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Free MIT Engineering Text For Download
An anonymous reader writes " The (sci-tech) Library Question is reporting, "The third edition of A Heat Transfer Textbook, written by John H Lienhard V (MIT) and John H Lienhard IV (U Houston), has been made available on the web. The book is an introduction to heat transfer, geared towards engineering students. It may be downloaded free of charge. The authors explain:
We are placing a mechanical engineering textbook into an electronic format for worldwide, no-charge distribution. The aim of this effort is to explore the possibilities of placing textbooks online -- effectively giving them away. Two potential benefits should accrue from doing this. First, in electronic format, textbooks can be continually corrected and updated, without the delays inherent in printed books (second and later editions are typically published on a five-year cycle). Second, free textbooks hold the potential for fundamentally altering the economics of higher education, particularly in those environments where money is scarce."
This is a great initiative. It promotes the idea that we should look at the real value in education. The real value is in the people students get to work with (eg. the authors), and the personal experiences they go through on the way to graduate. Why should publishers make profits in this process when they don't add value?
This is a very good idea; it would be nice not to have to pay $500+ a semester for books. I am concerned that if this catches on, that a company would find a way to profit from the online books, bringing the college students back into the same situation that they're currently in, which is paying out the ass for basicly renting books for a semester (assuming the college has a book buy back program).
Another thing, will schools then start supplying laptops or tablet PC's to view these text books on while in class?
This sig was generated by a barrel of trained kittens for SeXy_Red (550409).
With some engineering and science -related courses suffering from low levels of interest, a wider availability of resources could (as the article suggests) draw out those who aren't applying for financial reasons, whilst giving others a taste of subjects and their potential uses in picking a career path and making a difference. After all, most people have felt they've had a good idea or two at some time or other... many have been discouraged only by the lack of readily available background knowledge.
Yay for more open learning!
Ph-nglui mglw'nafh Gates M'dna wgah'nagl fhtagn.
Also, one of the big issues in textbook publication is that the information included sometimes can be determined by what state publishes the text - this is especially true in history and biology, both of which are full of political dynamite.
Maybe eventually this will lead to a freer exchange of information.
Here (introductory physics.)
As a college student, I can certainly appreciate the benefits of free textbooks, lord knows the bookstore overcharged by several limbs. The question is not whether or not this would benefits students and the community at large, but instead one of costs versus benefits.
Writing a textbook is no small endeavor, professors often spend months upon months writing and revising a single text. While the Open Source community can survive off the valiant efforts of thousands of coders worldwide, the number of individuals in higher academia qualified to write textbooks is much more limited.
I just can't envision a scenario where this kind of approach is sustainable in a long-term or wide-reaching context. Thoughts?
-- Frag00
Here's something to ponder. Why does somebody write a textbook? Is it because they enjoy the subject matter, enjoy writing, and want to write an engaging, accurate book? Or is it because one can charge large sums for such a textbook? Unfortunately it's often the latter.
While the idea of an epic "Commercial vs. Open" textbook rivalry akin to that seen in software is romantic, writing a textbook tends to be somewhat less pleasant, less rewarding, more expensive, and more exacting than writing software. I'd hate to think the foremost experts in fields may be discouraged from writing one day because they can't compete with free, mediocre sources.
- Allen Pike
Altering time, one time at a time.
You do realize that you'd just be transfering the cost, right? "Free" means "included in your tuition", which means rather than paying $600 for your books at a book store, you're paying $600 more in tuition and get your books for free. Sure, some amortization is possible, but is it really fair for a student whose major typically requires $200 in books to subsidize a major that requires $600 in books? I'd rather see textbook costs drop to a realistic level ($90+ for a single book is ridiculous, but it's the way things are going), rather than provide it "for free" in your tuition.
Then again, I'm no longer in school, so it won't affect me unless I have kids at some point in the (very very far) future.
I have started to collect a survey of free eBooks, which contains links to free tech eBooks as well as fiction eBooks (and free AudioBooks).
While not having to carry around textbooks is nice, and I'm never without a Palm or laptop, I have to admit I always prefer reading printed text. Maybe I'm old fashioned, but I just find printed text I can write on, fold, flip through, read in the sun, etc. to be a lot easier to read from.
- Allen Pike
Altering time, one time at a time.
