is peer reviewed, professionally edited, has all the teaching supplements available AND is offered for free online, they are really pioneers,” said Bauer. “Being part of a team like that was an exciting opportunity.” In addition, she said that when she and Erdogan asked tough questions, the team at Flat World Knowledge had good answers for them as well as experience in the traditional publishing world that would help them succeed.

“We were one of the first books Flat World published, so there were some growing pains in terms of the process but those have been worked out by now,” Bauer said. “On the other hand, we really got to have our fingerprints on all aspects of the process and content so we were given more creative freedom than we probably would have had with a traditional textbook experience.”

The online version of Organizational Behavior is easily searchable. Bauer and Erdogan incorporated opening and closing cases as well as ethical and cross-cultural implications for each chapter. “We also made sure to add ‘Organizational Behavior Toolboxes’ throughout the book that include tips on things students can do right now to help them be more successful in applying organizational behavior to their lives,” Bauer said. The book has received positive feedback regarding the effectiveness of these features.

While open textbooks are unique in several ways, the writing process was very similar to writing a traditional book, said Bauer. “Honestly I don’t think the process on our end was much different from that of what other colleagues have described their writing experience to be,” she said. “We worked through each of the stages of a traditional textbook development experience. The difference was on the back side when our Word document was transformed into a great online resource that anyone can use for free. The fact that our work is available to anyone who might find it useful is a great feeling.”

Bauer and Erdogan were also very involved in the production of the supplements for their open textbook. They wrote the instructor’s manual themselves, and they collaborated on the development of the lecture slides. Someone else developed the test bank, but Bauer and Erdogan edited the questions.

For other authors considering authoring an open textbook, Bauer suggests starting with a clear vision of your text: “We found our outline to be an important roadmap along the way. So, while the book evolved, it was critical to have it to start the process.” She also said that experience with teaching the course for which a textbook will be used helps authors “understand what works for students and what doesn’t.”

In addition to Organizational Behavior, Bauer has coauthored three additional open textbooks with Flat World Knowledge. She teamed up with Berrin Erdogan and Mason Carpenter to write Principles of Management in 2009. She also collaborated with Jeremy Short, Dave Ketchen, and illustrator Len Simon to create the management graphic novels Atlas Black: Managing to Succeed (2009) and Atlas Black: Management Guru (2010).

Bauer has a Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior and Human Resources from Purdue University and joined the faculty at Portland State University in 1994. She conducts research in the areas of new hire onboarding, recruitment, selection, overqualification, mentoring, and leadership and has served as a consultant for government organizations and Fortune 500 companies. Bauer is also currently serving as the editor of the Journal of Management.

Dr. Bauer is passionate about the field of organizational behavior because of the impact it can have on people’s lives. “Organizational behavior is important in so many ways,” Bauer said. “It deals with the individual, groups, and organizations. Since adults spend so much of their lives at work, striving to make the workplace as psychologically healthy and effective as possible is a great way to spend one’s career. I enjoy the research I do on Organizational Behavior and love bringing it to life for students.”

Read the online version of Organizational Behavior


Dionne Soares Palmer is a freelance writer located in Redding, California.

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