Through strict editing-review processes, a textbook is an important teaching material which is designed to conform to a certain course schedule and arrangement of teaching hours in order to reduce teachers’ time devoted to preparing lessons. However, the flexibility of teachers to adjust the teaching content according to students’ academic performances has also been limited. The autonomy of teaching specialty has further been restricted. Developments of open educational resources with the help of digital technology in recent years have provided an alternative choice for teachers. Considered the marketization of textbooks and teachers’ established habits of teaching with textbooks, whether it is necessary to promote open textbooks and what are some of the possible regulations and demands are issues that require further investigation. This study investigates high school textbooks of Earth Science to understand the current condition of textbooks and the needs for open textbooks. Through document analysis,
questionnaire survey, and interview, this study delineates the developments of open textbooks’ formats, possible regulations, and pedagogical demands, and further gives relevant suggestions regarding open textbooks in Taiwan based on the research results.
