If you are a college student, you know that the cost of textbooks can put a dent in your bank account. I’m experimenting with a project called open textbooks, which is a new way of accessing books that could potentially dismantle the college textbook market as it stands today.
Open textbooks are written by experts in academia and then published on the Internet so students can access them without paying a dime. As a student, you can read the full version of the textbook for free, download a printable PDF, or purchase a hard copy for next to nothing. From my understanding, open textbooks are legitimate sources of information because they are reviewed and edited by experts. This is where the “open” part comes into play. If a student notices a mistake or feels that something important was omitted, the publisher and author can be contacted to remedy the error. Furthermore, groups and individuals can edit and improve the textbook as they see fit.
Scott McNealy, founder of Curriki, an online website for free textbooks and other course material, said it well, “We are spending $8 billion to $15 billion per year on textbooks...It seems to me we could put that all online for free.” I spend anywhere from $800-1200 per year on textbooks, and that number is probably a conservative one because I go bargain hunting to find the lowest prices around my college campus. I am not alone when I say students could greatly benefit from free, accessible textbooks.
Currently, there are several front runners in the open textbook world. Flat World Knowledge offers peer-reviewed and edited textbooks written by experts. Students can choose their preferred format of the textbook (online, print, audio, or PDF). An interesting feature of this up and coming website is that educators can customize the text for their specific course. When the teachers are done editing the text, a special URL is created specifically for the modified version of the textbook. The books are free to read online, but if you prefer a hard copy, you can purchase one for $34.95, which is far cheaper than the average traditional cost per textbook of $175.
BookBoon.com offers free textbooks that can be downloaded into PDF format so you can print and read offline. The books include advertisements, but this is only to cover production costs.
The Global Text Project contains a library of hundreds of open textbooks with open licenses. It is hosted by the University of Georgia’s Terry School of Business, and most of the books are available for free as a PDF download.
Other Open Textbook Projects
-MERLOT
-Connexions
-MIT Open Courseware
-The Orange Grove
-Wikibooks
-Project Gutenburg
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar