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Quartz reports
Seven Rhode Island universities, including Brown and Rhode Island College, will move to open-license textbooks [1] in a bid to save students $5 million over the next five years, the governor announced [September 27].
The initiative is meant to put a dent in the exorbitant cost of college and, more specifically, college textbooks. Mark Perry, a professor of economics and finance at the University of Michigan Flint, and a writer at the American Enterprise Institute, estimated last year [Cloudflare protected] that college textbook prices rose 945% between 1978 and 2014, compared to an overall inflation rate of 262% and a 604% rise in the cost of medical care.
That is not the result of a general trend of higher costs in publishing, he notes: the consumer price index for recreational books has been falling relative to overall inflation since 1998.
[...] Open textbooks are defined as "faculty-written, peer-reviewed textbooks that are published under an open license--meaning that they are available free online, they are free to download, and print copies are available at $10-40, or approximately the cost of printing", according to a report by the Student Public Interest Research Groups (PIRGs) (pdf). They are part of the move toward Open Educational Resources, which has roots in the open-source software movement, it says.
Open licenses allow for content to be shared, unlike traditional textbooks which limit the use of their materials. [Richard Culatta, the chief innovation officer for Rhode Island] remembers teaching and replacing a section of a textbook with more relevant information for his class, only to be informed that he was infringing on international copyright law.
[1] A very bloated (webfonts) all-script-driven page.
Note: If you are thinking of using "begs the question" in the same way the state official did, that is a bad idea.
Our previous discussions of student materials and adoption of openness.
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Tuesday October 25 2016, @02:59AM
Reminds me of another big issue. Some instructors would ask if we wanted a test on friday or monday. About 1/3 of my class were like me, working full time and school part time. Weekends were for homework. We wanted the tests on monday. The other 2/3 were being carried by their parent's, they wanted to party all weekend without worrying about a test, they went for friday.
At 58, I don't know how 21-30 y/o me did it. I sure as hell couldn't do it now. Especially considering I graduated with a 3.6 GPA, where I got A's on my core classes (math major, physics and chemistry for electives), and C's on the general ed crap I couldn't be arsed to care about (women's studies, psychology of Science Fiction films are the 2 I remember being the biggest wastes of time).
Fun fact. I used to piss off my Women's studies classmates by not paying attention in class (teacher used attendance as a weapon, miss too many classes and you fail. A tool used by all shit poor teachers). Day of the test I'd show up 10 minutes early, skim the material, and ace the test. I got a C because no matter how well you did on tests, to get a B you had to do something I didn't want to do, and to get an A you had to do something I really didn't want to do.)
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 25 2016, @03:58AM
I like your name, very descriptive.