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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."
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).
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.
It may work if there is the proper âoepushâ. My wifeâ(TM)s grandfather wrote college textbooks and childrenâ(TM)s books for a living and he made squat. Itâ(TM)s not the author who makes any money it is the publishers and the schools that see the majority of the profit. Also some of the âoeapprovedâ books chosen by the state areâ¦lacking in most information. I graduated from a California high school in â(TM)89, when I had a conversation with my wifeâ(TM)s sister about world war II history and I had to give a background on Pearl Harbor, as she had only a paragraph on it when she was taking US history. What really chapped my hide was she never heard of the USS Arizona. IMHO this is tragic. Any History profs/teachers that can add more info one way or the other please reply.
-- Some days you're the dog; some days you're the hydrant.
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.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
affecting politicians and also publishers.
I advised Sun Micro on California ed. projects
and learned K12 reform is complex & mysterious.
I learned that real power is seldom with the politicians,
saving money is seldom sufficient motivation to change,
and state departments and teachers are critical allies.
Feel free to contact me if you need web hosting;
I can give it for free to educational projects.
Cheers, Joel - joel@school.net
Thanks for your considered, and thoughtful responses
Currently, California creates a 'framework' for every K-12 topic (or general area, like language development). Commercial publishers then take those frameworks and build content around them. Open source authors could do the same thing. If the state employed those authors, or contracted them, so much the better.
The final step for text approval is through the State Board of Education text selection committee. Books that pass muster are then permitted for adoption by districts.
Open source textbooks would *have* to honor the framework documents to get through peer approval within the state board - that's a given. Thus, all materials have to meet a framework requirement. However, that's what the publishers currently have to do anyway. There's no reason the State itself, by adding some curriculum experts/outside contractors to do the appropriate filtering and writing, could not publish its own K-12 books.
I spent 15 years in the textbook publishing industry; thus, I can speak with some authority on this issue.
The economics of open source textbook publishing are a 'no brainer'. We're looking at the State self-publishing, and then reverse licensing content. There are *immediate* savings (this is easily shown) on the front end (marketing, rotalty and inventory costs), and licensing revenue on the back end.
Almost half the price of a K-12 book comes from marketing costs, royalties, and inefficient warehousing.
Further savings are realized down the road - say 10 years - when portable devices in the classroom are ubiquitous. If states don't get control of content, can you imagine little Johnny or Jane streaming the Preamble of the Constitution and paying Prentice Hall a micropayment for the privilege? That's where we're heading if states don't get control of content in their respective educational envronments.
As for the increased costs of textbooks, there's no reason this should be happening. Publishers manage to keep the cost of trade books down...why not textbooks? It's a fact that some publishers offer *the very same* university level textbooks (also outrageously priced) overseas, printed on cheaper paper, for a fraction of the going price in North America).
Open source textbook publishing is not rocket science, or obscure, as a publishing model. It *will* happen, and it's only a metter of time.
I will admit that this model may be just a tad ahead of where the market, or educational bureaucratic sensibilities, are at the moment.
Consider what cost-plus licensing of this material (and the process) to other states would mean - i.e. *billions* of dollars saved, and put back into parts of our state educational systems that need it most.
Another query had to do with why legislation would be required to start something liek this.
California used to publish its own textbooks back in the 50's. They were pretty awful. The reason for this was that there was no distributed source of information, or people, that could work on books; they (the books) were penned by just one or two authors. That situation has changed. We now have the internet, digital media, etc., etc.. There is no excuse for not looking into this aggressively, publishing a single curricular area as a pilot, and taking it from there.
The state legislated itself out of the publishing business in the early 50's, and gave the power to publish K-12 material to private enterprise. Thus, it would have to legislate itself back into the publishing 'business'.
Again, thanks for all your considered comments. We will be adding more information and updates to our site as we progress; we're in this for the long haul, until it's a reality.
Please feel free to write with ideas. We can be sourced from our web site. http://www.opensourcetext.org