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Convincing faculty to accept, create, adapt, and adopt open educational resources (OERs) instead of textbooks for their courses has proven challenging because incentives are lacking. One approach to provide incentive to faculty members is an OER course fee, which could be employed in courses that use OERs approved by the institution for courses that do not utilize textbooks or other resources students must purchase. This fee would provide sustained incentive for using OERs while also decreasing student expense compared with what most currently pay for textbooks. We set out to determine if campus and online students who had used a free OER textbook replacement would support the idea, and implementation at their institution, of an OER course fee. Among online students (n = 17), those who supported an OER course fee at their institution (n = 6) the mean appropriate course fee amount was $9.58/credit hour. Subsequent campus (n = 46) and online students (n = 57) were asked whether they supported a $10/credit hour OER course fee, greater than 67% of somewhat agreed, agreed, or strongly agreed. While these pilot results are encouraging, it is important to note that they are from one course, using one OER, by one instructor at one institution. More research is needed to determine if there is similar support for OER course fees in a broader base of students. If so, OER course fees may be a legitimate approach to increase the acceptance, creation, adaptation, and adoption of OER.

The Kansas State University Open/Alternative Textbook Initiative provides grants to faculty members to replace textbooks with open/alternative educational resources (OAERs) that are available at no cost to students. Open educational resources are available for anyone to access, while alternative educational resources are not open. The objective of this study was to determine the perceptions towards OAERs and the initiative, of students enrolled in, and faculty members teaching, courses using OAERs. A survey was sent out to 2,074 students in 13 courses using the OAERs. A total of 524 (25.3%) students completed the survey and a faculty member from each of the 13 courses using OAERs was interviewed. Students rated the OAERs as good quality, preferred using them instead of buying textbooks for their courses, and agreed that they would like OAERs used in other courses. Faculty felt that student learning was somewhat better and it was somewhat easier to teach using OAERs than when they used the traditional textbooks. Nearly all faculty members preferred teaching with OAERs and planned to continue to do so after the funding period. These results, combined with the tremendous savings to students, support the continued funding of the initiative and similar approaches at other institutions.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to enable community members to discuss their perceptions of eating habits and physical activity in relation to sixth, seventh, and eighth graders, and reveal facilitators and barriers to healthy eating behavior and physical activity engagement. Design/methodology/approach: Nine focus groups, which included six groups from sixth, seventh, and eighth graders, two parents' groups, and one teachers' group, were conducted in a middle school in southwest Kansas. Individual influences, social influences, and larger contextual influences on early adolescent health were assessed by discussing behaviors, personal characteristics, and environmental factors, based on the Socio-Ecological Model (SEM). Findings: Adolescent participants' knowledge regarding healthful foods was limited. Taste and appearance were the two leading factors that contributed to food choices. Responses from adolescents, parents, and teachers all indicated difficulties when introducing new and healthful food items into adolescents' diets. Besides physical education (PE) and school-related sports, the sources for physical activity were limited. Certain video games were specified as facilitators of physical activity by adolescents. Peer pressure was a predominant theme motivating most adolescents' physical activities as well as food choices. These findings suggest numerous interrelated factors associated with healthy lifestyle in the population of this study. Originality/value: By involving adolescents in the in-depth open-ended discussion through the focus groups helped reveal their unique attitudes, perceptions, and motivations toward practicing healthy lifestyles. Interventions targeting both behavior change and environmental change are needed.