For those of you who are interested in free (as in speech and beer) textbooks, please check out Wikibooks. It's a Wiki, like the Wikipedia, but wholly devoted to offering free books (primarily textbooks).
I'm not involved in running Wikibooks, I just use it and contribute to it, and I think it's a great project worth spreading the word about; plus, the more people contribute to it, the better it is.
Fuck it
I still have on one of my hard drives somewhere a PDF file that points out really horrible errors in typical school textbooks; these were mostly high-school books, but in any case, it really points to the pressures that are placed on book publishers; many pressures that have nothing to do with accuracy of information, but coming from a sense of policital correctedness, and so on. There are influential people in the management levels of the textbook publishers, and there are certain standards that must be upheld in order for that book to be selected by a school system, especially a school system that is funded with taxpayer dollars. Obviously, having checks and balances when it comes to taxpayer dollars is an important thing. But the errors are pretty bad, and there are quite a few of them, at least in the one review there that I read.
Perhaps the idea of putting this kind of information online, if there is a way that this can be done without too much lost inertia from the fact that you are just giving away your hard work for nothing (i.e. also sell the book in hard-copy), have a donation place for it, or somehow organize funding in some other way. Also, you don't necessarily go through a big publisher to do it this way - you can have more freedom to simply produce an accurate textbook, without having some committee breathing down your neck or having your work thrown in haphazardly with ten other authors' work.
And there may be more control over the authorship, and the way the whole thing is put together.
But generally speaking, for instance, O'Reilly books are not that particularly expensive, and I just kind of feel better contributing some type of financial money to the author, and having a hard-copy book has its benefits as well, in case you feel like not being tied down to the computer or laptop screen. I like buying books, but I also like using electronic formats sometimes (it's easier and faster to take notes), it's especially cool when you are studying a programming language and you can see examples in the book and try out your own while you are physically sitting at your computer.
Electronic formats are good, and hard-copies are good too. What really needs to happen is that the cost of the textbooks, the hardcopy textbooks, need to come down by at least 50%. Again, this can be blamed on the "big publishing companies" - many of the policies and procedures that are commonplace at these types of embedded publishers drive the costs of textbooks up, and increase the number of errors in those textbooks at the same time. Paying some 30 dollars for a very excellent O'Reilly book, for instance, is really no big deal, considering how long it's going to take to read it and work through it, and hopefully the authors are getting some kind of reward in there too. Having an electronic format available for free, especially in the situation where one has purchased the hardcopy, is, I think, a really good idea; especially if that electronic format can have an errata somewhere or something.
To sum up, I think that the price of textbooks needs to come down, and the errors need to be lesser in number as well. These two things appear to be tied in together, to some extent. Furthermore, there should be a means to reward the authors for their work; I don't think that giving away books for free is really going to encourage people to write quality material; there needs to be some sort of way to integrate the hard copy and the electronic copy in a way that increases the benefits to the reader and still rewards the author and encourages more people to write quality material.
I think that this is going to turn out to not be quite as easy as it sounds.
I have to wonder if quality will suffer as a result.
I would expect free textbooks to improve the quality of both free and non-free ones.
First, assuming that a qualified author writes a free textbook, there should be a fairly high base quality because the author's reputation among his peers is at stake. Another author of a non-free textbook would then have to write a better book than the free one if he expects to charge for it.
Second, because the free electronic books are subject to frequent revision, other experts and students can submit criticisms and suggestions that can be instantly incorporated.
Since the vast majority of authors can't afford to give away their work for free..
Actually, in the textbook field, they can afford to give their work away because they're paid by a university. One should not underestimate the desire for the esteem of one's peers in any endeavor.
I've heard people talk of these ridiculously high costs for books in the US before. in my experience it isn't true here in the UK: to me an expensive book is above 30, and a book above 40 has no chance. also I've bought ~6 books over my 4 year degree, mostly because I wanted to, you are never required to buy a book.
in my courses (physics) the point of lectures is to obtain a set of notes good enough to work completely on their own in most cases. questions and answers are also provided by lecturers.
without wanting to sound like a flame or anything, is it possible that in the US lecturers just can't be bothered or aren't given the resources to teach their pupils properly and so fall back on textbooks which the money-grabbing publishers are happy to exploit (I've heard tales of unnecessary book-CD bundles etc. all just to inflate prices).
