Slashdot Mirror
Brown Signs California Bill For Free Textbooks
bcrowell writes "California Governor Jerry Brown has signed SB 1052 and 1053, authored by state senator Darrell Steinberg, to create free textbooks for 50 core lower-division college courses. SB 1052 creates a California Open Education Resources Council, made up of faculty from the UC, Cal State, and community college systems. The council is supposed to pick 50 core courses. They are then to establish a 'competitive request-for-proposal process in which faculty members, publishers, and other interested parties would apply for funds to produce, in 2013, 50 high-quality, affordable, digital open source textbooks and related materials, meeting specified requirements.' The bill doesn't become operative unless the legislature funds it — a questionable process in California's current political situation. The books could be either newly produced (which seems unlikely, given the 1-year time frame stated) or existing ones that the state would buy or have free access to. Unlike former Gov. Schwarzenegger's failed K-12 free textbook program, this one specifically defines what it means by 'open source,' rather than using the term as a feel-good phrase; books have to be under a CC-BY (or CC-BY-SA?) license, in XML format. They're supposed to be modularized and conform to state and W3C accessibility guidelines. Faculty would not be required to use the free books."
"Faculty would not be required to use the free books"
With this one phrase, the entire idea is rendered useless. Why bother with free textbooks for college level classes if no college will offer classes that use them for coursework? The state will pay for the development, sure... like California can really pay for anything else...
How long until the textbook industry sues California for unfair competition?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
It will be a one-time cost for writing or converting the books, and a small yearly cost of updating them, instead of a yearly high cost for buying them from Texas. It is going to save quite a lot of money, but I'm sure the Book Mafia will successfully lobby this out of existence.
They could use the books already on Wikibooks ( http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Main_Page ) as a starting point.
I wonder if the open-source books they will produce will break away from the paper textbook paradigm (linear text+static images)? The one I am writing ( http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Space_Transport_and_Engineering_Methods ) is heavily hyperlinked, I've included a spreadsheet and expect to include other media, am working on a resource library ( http://www.mediafire.com/?y1ko8gj5rouob ), and the concept of "class projects" (design studies) which become part of the book.
I have never understood this business. Not much has changed in say basic trig or geometry in 100 years. In that time basic subject textbooks should have been whittled down to two or three that are simply the best. But somehow there is different textbooks in nearly every school system in North America; yet a school system in SoCal should be able to use the same textbook as in Maine. The textbook companies have somehow convinced every schoolboard that they should tailor the books to match their exact curriculum. This gives the schoolboards a warm and fuzzy feeling while they set up approval commities, training sessions, etc for the new books. Yet these books add up to a huge percentage of the budget.
My two daughters have nearly useless textbooks year after year which their teachers just don't use. They will have questions like: "Write down all the ways 10 numbered marbles can be put into 5 lettered bags." Holy crap do these people even have a basic understanding of math.
It is not just ebooks that can replace these dinosaurs but cool online videos.
Bye bye massively commissioned textbook sales people.
At least it should be cheaper and available sooner than the no-longer-bullet train we're supposedly getting in the next 30 years. Aw, who am I kidding?
Anyway, I'm currently attending a California city college, and I've attended state university before. In my experience, many professors (especially at the city college level, where average incomes are lower) are concerned about textbook prices. They put them in the library reserve for students to use, they allow you to use previous editions, and they'll even look for cheaper alternatives. My current professors also claim they do not receive commission for textbook sales, and that the school essentially breaks even on textbook sales once you consider the costs of running the bookstore.
In the past, many of my computer science courses had complimentary eBooks available online. This year, two of my classes have eBook versions available via CourseSmart which, while cheaper than physical textbooks, can't be used on dedicated eReaders (currently computer, iOS, and Android, with Android devices being limited somehow). They also have the issue of essentially being rentals instead of outright purchases--but still, it's better than nothing.
Finally, two professors I had a while back decided that the existing course books were too expensive, so they wrote their own books and sold them for $10 and $30. Yeah, they obviously get a commission there, but that's better than paying $150.
I imagine there are other schools that are much worse than my personal experiences, but it isn't all bad.
If you can't convince them, convict them.
They don't even need to lobby it, most professors simply won't switch to them for any of their classes. Publishers offer far too many incentives that make the professors job easier while also helping to tie them down to that publisher.
That's a bit of a far fetched idea. I've searched the earth far and wide, in every Nook and cranny, I've even searched deep in the Amazon and have yet to find anything similar to that which you desire.
unless the prof requires the new edition, that switches the order of chapters 9 and 10, makes minor changes in the constants in the word problems throughout the book so the answers are different, and adds 10 more bucks to the price over last year's edition.
You obviously don't think things through. Tea party?
First of all, the State of California buys an awful lot of those expensive textbooks, and would reap the savings almost immediately.
Secondly, if it makes education less expensive, it will likely lead to more educated people. People who can afford to pay taxes and your social security.