The current study determined the hedonic perception and emotion response during coffee consumption, and also aimed to understand the coffee drinkers' involvement and consumption habits related to this beverage. An acceptability and an emotions test followed by an attitudinal survey on consumption habits and coffee involvement were performed with three coffees samples. Results suggest that coffee drinkers, in general, drink coffee to experience sensory gratification and elicitation of positive emotions, and absence of negative emotions. Three consumer clusters were identified and the data reaffirmed that consumers' like and dislike were directly related to positive and negative emotions, respectively. It also revealed that the absence of interest for samples can dampen the emotion response drastically as seen with Cluster 2. Although all three clusters cared about coffee very much, there were no distinct patterns that tied their preferences in the test to their coffee consumption habits and perception. Practical Applications: With the advent of specialty coffee and coffee shops, consumers are approaching coffee from a drinking experience perspective rather than just caffeine fix. Consumers want to know more about the origins of their coffee, which is also tied to their increased awareness of sustainability and quality issues. The results of this study, we hope, will help provide guidance to the coffee industry and growers in understanding the expectations of the coffee drinker and hence, market their coffees effectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the nonprofit CK-12 Foundation in 2007 pioneered the idea of a flexbook as "a free and open-source textbook platform where one can build and edit collaborative textbooks," the availability and use of flexbooks has become more mainstream. There is no doubt that as an educational resource, flexbooks are highly versatile and flexible, but increasingly they have also been embraced as part of a strategy to help reduce some of the escalating costs associated with higher education. These costs are not insignificant: an average student spends $1,137 per year on textbooks and other course materials. The price of textbooks has increased 22 percent over the past four years, and in a recent survey 70 percent of students reported not buying a textbook due to price, despite 78 percent believing they would do worse in the course without the textbook(s). While individual faculty members or instructors have little control over tuition and fees, they can exert some control over what materials are used in their courses. They can choose to use more affordable options, for example, like open textbooks or no textbooks at all. For this reason, author Brian Lindshield--a former student who felt exploited by exorbitant textbook prices--vowed to teach his Human Nutrition course (HN 400) at Kansas State University without a textbook. HN 400 is an intermediate level, three-credit-hour nutrition course that is a prerequisite for a number of higher-level nutrition courses. Author Brian Lindshield has taught the course on campus for three years and online for two years. In order to determine student perceptions and use in a more quantitative manner than can be determined from end-of-term reflection papers, the authors created a survey that would also allow them to compare the responses of campus and online students. This article presents the results of their survey on student perceptions and use of the HN 400 flexbook. (Contains 3 videos, 1 table, 7 figures and 11 endnotes.)

Kombucha is a fermented functional beverage that started as a homemade beverage and grew into a commercial product in the U.S. by the turn of this century. The number of companies producing kombucha, as well as the variety of kombucha products, is increasing rapidly. The scientific research on kombucha also got active along with the growth in the market. The topics of kombucha research can be grouped into the substrate used in fermentation, the microbial composition of the cultures, processing methods, chemical composition, the health benefits and health risks associated with consumption, the utilization of symbiotic cultures of bacteria and yeasts (SCOBYs), etc. There are several already published in-depth scientific reviews covering these topics. Even with the sensory characteristics of kombucha being a critical aspect of the beverage, there are not many publications covering the sensory and consumer research on this beverage. This review paper aims to provide the current market status of kombucha and to show a need for scientific sensory and consumer research studies to help the kombucha researchers and industry working on this fast-growing beverage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bactericidal effects of various concentrations of phenyllactic acid on Shiga toxin–producing Escherichia coli (STEC), including E. coli O157:H7, O26:H11, O103:H2, and O121:H19, and on Salmonella Typhimurium DT104 in pure culture and microplates assays were studied. Beef cuts were surface sprayed with phenyllactic acid or lactic acid for inactivation of E. coli O157:H7 and Salmonella Typhimurium. The 1.5% phenyllactic acid inactivated all inoculated E. coli O157:H7, O26:H11, O103:H2, and O121:H19 and Salmonella Typhimurium DT104 (>6-log reduction) within 1 min of contact at 21°C, whereas 1.5% lactic acid did not result in microbial reduction. Microplate assays (for STEC and Salmonella Typhimurium DT104 at 10 to 100 CFU per well) indicated that concentrations of 0.25% phenyllactic acid or 0.25% lactic acid inhibited the growth of STEC and Salmonella Typhimurium DT104 incubated at 37°C for 24 h. Treatment of beef with 1.5% lactic acid or 1.5% phenyllactic acid reduced E. coli O157:H7 by 0.22 and 0.38 log CFU/cm2, respectively, within 5 min and reduced Salmonella Typhimurium DT104 by 0.12 and 0.86 log CFU/cm2, respectively. When meat treated with 1.5% phenyllactic acid was frozen at −20°C, inactivation of E. coli O157 and Salmonella Typhimurium DT104 was enhanced by 1.06 and 1.46 log CFU/cm2, respectively. Thus, treatment of beef with 1.5% phenyllactic acid significantly reduced the population of E. coli O157:H7 and Salmonella. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]