
OpenStax – openly licensed textbooks - pome
https://openstax.org/
======
skh
I teach mathematics at a community college and use free materials in my
courses or use materials that I’ve created. I never use paid materials in my
courses. The reason I can do this is because math doesn’t change from year to
year. I’m in a subject whose content is static. Even so most open textbooks
are quite bad. I’ve only found a few that were really good.

Writing a good book even in a field whose content doesn’t change much is hard.
There’s a need for publishers but just not a need for one that charges
hundreds of dollars for a textbook. It might not be economically feasible to
have a publisher put out quality textbooks for less money but I can’t justify
forcing my students to spend $200 to $300 per semester on a math textbook.

~~~
RankingMember
I wish more teachers of subjects like this had your mindset. I wonder if other
colleges have some sort of requirement that the teacher push the book.

~~~
skh
Every college/university I've taught at allows instructors to choose their own
book or has a committee of faculty members in the department choose the book.
Increasingly there is a movement in state legislatures that mandate that the
university system push open source textbooks. There's definitely a desire
amongst a lot of faculty to use an open text book but the book has to be good
and that's the hard part.

One thing to keep in mind is that publishers don't publish books to appeal to
students. Their client are faculty members. So they include things like
websites that handle grading online homework/quizzes. Faculty are going to use
what makes their job easier. With pay not commensurate with level of education
I understand why faculty have this mindset. Personally I think it's bad to use
the online homework/quizzing systems out there.

------
heydenberk
I've often thought that textbooks would be a productive place to focus excess
energy among software freedom types. The way I see it, there are at least
three ways in which most technology professionals could effectively
contribute:

\- Content production and editing

\- Improving the design and branding of open textbook purveyors

\- Advocating for the adoption of open source textbooks in your local K-12
system and community colleges (especially the more cash-strapped ones)

I know of no organization that attempts to organize community efforts in these
directions, though. If there is one, I'd love to know about it and get
involved. If not, maybe it's an idea whose time has come.

~~~
nickpsecurity
I often suggest Wikimedia use their excess money not spent on Wikipedia itself
to create low-cost or openly-licensed textbooks. If adopted by schools,
students everywhere would save money on textbooks that were high quality. The
collection would grow over time as both revenue and donations come in. They
might also do something similar to Coursera. Textbooks just seemed like they'd
be easier project with large, positive outcome. Plus, some could be updated
rarely (eg 5 years) since the content doesn't change much.

~~~
waterhouse
There is something called Wikibooks, though I've only spent maybe half an hour
reading a particular wikibook years ago and can't speak to overall quality:

[https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Main_Page](https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Main_Page)

~~~
nickpsecurity
Yeah but I wasnt impressed with the quality when I looked at them. Im talking
about paying good writers and illustrators to do stuff students would actually
want to buy. Then, price it affordably. Maybe even tiered with a default price
plus discounts for smaller institutions.

------
uniqdom
You can find those and more here:
[https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/](https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/)

I'm still looking for the sources. I would like to compile them to epub format

~~~
therealmarv
You can find the sources when you go to the link "view online" which will
redirect you to the [http://cnx.org](http://cnx.org) website to all the
sources (OpenStax was Connections/CNX in the past). It includes all HTML/XML,
images and special styling. Here an example for the algebra book (scroll down
to downloads):
[https://cnx.org/contents/CImQfPDv@3.11:GfaWl1GG@4/Introducti...](https://cnx.org/contents/CImQfPDv@3.11:GfaWl1GG@4/Introduction)
Actually they also produced epub in the past (disclaimer: I worked for them in
the past) and I'm sure you can get epub versions from them if you contact
them.

~~~
uniqdom
You mean to download the Offline ZIP, right? that's the main book source?

~~~
therealmarv
yes, right. They produce the real books, PDF, online version out of this
"source code" version.

------
rectang
> _OpenStax at Rice University is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit charity_

Good to see that OpenStax is a 501(c)(3) charity, which is the nonprofit
classification where donations are tax-deductible and thus restricted. That
makes it harder for the organization to be influenced too directly by
sponsors, since donations cannot be used for purposes which would yield direct
marketplace advantage.

I also see that they use a permissive, attribution-based license for their
publications. That makes it easier for businesses to consume those materials
and also to contribute.

[https://openstax.org/license](https://openstax.org/license)

> _The Creative Commons Attribution license that you and every author must
> agree to enables the content to be as reusable as possible._

The combination of 501(c)(3) and business-friendly licensing reminds me of the
Apache Software Foundation. The more orgs using that formula, the better!

~~~
andrepd
I disagree. I would very much prefer a "GPL type" share-alike licence. The
basic principle is: I'm releasing this content to the public, with the
expectation that anyone that builds upon it will also do the same. Otherwise
people can take what I did, use it for their profit, and not contribute back,
hurting the overall community. This doesn't seem fair to me.

