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States Are Moving To Cut College Costs By Introducing Open-Source Textbooks (qz.com)
In an effort to curb the rising cost of textbooks, which went up by 88% between 2006 and 2016, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Maryland and New York have announced initiatives that adopt open-source, copyright-free textbooks. The initiatives will reward colleges who adapt or scale the use of OER (open educational resources) -- "materials like electronic textbooks that typically use licenses that are far less restrictive than traditional, copyrighted textbooks," reports Quartz. From the report: The University System of Maryland recently announced that it would be giving out 21 "mini-grants" to seven community colleges and five public four-year schools. The grants will go to "faculty who are adopting, adapting or scaling the use of OER [open educational resources] in Fall 2017 through high-enrollment courses where quality OER exists," according to the announcement. Although the mini-grants are only $500 to $2,500 each, the effort in Maryland is expected to save 8,000 students up to $1.3 million in the Fall 2017 semester alone. That's a significant amount, but just a drop in the bucket of what students in the state spend on textbooks each year. Another big investment in open educational resources came in the budget passed in New York state last week. The news was somewhat buried by the fact that the budget includes free tuition for New York students whose families make up to $125,000 a year, but the state will also be putting $8 million into open source materials over the next fiscal year.
Those stupid one use only keys should go first, IMO. Open materials are fine and all, but that will take a long time to develop. I think it would be much more effective to ban courses from requiring textbooks that have no resale value, and to prefer books that come in an international edition, with resources to help students acquire the international editions while ensuring that it's the right book for the course.
In my experience there were two really annoying "features" that, if eliminated, would slack textbook costs:
- incremental revisions: publishers put out regular "revisions" that really don't do much except shuffle some things around and *stop you reselling your text to next year's class*.
- over-the-top binding: physics was the worst offender for this in my experience. The only version of certain "classic" texts (Jackson's Electrodynamics springs to mind) you could get your hands on at any of the local bookshops would be the leather-bound edition with the shiny gold lettering, inbuilt cloth bookmark and (judging by the price) the ability to travel through space and time, cure cancer and end world freakin' hunger. I don't know, this might not be such an issue now we have Amazon et al, but back in the 90s the combined cost of your physics tomes could easily wipe out your food budget for a few months (unless you were willing to camp out in the photocopy room at the library for a day... not that we ever did such things).
Open-source textbooks are fine and I hope for the best for this format. As long as you don't take a course from a professor that authored a book that is required for your class. I went through college 25 years ago and had to work an ass-ton of extra hours to pay for my limited-use author-only (read a book you had to buy and study if you wanted to pass the class). The best thing I remember in the last 15 years beyond graduation.. was an effort to produce a highlighter pen that faded in 1 year.. so you could sell that expen$ive textbook you'll never use again to another student.. thus you shared the book load. They didn't have this back in the 1990's.
http://gizmodo.com/5889717/fading-highlighter-makes-textbooks-easier-to-sell
Peace out.
"I've switched to publishing my books under the GPL."
"Oh, they're free?"
"No, the FSF says I can charge as much as I wish. Free as in speech, not beer."
"But at least you include the source?"
"Of course! Each copy includes its own text. It's tucked between the covers."
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
We use open source physics textbooks where I attend and it actually works out pretty well. The books are pretty well-written. The PDF versions are free, the dead-tree edition is like $100. The one-time key for the online assignments is like $40. At the end of the day, other than tuition I only had to spend $40. Pretty awesome idea if you ask me.... the rest of my classes require books ranging from $120 to $400.
The college book publishing racket has to end.
The additional amusement watching retarded millennial kids who never learned to use a real computer and are too cheap to buy a tablet trying to use the eBook version as well as complete assignments on their phones is priceless as well. I've seen people trying to write papers on phones recently. They'd rather fumble with a $600 phone than spend $100 on a used laptop. Boggles the mind.
Sure, textbooks are expensive. But how much are kids paying for textbooks each year versus how much tuition they're paying into the state's coffers annually?
If the states really want to lower the costs of college... they should drop tuition costs instead of raising them 20-30% every year or two.
#DeleteChrome
You mean there are countries where every taxpayer shares the load so that anyone can get an education. It might not be a bad idea, but it's hardly free.
Knowing a subject well does not make one a good writer. Writing non-fiction may require different skills than writing fiction, but there's still skill involved.
... 100k of free student aid and to have to work 2 jobs for the next 20 years to pay it off.
You have a very strange idea of what free means.
Your suggestion makes no sense. The universities don't pay tuition either. You're hiding the cost, but you're not removing it from the student.
Don't compare open source documentation to open source courses and textbooks.
The proper comparison is to compare open / closed courses and textbooks to open / closed server software. What wins? Open source. Linux and other open source server software dominates. So much so that Microsoft had to create Windows Subsystem for Linux. And then admitted it was to lure developers back (to Windows).
I suspect that subject matter experts creating open textbooks will work out about as well as open source server software did for servers.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
One flaw with your analysis. The number of people with the ability to get a degree but don't solely because they can't afford tuition who then work minimum wage jobs for the rest of their lives is so incredibly small as to be inconsequential at the macro level. People who are capable of getting a degree are capable of doing work above the minimum wage level, usually much above. Besides, getting a degree doesn't automatically mean you are going to get a decent job. I know developers without degrees that make more money than many people with (non-STEM) degrees. I know trades people in my neighborhood making solidly between $100K and $200K. You should see what my FIL was taking in as a heavy equipment operator. Heck, I know a couple of unskilled laborers making more than double minimum wage. (of course in the US minimum wage is highly variable depending on where you live). We already have enough people camping out in college and using it as an extended vacation away from the real world, as long as they are doing that with their own money, I don't care. You make it so I'm paying for them and I have a problem with it.