BUS 418: Listening to the Customer

Purpose: to help other instructors teaching the same course

Common Course ID:  Business 418
CSU Instructor Open Textbook Adoption Portrait

Abstract: This open textbook is being utilized in a Business course for graduate students by Stern Neill at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo (SLO).

Course Title and Number
Brief Description of course highlights:  Prerequisite: For GRC Majors, GRC 361; for all other majors, BUS 346; Business majors must have formally declared their concentration to enroll.   Discovery and development of customer insights based on a project-oriented introduction to the research process. Development of research questions. Design and application of multiple research methods (e.g. secondary, observation, interview, focus group, survey research). Exploratory and confirmatory approaches leading to the analysis, interpretation, and presentation of results. 

Student population:  35-40 students per section, per quarter

Learning or student outcomes:  "Positive comments during class. I may receive more at the end of the quarter."

Key challenges faced and how resolved:  "No challenges encountered – just required a simple explanation to an appreciative audience."

Textbook or OER/Low cost Title: 

Brief Description:
Sarstedt, M., & Mooi, E. (2014). A Concise Guide to Market Research. Springer.

Wilson, C. (2014). Interview Techniques for UX Practitioners, 23‐41. Elsevier. 

Silverstein, D., et al. (2011). The Innovator's Toolkit. John Wiley & Sons.

Sreejesh, S., Mohapatra, S., & Anusree, M. R. (2014). Business Research Methods. Springer.

Student access:  "In addition to student cost savings, the switch resulted in a transition to digital resources, which means that my course is 100% paperless."

Cost Savings:    This saves students ~$150/each.  I adopted the same approach with my BUS451 course with similar savings. 

OER/Low Cost Adoption Process

Provide an explanation or what motivated you to use this textbook or OER/Low Cost option. "The motivation is economic. The library currently subscribes to half of my course readings and offers alternatives that would replace the remaining readings. There’s no reason for the university and students to pay twice for the same content."

How did you find and select the open textbook for this course? I used a variety of resources via Kennedy Library:

Sharing Best Practices: No, the switch is more consistent with my existing pedagogy, which is technology-based."

Stern Neill, Associate Professor
California State University, San Luis Obispo
Marketing Department