From Nicole Allen

Textbooks Campaign Director,

Make Textbooks Affordable Campaign

Hello all:

 

Some great things are happening in the open textbooks world this summer, so I’m passing along the latest. Please share with others!

 

Support is growing: The list of faculty members signed onto the Open Textbooks Statement continues to grow past 1,300.  Please encourage colleagues to demonstrate their support for textbook affordability by signing here:

 

Great example of an open textbook: I encourage everyone to take a look at the open textbook Elementary Statistics on Connexions, even if it is not in your field.  It is a prime example of a high-quality open textbook that can easily be used and customized at no cost, and printed for a low cost.  The book is adapted from Collaborative Statistics, a standard textbook already used by many community college instructors in California.  A few things to point out (see the preface for more):

 

(1) The Connexions platform gives instructors tools to easily customize the open textbook.  The text is broken up into “modules” that can be used as-is, reassembled in a different order, or combined with chapters from other open textbooks on Connexions.

(2) Connexions offers three modes of delivery for students to choose: free online, free PDF download, or low-cost printing.  Elementary Statistics can be purchased through the print on demand service Qoop  for an affordable $29.

(3) The text is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution  license, which means that anyone can print, copy, share and customize the content, so long as the original authors are credited.

 

The book is part of the Comm. College Open Textbook Project , and will be ready for adoption this Fall.  If you are interested in peer-reviewing the text or learning more, please contact Dr. Judy Baker, director of CCCOER http://cccoer.wordpress.com/  at bakerjudy@foothill.edu .

 

Nine forthcoming open textbooks from publisher: We are getting increasingly excited as we watch the progress of Flat World Knowledge , the world’s first commercial publisher of free, open textbooks.  We’ve just received word that Flat World will release its first nine business & economics open textbooks, complete with instructor supplements, in Spring/Summer ’09.

 

The forthcoming titles are: (1) Intro. to Business, (2) Intro. to Advertising and Promotion, (3) Federal Income Tax Theory and Practice, (4) Principles of Economics, (5) Principles of Management, (6) Organizational Behavior, (7) Intermediate Microeconomics, (8) Principles of Marketing, (9) Intro. to Management Information Systems.  

If you are interested in a. serving as a peer reviewer, or b. class testing a title this Fall or Spring, please contact Eric Frank, Co-Founder, at eric@flatworldknowledge.com .

 

Intellectual property: Last week’s buzz about textbook piracy  sparked an interesting discussion  about the potential benefits of open licensing for the commercial world.  A few people pointed out the connection to Paul Krugman’s column   last month about the economics of intellectual property industries:  “Bit by bit, everything that can be digitized will be digitized, making intellectual property ever easier to copy and ever harder to sell for more than a nominal price. And we’ll have to find business and economic models that take this reality into account.”  

Krugman discusses business models similar to Flat World Knowledge (http://www.flatworldknowledge.com/) ’s open textbooks – give away the intellectual property under an open license, and make money by selling ancillaries.  We’ve primarily been looking at open textbooks as a way to increase access and affordability for higher education; but, by Krugman’s logic, open textbooks might also be one solution to challenges (like pirating) the publishing industry faces.

 

Wikibooks: Open textbooks come in many formats, and I thought I’d devote a little space to wikis.  Wikipedia's Wikibooks (http://en.wikibooks.org/)  are one example (some instructors have recommended Rhet.&Comp. (http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Rhetoric_and_Composition)  and Nanotechnology (http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Nanotechnology ), but not all wiki-textbooks are community edited.  Individual instructors and authors use wikis to host their own open textbooks and online class materials (see this article about one BC prof. (http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyId=16&articleId=9030802&intsrc=hm_topic ).

 

One resource to keep in mind is PBwiki (http://pbwiki.com/education.wiki) , a company that offers free, ad-free wikis for educators. Unlike Wikipedia's wikis, the author has full control over who can read and edit the textbook. PBwiki already hosts a few open textbooks, including a Graphic Design book (http://ttebyu.pbwiki.com/TTE+Online+Textbook+of+Graphic+Design)  from BYU. For more information, visit www.pbwiki.com (http://www.pbwiki.com/) .

 

Open textbook library: The Global Text Project  is creating an editorial-controlled internet library of open textbooks.  One way they are building the library is by improving out-of-print and slow-selling books.  Global Text will assist authors in obtaining copyrights from publishers, open licensing, and engaging students in refreshing the content. For more information, please contact project co-leader Don McCubbrey at dmccubbr@du.edu .

 

In closing:

 

We’ll be sure to keep you in the loop about open textbooks with an e-mail every month or so.  If you would like us to stop, simply reply and we’ll take you off the list.  

Please continue to pass along your thoughts and updates - recommendations for open textbooks, updates on projects, helpful resources, news articles, and reactions to anything above.  Also, feel free to get in touch with any questions or requests for more information.  

As always, if you use an open textbook or come across one you like, please take a few minutes to write a peer review for the material on a site like MERLOT .  

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday weekend!