~~~
jimhefferon
Long ago, in the LaTeX world, people first licensed stuff as "not for sale"
(or even "not for sale to the military"). Then someone wanted to publish a
"How to Use LaTeX" book, commercially but basically at cost, with a CD in the
back having a complete collection of software. They were faced with being
unable to do so because some of the software was licensed as not-for-sale.
That seems counter productive, to me.

That even applies to books: I've gotten a good number of inquiries from
college bookstores asking if instructors can sell copies. They are worried
that money is changing hands, when students buy a physical copy, and I am not
getting any of it. I am glad those folks are looking out for my rights, but my
point here is that "you can't sell it" is a more complex restriction than at
least I (in no way a lawyer) thought when I first started doing this.

~~~
greglindahl
The CC "share-alike" option and the CC "non-commercial" option are orthogonal
for exactly this reason.

~~~
rectang
Even so, complying with share-alike licenses is more costly than complying
with attribution-based licenses.

Consider what it takes to rectify license violation (either inadvertent or
deliberate). Officially, the full force of copyright law can be brought down,
but historically neither tradition wants that -- they just want to bring
violators into compliance for future distribution. For share-alike, derivative
works must be released under the share-alike license, which can affect
business strategy. For attribution-based, adding a few lines of notification
suffices.

~~~
andrepd
Do you know what would be even more costly? Not having the free content in the
first place, ffs. Quit whining just because you have to comply with the
licence imposed by someone who is giving up their work for free.

------
notafraudster
The content here seems fairly good, but from opening a random sample of
textbooks, I notice pretty consistently poor presentation and formatting.
Almost everything is presented in a wall of single column text with long
paragraphs, a small font, and limited in-set visualization. This was
especially bad in Intro Sociology and Intro to U.S. Government from what I
checked.

I found some pagination / page break issues (e.g. page 379 in Intro Statistics
is empty and the transition from 381 to 382 also has a weird orphan problem).
The same section also has section numbering problems. Edit: Reading more, I
see a ton of equations that aren't rendered very well (page 405 in intro
stats, look at all of the \bar{x} in the first half -- is this even using
LaTeX to render or is this like a bad Microsoft Word equation editor thing?)

In the statistics world, OpenIntro Statistics --
[https://www.openintro.org/stat/](https://www.openintro.org/stat/) \-- seems
quite a lot better as a textbook

------
philschatz
If you would like to help, the code is open source at
[https://github.com/openstax](https://github.com/openstax) and
[https://github.com/connexions](https://github.com/connexions) ... Also,
OpenStax is hiring!
[https://jobs.rice.edu/postings/14338](https://jobs.rice.edu/postings/14338)

(Disclaimer: I currently work at OpenStax, but am not speaking on behalf of
OpenStax)

~~~
wilsonfiifi
OpenStax CMS[0] is built with Wagtail[1] (Django based CMS framework). This is
a good example (live) project to sink my teeth into and learn more about
Wagtail. Incidentally does anyone know of any good resources (books,
tutorials) to go from beginner to advanced Wagtail developer?

    
    
      [0] https://github.com/openstax/openstax-cms
      [1] https://wagtail.io/

------
HarryHirsch
Good to see that they offer free slides for the instructor. Now what's missing
for widespread adoption is the online autograding system because at teaching
colleges instructors are totally overworked and could not keep up with the
weekly assignments even if they wanted to. College textbooks are chosen for
the online student assignments, which typically cost the students 50 USD or
thereabouts.

~~~
philschatz
There is a homework tool by OpenStax that has auto-graded homework, among
other things -- OpenStax Tutor -- it’s for Algebra-based Physics, Introductory
Sociology, and Biology courses:
[https://tutor.openstax.org](https://tutor.openstax.org).

Also, OpenStax currently has pretty widespread adoption: See
[http://news.rice.edu/2018/08/01/48-percent-of-
colleges-2-2-m...](http://news.rice.edu/2018/08/01/48-percent-of-
colleges-2-2-million-students-using-free-openstax-textbooks-this-year/)

(Disclaimer: I currently work at OpenStax, but am not speaking on behalf of
OpenStax)

------
ward
I like it.

For some of these though, I feel like it would be nice if an "order" was
established between different books (or the lack thereof mentioned). At least,
I do not immediately seem to spot a mention of this.

What I mean is that I assume College Physics comes before University Physics,
but at what point are you ready to start Astronomy? Also, where does College
Physics for AP Courses fit in? (that might be more obvious for Americans?) How
about the Biology books, do I need them for Anatomy?

~~~
dak1
Part of the idea behind Connexions (and later OpenStax) is that educational
resources are made available under a CC license, and tools are provided so
that educators can use, combine, re-write, and modify the educational texts
they use.

In practice, many choose to use the books as is, as they're already pretty
high quality, but if you go to cnx.org and do some searches on the database,
you'll find a number of variations that have been created by different
professors and universities as well.

I don't think the intent (or resources) is there to give you every book for
every course in a pre-selected order.

Disclaimer: I'm a former employee and developer for Connexions and OpenStax
CNX, although I haven't been there for several years, so my understanding may
be out of date.

