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Open-Source College Textbooks Gaining Mindshare
bcrowell writes "The LA Times has a front-page article about how open-source college textbooks are starting to gain traction. One author says, 'I couldn't continue assigning idiotic books that are starting to break $200,' and describes attempts by commercial publishers to bribe faculty to use their books. The Cal State system has started a Digital Marketplace to help faculty find out about their options for free and non-free digital textbooks, and the student group PIRG has collected 1200 faculty signatures on a statement of support for open textbooks."
Basically yes. Even if the course isn't structured around a particular book, instructors are going to be receiving pressure from the school to use the latest and greatest book from publisher XYZ that they have a deal with. It is a money issue more than anything. To be fair, some subjects do change often enough that you need to refresh books frequently, but many don't. How long has it been since Algebra or Calculus has changed significantly enough to warrant a new book?
I have never taken a college course that was really structured around the book in a start to finish style. Typically the instructor takes the few sections he wants to use, arranges them how he wants to teach them, and then uses the homework from the book and the grading key to deal with assignments. It keeps everyone at the same reference point.
The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.
Firefox, Samba, Apache, MySQL, PHP, Perl, Gimp (it is very comparable to photoshop given that most people don't use all of photoshops capabilities in the first place and assuming that everyone who needs a good graphic editing program is a photoshop wizard with $600 to drop on it is a complete r-tard). Then we have BSD, Linux, Gnome, KDE, Evolution, OpenOffice... Seriously...there are TONS of open software projects that compare to or exceed their commercial equivilents. Microsoft is going to support the ODF format BEFORE their own OOXML garbage...So push all they want...they are losing ground. Did you not just read how their silly SCO attempt went up in flames?
Now...that doesn't EVEN begin to compare the supercomputer and science realm of software that I don't have any experience in. IBM has been giving up tons of stuff to open source at a much lower level than "ooh look at the pretty clicky" user level stuff. The notion that free software doesn't compare to commercial software because you can't play Bioshock on a Linux desktop is laughable.
The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.
Most professors at NC State during my time (1994-2002) we realistic about the books. I was there when books went from cheap to retarded in price. NCSU is currently in the works to prevent books costing over $150 from being a choice, and to prevent teachers who use books they wrote or co-wrote from charging over $50 for it. I doubt it will go through and I'm sure I'm behind the actual state of it.
The worst offender I remember was some douche bag who wrote his own chemistry manual and his WIFE (a non chemist) proof read it. The funniest thing and I couldn't find a link to the picture was the the cover had Avogadro's number on the cover... as
6.023 x 10 -23... yes I said NEGATIVE 23 in bold yellow on glossy paper.
the book had so many mistakes. I'm so glad I wasn't in that class.
Yes, just imagine it.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Why buy if you can download? http://www.textbooktorrents.com/
So, what parts of Wikipedia do you consider to be fundamentally wrong?
Pointing out exactly what's wrong the problem, isn't it? Sure, most of it is reasonably accurate, but what parts aren't? Who knows when someone who really knows the material last looked at it and corrected the mistakes? At least with a book there are authors (real people, not handles), editors, and dates attached to the editing.