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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."
Instructor materials and supplements were not included. So, this is basically a setup/joke.
Traditional textbooks are purchased because of the ancillary material that comes with them. This includes, support, Web sites for both students and instructors, assessment software, assessment preparation material, copious student assignments and solutions, automatic grading software, prepared lecture material, etc.
I have never seen open textbooks work in a subject area that requires frequent updates, such as fundamental computer concepts, or modern application software (office suites...). I do think, however, open can be somewhat successful solid subjects, such as calculus. Note that I bring up these subject area because a LOT of books are sold in these area. 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.
If you think students are lazy these days, you should see the instructors. They demand new end-of-chapter problems, new quizzes, new tests. And they want it all automatically graded electronically. This can't be delivered by open textbooks.
"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid." - Epictetus
I was checking the comments to see if anybody had mentioned that yet, as I was going to say the same thing myself.
I *highly* recommend that link, as well as the book from whence it came, Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman. In fact I think that book should be required reading for any self-respecting nerd.
No one, for example, takes Gibbon's argument on the Fall of the Roman Empire seriously anymore; similarly, no one takes the argument that Islamic cultures economically failed (in comparison with Europe) because of anti-capitalist religious precepts seriously either. Yet both were a part of serious teaching a few decades ago (the age of some textbooks).
I remember one textbook I had as a child argued that the reason that Lowland Scots prospered in comparison with Highland Scots was due the Protestant work ethic bestowed upon them through Prebyterianism - in comparison, the Highlanders succumbed to their lethargic Catholic proclivities. Hilarious in hindsight, but slightly disturbing as real teaching.
It's actually kind of funny, but my experience as the author of some free physics textbooks as been almost exactly the opposite of the situation you have in mind. My books are written for use at the college level, but I have quite a few high school users as well, and the vast majority of these high schools are religious high schools, mostly Catholic schools. The reason is simply that state education bureaucracies make it impossible in most cases for public schools to adopt open-source books, so the ones who can adopt them are mostly private schools, and a lot of private schools are religious. I have one book that's written for the type of course that biology majors usually take, and I've taken tons of opportunities to work in mentions of evolution, e.g., in the chapter that discusses refraction I start off with the evolution of the eye. Doesn't seem to have bothered thes folks a bit. Of course the Catholic Church doesn't have any issues with evolution anyway.
There have been plenty of fairly successful attempts, on the other hand, to get ID into schools through the traditional setup of public school bureaucracies, state legislatures, and textbook publishers. A lot of publishers water down the discussion of evolution in their K-12 texts in an effort to make them more salable in places like Texas.
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