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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 aristarchus on Tuesday October 25 2016, @06:06AM
Truely, our abuse of a fellow Soylentil who only made a simple homophobic typo has already been sufficient. Perhaps it is time to just let it go, to sail away on the azure sea propelled by the winds of the clouds. . . Wait, did you say "Azure"? Batten down the hatches! All crew on deck! Man the rigging! (yes, that is terribly sexist, but no immediate substitute comes to mind) We are in for nasty weather!
And, of course, the purpose of textbooks is to give us practice so we do not look like illiterate buffons or jmorris when we post something to SoylentNews. Standards, peoples! That is what makes Free Software! Open and accessible standards, open to all, like, you know, spelling.
[For the less literate among us: Homophone is the proper word: sounding the same. Fear of words that sound the same would be "homophoniphobia". I would hate to be the person who catches that! Just saying. ]
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday October 25 2016, @01:41PM
I am not offended by anything I have read here. I am never offended by homophobic remarks directed my way. But did I miss a homophobic typo? Did I make one? Or did someone else make one? Whatever it may be, I seem to be unaware of what it is.
Lost sails are due to piracy!
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Tuesday October 25 2016, @09:48PM
Lost sails are due to piracy!
Arrrrh! That be right. Them sails is the first thing we target with our cannon.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.