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Brown Signs California Bill For Free Textbooks

Posted by Soulskill on from the all-the-knowledge,-none-of-the-calories dept.

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."

5 of 201 comments (clear)

  1. ..and... by raydobbs · · Score: 4, Informative

    "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...

    1. Re:..and... by bcrowell · · Score: 4, Informative

      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?

      I think this is a little too pessimistic. A lot of free books already exist, and a lot of faculty are already using them. See my sig for a catalog that includes several hundred examples. The books that are actively in use for instruction tend to highly "top-heavy," i.e., there's a ton of free graduate texts, not as many college ones, few high school ones, and almost no K-8 books.

      The teacher's privilege of choosing what book to use is an important part of academic freedom in higher education. The lack of choice by teachers is part of what makes K-12 textbooks suck so much. K-12 books are written by a committee and sold to a commitee, based on criteria such as whether they show pictures of disabled kids doing math.

      My own experience as the author of some free physics textbooks is that teachers' ability to choose the book they want is a huge positive factor in getting people to use my books. I currently have about 30-40 college adoptions and about 30-40 high school adoptions. (There's no way for me to know exact numbers, because the books are free.) Of those high school adoptions, nearly all are from private schools (mostly Catholic schools). The reason isn't hard to guess. K-12 textbook selection in public schools is highly political and bureaucratic. A high school physics teacher at a public school can't simply choose whatever book he wants.

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  2. Countdown to lawsuit by Hatta · · Score: 4, Interesting

    How long until the textbook industry sues California for unfair competition?

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  3. Re:Really? by arth1 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  4. Re:Seriously? by Cinder6 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

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