John Lienhard (the U. of Houston one) is the host of "The Engines of Our Ingenuity" radio program. If you haven't heard any of these, get the transcripts or see if the program is on in your area. I've always found them excellent.
Brent J. Nordquist N0BJN
As a new Assistant Professor at a U.S. institution, I am required to perform Teaching, Research, Service, and publish scholarly publications in PEER REVIEWED journals, etc. If this is not done satisfactorily, I will be released within several years. In order for the writing of textbooks to contribute to my retention, the 'system' requires publication through a 'major' commercial publisher in your field of knowledge. This is a major reason, IMHO, that we do not see more offerings like the subject of this article. Most professors are lucky to make 10% profit on their text publishing and my discussions in this matter with the publishing houses reveals their near-future plans to offer electronic texts online...on a chapter-by-chapter basis. This would allow instructors to assemble their own 'custom assembled' texts for courses.
Philip Greenspun, writing about his book Philip and Alex's Guide to Web Publishing
It was our idea that we should start with an introductory physics text, say, basic mechanics. The ultimate product would be an .iso disk image which contains not only a textbook, but recordings of key lectures, some highly compressed video and simulations of certain experiments, perhaps rendered in a GPL 3D graphics engine (where physical principles would be programmed in, and students could manipulate the setup and observe realistic changes in the results).
This would be a large and publicised project, and one that could/should attract enough NSF funding to cover its modest costs. (I've seen the NSF give money to much more frivolous ideas!) The initial text might be a "donation" from a cooperating professor, and the audio/video lecture fragments would also be solicited recorded in the classrooms of truly excellent faculty. (Nobody I talked to about this said he/she would refuse.) The various programs and simulations that need to be written would come from contracted, qualified and paid programmers and graduate students. (And perhaps volunteers.) All their code would be GPL.
Once the project gets going, a working group, organized much like an editorial board, would solicit and review new submissions and alterations. There can be arbitrarily many exercise problems, as well as detailed explanations of their solutions.
These would fully take advantage of the digital format. One weakness of paper textbooks is that by their nature, they have space for only a few fully-solved and explained sample exercises. This would not be a limitation of an electronic text. In fact, how to solve an exercise could be explained in several different ways by different instructors, maximizing the chance the student would "get it". I imagine an interface where next to each step, there is a small "how does this follow?" button. If pressed, it opens a small window describing the motivation of a certain transition.
Many of these details and elaborations could be contributed by users of the textbook. Like any major software project, there would be a moderated online forum to discuss issues related to the textbook. Ultimate decisions about how the text should be updated (the regular "distributions" of the GPL material) would be made by the editorial board. In academia many professors participate in editing journals pro bono, and we could expect something similar here. Feedback on the various aspects of the text would be solicited directly from students and instructors, and the editorial board would post "requests for updates" with specific issues that need to be addressed to make the project a better learning tool.
Well, we thought about many more details of implementation, but they are boring and you guys might have better ideas anyway. The point of the whole project would be primarily to have a supplement to introductory college-level classes, but the uses go far beyond that. The textbook would be designed to be self-learner friendly, something a motivated high-school student could easily work through. It could be duplicated cheaply and en masse (at first it would be a set of CD-ROMS, eventually transitioning to DVD-ROMS). In places where poverty, georgaphy and cultural factors limit access to higher education (which includes parts of the USA), people will still have simple computers and can cover the $2 for a burned DVD-ROM.
Of course, the idea would be to get one "hit" textbook and then reuse the software and other infrastructure to make more. Not only would this textbook require sequels, but also a demand for a calculus textbook in the same format. These are ideal fields for getting the project rolling, because introductory math, physics and chemistry textbooks don't get obsolete very quickly. How this project would be paid for re
The software we developed (I was the programmer on the project) was used for several classes on campus at Utah State University, where the project was based from, under the direction of Dr. R. Kent Wood (he has since retired). Our primary emphasis was more toward K-12 learning, but it proved to be quite popular with several computer-based learning groups including C.A.L.I.C.O, a group of individuals working on acquiring forign language skills through computer-based learning.
There are several issues that need to be dealt with in regards to multimedia development. Some of them have been solved compared to what I was dealing with in the past, but some still are huge problems: