Open Source Text-Books in California?

ebusinessmedia1 asks: "The California Open Source Textbook Project (COSTP) was created a few years ago in an attempt to help California's educational bureaucracy understand the value of open-sourced, K-12 textbook development, and we are an official collaborator with Creative Commons. COSTP could, within 6-8 years, save California up to $400M+ per year in K-12 textbook costs. (in addition to 100's-of-millions more saved in other states). We're looking for further ideas on how we might push this forward, promote it through something like the Connexions Project http://cnx.rice.edu/ at Rice University, work with enlightened for-profits on an open-source K-12 textbook model, get a test piloted, or somehow get the project bumped up a notch, funded, etc. Ideas anyone?"

"Our project has been lobbied/promoted to every level of government and education in California, from the Governor's office, and the legislature, on down. I hear 'this is a great idea' from many people in government, but not a single government agency or legislator (who agree the project has legs) - not even the California Teacher's Assn. - wants to promote it as an initiative in the legislature.

Nobody wants to upset the status quo, where commercial publishers - in a virtual oligopoly - create costly textbook products that have risen at three times the rate of inflation since 1992. It's not unusual for K-12 books to cost 2-3 times what books with similar content would cost in a trade (regular) bookstore."

Comments

Publishing companies

[Alomex]

It won't work. There are already cheaper alternatives out there which are not used thanks to the massive marketing efforts (some might call them bribes) from the publishing companies to have teachers adopt the latest, most expensive textbook out (as if elementary mathematics or chemistry were changing from year to year).

The problem with open source texts

[Anonymous Coward]

Take a look at Everything2 or Wikipedia for examples of what is wrong with open source reference materials.

Basically, the only information that gets entered is entered by interested parties. Therefore a topic like the Open Source movement get tons of information (both good and bad) and other things like photosynthesis get very little written about it.

In reference to the point that texts are rising at 3x the rate of inflation, does that take into account the increase in expenses of the publisher? There are many people involved in making a text, from the author to editors to the unions that run the mills and presses. Just because the price of something is rising faster than inflation does not automatically suggest that there is a problem. It could also suggest an improvement in the quality of the final product.

Re:The problem with open source texts

[shaitand]

Except there is no equivelnet rise in other books. Except perhaps technical manuals.

Re:The problem with open source texts

[ancientreader]

As a teacher, I can state that, at least in my corner of academia, there is no significant increase in quality of texts. The most expensive texts are not larger, and do not contain any more information, intuition, learning aids, or other educational value than they had before. The only big change is that the formatting of the books is a lot prettier than it was years ago.

As an example, I currently teach a class using the 11th edition of a textbook, which costs around $130. When I took this same class some many years ago [I won't say how long ago :)], the book was in its 2nd edition, and cost around $40. The 11th edition has 3 more chapters than the 2nd, and the 20 other chapters haven't changed much in all those years.

Friends of mine who are textbook coauthors attest to how publishers hound them to crank out a new edition every 2-3 years, regardless of the rate of change of the subject matter covered. Publishers make $0 in the used book market. They're just now waking up to the prospect of e-textbooks; surprisingly, students as a group are the bigger barrier to e-texts than publishers, for various reasons.

More generally, there's a huge, thriving open-source-like environment in education, at least at the college level. We experiment with stuff in classrooms, and openly share 'best practices' and related tools within our community. Texts are a logical extension of this, but we should expect publishers to fight them tooth and nail, in the same spirit as Microsoft et al. fight open-source software.

Re:Authors don't get squat.

[ObviousGuy]

The USS Arizona is only one of the ships that were sunk at Pearl Harbor. That there is now a tourist attraction above it does little for it as an historical ship.

Now if your sister in law didn't know the significance of Pearl Harbor in regards to America entering WWII, then a case could be made against the educational system. Not knowing about one ship in the attack isn't that big a deal.

Good luck

[duffbeer703]

The publishing industry is deeply rooted in the corrupt educational beuracracy and is gaining ground, if anything.

You'll notice in college classes today that large freshman English and Literature classes use something called the "Mercury Reader" which is a customized collection of stories that costs about $40. The publishers encourage instructors to swap out stories every year. (Killing the used book market)

I taught a English 101 class a couple of years ago and was forced to use it. My students went and spent $40 for works that are in the public domain! They could have easily purchased four or five Dover Thrift Editions for $8-10, or bought used books for less.