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University of Minnesota Launches Review Project For Open Textbooks
New submitter Durinia writes "Minnesota Public Radio is running a story about the University of Minnesota's Open Textbooks project. The goal of the project is to solicit reviews of college-level open source textbooks and collect those that pass muster onto their website.
The project will focus first on high-volume introductory classes such as those for Math and Biology, because as David Ernst, director of the project, states in the interview: 'You know the world doesn't need another $150 Algebra One book. Algebra One hasn't changed for centuries, probably.'"
Requirements for inclusion include: Open licensing (Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike), complete content (no glorified collections of lecture notes), applicability outside of the author's institution, and print availability.
I was talking with a history professor (rljensen) the other day, and he said that free textbook ebooks would never catch on because, quote, "They're all terrible. And if they weren't terrible, they'd be selling them."
Hopefully sites like this will not only prove him wrong, but bring education, world-wide, to the next level.
Coming from a country with barely two centuries of history ...
If this was the talk of Chinese, Arabs or even Greeks would have sounded much better.
If you want free and open textbooks go live in North Korea!
Here we go again, the pirates are at it again!
Do you know the enormity of the lost revenue for publishing/printing companies when all ancient knowledge would go open source?
With a lot of struggle, the publishers managed to make wikipedia sound untrustworthy, but now a real university is going to review textbooks. It's the end of the industry.
"In related news, police have announced finding the body of a hooker in the trunk of a car owned by David Ernst."
Everybody knows that if you don't open your textbook, it is easier to return as new at the end of the semester. This is just a ploy by the bookstore to foil my plot to save money.
This is a great concept, but who does this benefit in the end? I know quiet a few professors that I took classes from that the very books we used in 'their' classes were one's they 1) either knew a close colleague in their field that reviewed it or provided input into it (see liner notes for their names) or 2) endorsed or provided input on the writing or content of it themselves. Outside of that, there's always going to be that uber passionate professor that isn't going to like the quality, content or organization of the open textbooks they have to choose from and opt to still pick the book of their choice for the benefit of their students and curriculum.
So let's say this flies for gen-ed courses, which is totally could. I don't see it working at all for actual studies or specific majors with changing content or new adoptive technologies.
Hoping on the student loan bandwagon a second, let's say even half of a students book moved to an openly available one, it still wouldn't make a dent in reducing costs for the student in any manner of impact. I also thought my university's bookstore thoroughly enjoyed raping student's pocket books on the re-re-re-reselling of used books at a dirt cheap by-back tactic. Either way, if I see the fee or cost difference falling right back into the student's lap as some 'new' fee line-item.
I've been taking a Mandarin course aimed at British teenagers (though I'm much older). It is impossible to learn anything from the "textbook". It is almost entirely pictures and exercises. There is a very short dictionary, but absolutely no grammar. It's the kind of workbook I was getting when I was seven years old.
Call me an old fart, but I like learning from books. I'd much rather have a reference book than a picture book.
This kind of peer review is absolutely the most important missing part of the Open Text puzzle. One of the things text publishers still have going for them is the stamp of approval they give simply by publishing a text.
Love the ads for this story:
That's exactly what a textbook should be. Now, we have about 1/2 a page of actual useful information per 10-20 pages of chapter. A student can actually carry around a reference text. Textbooks today are mostly just question books with no teaching value. I can use Infinite Math to generate questions. What students need is a book that actually helps explain things.
Instead, because the textbooks are useless, they have to rely solely on notes.
Work Safe Porn
A few years ago I was a grad student at the U of M and the job that put me through school was in educational technology. David Ernst was my boss's boss's boss. When I met him I thought he was a returning grad student whom I hadn't met yet and doing the same job as me, and he was very funny about the encounter. Anyways, they've been working on addressing stuff like this for a long time and it's amazing to see the project blossoming.
His statement about algebra one not changing is perhaps a little careless and distracts from the point of the project. There are plenty of good open source texts out there, and to have a knowledgable group diligently working to locate and promote the best ones is great for students.
He's wrong. Algebra 1 is different in Texas
Maybe a 3% savings on your total school bill? Who cares.
Creating value equal to 3% of the general education outlay, scaled to the English speaking world, would be kind of a big deal. Particularly when it also creates open courseware that can be freely used by non-enrolled students as a happy externality.
My thoughts exactly.
Man, your records don't back far enough for me, it seems. ;-)
I would rather that academia focused more on open minds that open textbooks.