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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."
...few have lived to tell the tale.
Seriously, though, you can expect a HUGE pushback on this from the publishing industry (college textbooks are a big moneymaker, especially considering how overpriced many textbooks are) and even from some professors (they write the books, after all).
And there is another issue too: Who is going to write these open source textbooks? Even though academics don't usually get paid particularly well for their writing, it's unlikely that many academics are going want to tackle something as big as a survey-level textbook for free (with the occasional exception like the professor in the article).
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Can some people with more experience explain? I went to uni in England. The lecturers wrote stuff up on the board/projector/used powerpoint and handed out a sheet of questions and some pages of notes each week. They suggested one to three suitable textbooks for a course, but that's as far as it went. There were usually a bunch of the library and if the lecturer was suitably ancient, then the books were out of print by a commensurate amount.
Then, there was a big old bunch of final at the end of the thirf and fourth years (first year too, but they didn't count).
I gather that in the US system, it's common to have the course structured around a 3rd party textbook. Is this correct?
SJW n. One who posts facts.
This assumes that next semester they use the same book. Publishers have been known to make changes every couple of years and discontinue the older version... forcing the professors to upgrade, making the old version obsolete.
Not to mention that I have never seen a buy back for anything close the original sale price.
Sometimes the best solution is to stop wasting time looking for an easy solution.
What, do they come with LaTeX files or something?
Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
Because academic texts 400 years ago were mostly written in Latin and modern students don't know Latin?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
New ways to teach it. At a minimum, you'd hope that they'd update the examples some time over the 400 years.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
You can sell it the next quarter for the same price? DAMN, where do you buy books? The best I see around here is about a 10% return.
e-books don't seem problematic:
Lets assume an average of 500 pages a book (it's a bit high, but that hurts rather than helps the example).
Good color printer (can match textbook quality, or beat it) - $600
Toner with color - $200/5000pages (est, $20/book)
Paper - $20/500pages (est, $20/book)
So, $40/book. If the books are $100/ea, you come ahead $60/book.
After 10 books, assuming 3/quarter that's 3-4 quarters, you've made up your investment in the printer.
After 4 years (assuming summers off, that 12 quarters or 36 books), you are 26 books, or $1560 ahead.
Of course, you then have to subtract the cost of the ebook, if you pay for it. From the sound of it though, with an OSB, you probably /wouldn't/ have to pay for it.
You could get a nice waxjet and still do better over the time of a college degree, than buying the books retail.
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
Seriously, though, you can expect a HUGE pushback on this from the publishing industry (college textbooks are a big moneymaker, especially considering how overpriced many textbooks are) and even from some professors (they write the books, after all).
This is the pushback against high monopoly pricing. They are starting to find the breaking point in an otherwise inflexible market (Ya gotta have that book).
As the alternatives start to errode the monopoly, the publishers will adjust to find the maximum profit point, but the policies that are put in place to curb runaway prices will remain for quite some time.
The truth shall set you free!
Sell it the next semester? But version 12 is out next semester, and they changed one entire sentence. Of course the professor won't allow your old version 11 book.
Welcome to the world of a book that is now worth 10$, not 200$.
Why print an e-book? What a monumental waste of paper and ink.
Are you aware that you can read it just fine on the computer, and with the right software you can even annotate the PDF and take notes, right on your computer. Oh, and you can search within the PDF.
Try firing up the search engine on your printed pages.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
A friend just dropped 200 bucks on a math book for a fairly low level math course. It was brand new, because of course it was a new revision for this year.
Differences? Bug fixes, essentially. So because they fixed a few of their own errors, he had to spend full price instead of the used price ( which is still a rip off ).
Couldn't he have gotten the old one online for a good price? No, because on the first day of class his professor checks to make sure he has the right book.
If none of this raises anybody's suspicions, I have a bridge for sale. cheap!
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Q.E.D.
My daughter has actually made money on her textbooks the last couple years. She buys them used on half.com and then sells them back to the university bookstore for more than she paid.
Many of the publishers are including a multimedia CD in the back of the book, which is pretty much useless. Perhaps this is part of their excuse for increasing the cost.
If theres no copyright issue , most of these opensource books could be printed for $20-30 a copy for a large hardcover book. Private companies could even make a small profit selling the equivalent of "thrift editions" of these text books. They do it already for books in the public domain and furthermore most universities already have on-campus printers.
Textbooks are knowledge. Knowledge should be free. Especially in established subjects. A lot of math doesn't really change much. The textbooks shouldn't have to either. The publishers struggle to keep changing the text so old versions will become irrelevant. They add new problem sets, pretty much. It's their way of squashing the second-hand market.
Publishers should sponsor free Open-Source books. The work has already been done. Improvements and corrections will happen organically and become available as they happen. There is little cost to their upkeep and students will always have access to the most recent version and can update at any time.
Where is the money made? Invest in creating new problem sets that are companions to these open source books. Universities could take them or leave them, but since there is an actual "added value" in putting the effort in to create and verify these problem sets, I think it would be profitiable. Publish and sell these workbooks.
Make old problem sets available online for free. Heck, it'd likely be a tax deduction! Make the answers to these problem-sets available freely and in an obvious way. This will encourage schools to pay for the newest problems sets to discourage cheating.
I honestly think with this model, everyone can win.
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.
First, the open source projects you list are great and I support them.
But your analogy sucks. It's just awful.
You're comparing open source SOFTWARE which can be whipped up on the spot by anyone with the skills and has as it's ONLY requirement that it adheres to its license , to a REFERENCE TEXT that has to be current, researched, sourced, proofread, factchecked, and edited, BEFORE IT CAN BE USED.
They have a saying for that, it's called comparing apples to oranges.
Now I honestly have no idea how well OS texts will work, but pretending they're a comparable case to software because they're both OS is laughable and wrong.
Why buy if you can download? http://www.textbooktorrents.com/