------
demonshreder
KDE has wiki like collaborative program -
[https://www.wikitolearn.org/](https://www.wikitolearn.org/)

------
ta76567656
See also: [https://en.wikibooks.org](https://en.wikibooks.org)

------
chrisper
What's the difference between this and cnx.org? It seems tho have more books

~~~
dak1
cnx.org was the URL used when the organization was called Connexions. It was
re-branded a few years ago to reflect its growth and expanded missions.
Connexions became OpenStax CNX, within the larger OpenStax organization.

They are all a part of Rice University and based out of Houston, and have been
pursuing the goal of providing open education resources since the 1990s.

They're also open source and active on GitHub:
[https://github.com/Connexions](https://github.com/Connexions)
[https://github.com/openstax](https://github.com/openstax)

Source/Disclaimer: I'm a former employee and developer for Connexions and
later OpenStax CNX.

------
wowtip
Hmm, any technical reason for providing only PDF and no epub format?

~~~
tssva
From their support site.

"Do you have .epub versions of your books?

We no longer support .epub versions of our OpenStax books. Only a small
percentage (around 1 percent) of OpenStax readers reported using the .epub
format, and maintaing these versions is costly; instead, we focus on providing
our online web view, PDF, iBooks, Amazon, and print versions. You can see what
formats are available for your subject at OpenStax.org."

~~~
logfromblammo
> _maintaing these versions is costly_

I call bullshit. EPUB is basically a self-contained web site with a built-in
index. If the text is maintained as an EPUB to begin with, producing a PDF is
functionally identical to rendering it on an EPUB reader with a fixed page
size and font.

They provide an online web view. The margin of difference between that and
EPUB is building the metadata file and ZIPping it all into a single file. Or
it's just an online PDF reader. Besides that, iBooks is based on EPUB, and
older Kindle files are based on MobiPocket, which is based on OEBPS, the
precursor of EPUB. Amazon has gratis software to convert from EPUB to Kindle
file format. The print versions are probably functionally identical to PDF,
with printing and cutting margins added to the page size.

If they maintained the book source in EPUB, all other formats that they do
provide are essentially free, and can be maintained with a conversion program,
a shell script, and cron job.

The real reason is that a lot of the available EPUB readers do not render web
pages consistently, and they don't want to test Adobe Digital Editions,
Calibre, etc.

~~~
dougmccune
They used to do it and made an intentional decision to stop. They say it’s
because it was costly. You come along and say they’re lying (meanwhile
acknowledging the testing burden). I don’t get it. You think this non-profit,
dedicated to the widespread distribution of their content, has some unspoken
nefarious reason to deny you ePub versions?

~~~
logfromblammo
I am unsatisfied with their explanation for discontinuing EPUB. "Too costly"
is a subjective judgment, and they did not reveal the objective measurements
or methods they used to reach it. A pack of gum is costly if you already spent
all your money on something else.

With the knowledge of what they _do_ continue to support, I suspect that some
of the costs they are paying for maintenance are the result of poor
architectural decisions. If all book formats had a common source format,
supporting any particular book format would be a matter of maintaining a
compiler/converter for it, which _could_ be a large initial cost followed by a
lower recurring maintenance cost, shared across all books in the system.
However, open sourced, community maintained programs are readily available,
along with proprietary commercial offerings with paid support.

I know that the difference between raw web site and EPUB is some OEBPS
metadata and a ZIP program. The difference between EPUB and iBook is a
conversion program maintained by Apple. The difference between EPUB and Kindle
is a conversion program maintained by Amazon. The difference between EPUB and
PDF is hairier technically, but conceptually it's just non-reflowable fixed
page sizes and fonts, which are _theoretically_ handled by CSS "@media print"
directives. The difference between PDF and print depends on the printer, but
for self-publishing it's mainly just getting the page margins correct between
the digital and print PDF versions.

Testing is a branding issue, not a technical burden. You don't actually have
to test Adobe Digital Editions support, if you warn people on download that
some EPUB readers are not fully compliant with the EPUB spec, and therefore
will not render correctly. It's the IE6 problem all over again. If you support
only the readers that are currently popular, there is no incentive for their
maintainers to move any closer to a standard that would make maintenance
easier for you in the long run. You provide the _book_ , not the _reading
experience_. That is the responsibility of the reader.

Mainly, I'm just pissed that they axed EPUB, but still do iBook and Kindle.
That is implicitly supporting closed, proprietary formats (or embraced and
extended formats) rather than open standards. We have already been there once.

~~~
wowtip
> Mainly, I'm just pissed that they axed EPUB, but still do iBook and Kindle.
> That is implicitly supporting closed, proprietary formats (or embraced and
> extended formats) rather than open standards. We have already been there
> once.

Yes, exactly, that was my reason for asking to begin with.

But I can buy into their explanation that amazon/iapples are much more
downloaded as the number of devices are probably a couple of magnitudes
larger.

But still sad a project with "open" in it's name mainly seem to support
proprietary formats.

