
U.S. Congress Renews $5M Open Textbook Pilot for Second Year - infodocket
https://sparcopen.org/news/2018/open-textbooks-pilot-fy19/
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skh
I teach mathematics at a community college. The content I cover has a very
slow rate of change. There is no valid educational reason for textbooks to
cost so much in my area or to change from year to year. I decided some years
ago stop using paid materials on my courses.

I create most of the content myself. I have my own problem sets with solutions
and create almost all of my own lectures. It was a lot of work to get
everything to the point of being able to stop using paid materials but the up
front work pays dividends in making my job a lot easier now.

I don’t know how feasible this is for other areas but in mathematics it is.
The problem with open textbooks that I’ve seen is that they tend not to be
done well. I’ve found a few open textbooks in math that are very well done.
The nice thing is that when you find one that is done well you won’t ever have
change books.

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yorwba
> I’ve found a few open textbooks in math that are very well done.

Do you have links?

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nickysielicki
University of Wisconsin Calculus 1/2/3 textbooks, GNU public licensed.

[https://github.com/fabiohenriquecn/wisconsin-
calculus](https://github.com/fabiohenriquecn/wisconsin-calculus)

edit: I guess as of this semester these are no longer being used in classes,
they've moved to the online homework / $300 textbook model.

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sitkack
The online homework tied to the book serial number is especially insidious.

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Someone1234
I'm glad something is being done. But while the public continues to blame the
lightning-rods instead of the actual source of the issue, the problem will
continue.

What I mean is that book publishers take the blame, and LIKE to take the
blame, because that takes heat off the actual bad guys in this story: college
professors and their departments.

It is they that decide which books are used in what courses, and it is they
that are given the public trust to protect student's education. Instead they
value the kickbacks (in the form of offloaded workload, free materials, free
automated testing, etc) over what's best for their students.

It is an inherent moral failing in US academia where the almighty dollar has
yet again wrecked havoc.

Open textbooks won't succeed for the same reason that cheaper textbooks
haven't, the gatekeeps, the ones that create the artificial monopoly for
particular textbooks: professors/departments, will continue to act in a self-
interested and immoral way, and the public will continue to blame publishers.

~~~
nicoburns
Do american universities not have student unions? They seem to be pretty
effective at preventing this kind of thing in the UK...

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anonymous5133
Yes there are student unions but they are mostly just involved in planning
social activities if you can believe that. They're completely useless for
changing any type of administrative policy.

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beenBoutIT
That's because here in the US students don't think of it as a union. If the
student union became a real thing where students collectively threw their
weight around by making demands and staging protests/walkouts/etc. it would
lead to change in administrative policy.

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walterbell
Here are some open textbooks,
[https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks](https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks)

 _> Open textbooks are textbooks that have been funded, published, and
licensed to be freely used, adapted, and distributed. These books have been
reviewed by faculty from a variety of colleges and universities to assess
their quality. These books can be downloaded for no cost, or printed at low
cost. All textbooks are either used at multiple higher education institutions;
or affiliated with an institution, scholarly society, or professional
organization_

Whitepaper from Open Textbook Alliance: [http://opentextbookalliance.org/wp-
content/uploads/2016/08/O...](http://opentextbookalliance.org/wp-
content/uploads/2016/08/Open-Textbook-Alliance-Guide.pdf)

~~~
HillaryBriss
Thanks for the helpful link to the listing of actual textbooks! I was looking
in OP for that but somehow could not find it.

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tyingq
Several of my kid's mandatory textbooks are ones written by the professor, and
changed every semester to a new revision. It's such a transparent money
grab...I don't get how they do it with a straight face.

~~~
zdragnar
Depending on the topic, it's potentially a means to avoid plagiarism and
cheating; there's only so many assignments you can squeeze out of the same
textbook semester after semester, at which point you're at the mercy of
students who sell their homework for quick cash.

It's also possible- again, depending on the field of study- that the
professor's textbooks are substantially cheaper for students than those from
larger publishers. I had a few professors do just this because they were able
to get special rates for the shop at the school they taught at.

And yeah, it's entirely possible that your kid's professor is a jerk and
ripping them off.

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phaedryx
They've been working on this in Utah for the past few years:
[https://www.uen.org/oer/](https://www.uen.org/oer/)

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ckluis
IMO - the open textbooks should be based on a web/tablet/e-reader based
environment to remove printing all together.

If they were in fact apps - teachers could even have the auto-homework pieces
built in. The government should invest in this kind of solution. If you
consider: 19.9 million college students - there are numerous classes every
single one has to take cycle... we'd do well to build a US government app
platform for all students in those classes.

~~~
Retric
Open textbooks can be read on Tablets just fine, but e-ink is black and white
which causes some issues.

~~~
anonymous5133
PDF versions are probably the best bet since pretty much every computer device
knows how to read them.

Also the better solution is to have the content in HTML/CSS etc. type format
because you can add interactivity to the book. Modern web technologies are
pretty much the ultimate tool in creating interactivity.

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OneFishTaco
In Canada, we have open textbooks in British Columbia:
[https://open.bccampus.ca](https://open.bccampus.ca)

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skip_region
Somewhat indirectly related question. Looking briefly at some websites, of
which most of them look questionable, is there a site, other than amazon used
books where someone like myself could by old versions of college course books?
Most sites look like they just buy books and do not have an outlet for the
selling of books.

For someone constantly reading about philosophy, it would be a nice change of
pace for me to get some college related books that are not used anymore due to
a new and "better" version being out.

~~~
anonymous5133
Amazon is the only place. They've pretty much forced everyone to sell their
books on amazon so competition is higher and prices are lower overall.

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tasty_freeze
I was surprised nobody mentioned openstax, which is organized by Rice
University

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

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wyldfire
No, not that SPARC. It's "Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources
Coalition".

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jnmandal
This is great news but sadly 10m is still a drop in the bucket for this
context.

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dajohnson89
[deleted my angry diatribe]

