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Open Textbooks Win Over Publishers In CA
Unequivocal writes "Recently California's Governor announced a free digital textbook competition. The results of that competition were announced today. Many traditional publishers submitted textbooks in this digital textbook competition in CA as well as open publishers. An upstart nonprofit organization named CK-12 contributed a number of textbooks (all free and open source material). 'Of the 16 free digital textbooks for high school math and science reviewed, ten meet at least 90 percent of California's standards. Four meet 100 percent of standards.' Three of those recognized as 100% aligned to California standards were from CK-12 and one from H. Jerome Keisler. None of the publisher's submissions were so recognized. CK-12 has a very small staff, so this is a great proof of the power of open textbooks and open educational resources."
Thankfully common sense has prevailed. This is one monopoly that the world should be glad to see the back of.
I bought my netbook this year for less than the cost of two textbooks. I would go so far as to say the college book store could still make a decent living by offering rental and sale netbooks pre-loaded with proper course materials for much, much cheaper than what students pay on books right now.
"Open Source" needn't mean(though it certainly can) "read on a computer". Obviously, digital distribution is convenient because copying is essentially free; but for locations where digital use is inconvenient or impossible, it isn't rocket surgery to send a digital document to the printer's and have copies made.
Since, with an OSS document(or one that you own the rights to) you can have anybody you want print it, you can put out the printing for competitive bid, and should be able to get it done for not too much above cost(and printing is actually pretty cheap, compared to textbook costs).
The issue of open vs. proprietary, for textbooks, is pretty much orthogonal to the issue of digital vs. printed.
"Open source" takes on a figurative meaning when it comes to things that aren't software(though given the difference between print-ready formats and the input files that created them a source vs. binary style distinction can be said to exist with texts as well); but it is still a well formed concept in that context.
"Public domain" means not under copyright. "Open source" typically implies "Under copyright; but available subject either to essentially no terms, or subject to the requirement that you extend the rights given to you to any people you give the work to". Those are sometimes equivalent in effect (public domain vs. new BSD doesn't make a big difference in many contexts); but that doesn't make them equivalent in general.
"But, even in something like a math course, open textbooks run into the "staleness" issue. That is, students do the assignments or tests and then the solutions are passed on to the next year's students. Publishers do quite a bit of work to change problems. Do not underestimate the amount of work and editing/QA involved in such an effort."
This is now an absurd claim, at this point. WolframAlpha returns you the answer to any problem by just typing it in.
Take for example one I just made up as I was typing this:
Limit as x -> 0 of (sqrt(sin (x-5)) + tan((y- pi/2)^2)) / x(y-2)^2
And bingo, it gives the answer, as well as gives the series expansion:
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=Limit+as+x+-%3E+0+of+(sqrt(sin+(x-5))+%2B+tan((y-+pi%2F2)^2))+%2F+x(y-2)^2
Besides, an Open Textbook can be modified, updated, support the development of new resources, homework sets, etc. by the teachers themselves. So they can leverage the MASSIVE amount of prep work they all do anyway. But with a closed book system, these teachers all have to reinvent the wheel for themselves, as they cannot share their efforts based on a copyrighted book.