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The Diamondback student-run newspaper at the University of Maryland reports:
The Textbook Cost Savings Act of 2017, sponsored by Maryland state Sen. Jim Rosapepe, could help students save a lot of [...] money.
The bill would provide a $100,000 grant to the University System of Maryland's William E. Kirwan Center for Academic Innovation to promote the use of open [knowledge] materials in place of traditional textbooks. The money would be used to foster the use of open education resources, or OERs, among the system's 12 institutions, said MJ Bishop, director of the Kirwan Center.
[...] If passed, the act would provide funding for the center to scale up the Maryland Open Source Textbook Initiative, a project that began in 2013 to promote OER use in classrooms. Between spring 2014 and fall 2016, the initiative has involved faculty teaching more than 60 courses at 14 public institutions in Maryland, saving students an estimated $1 million since the project's inception, according to the system website.
[...] Bishop said the grant will be used to create a central OER repository to share with all system institutions, as well as provide mini grants to universities to promote adoption of OERs in classrooms. The grant will also help to fund project management and instructional design staff, allowing faculty to create their own open source textbooks and design their courses around OERs.
[...] Some professors at this university have already made the switch to OERs. Lecturer Scott Roberts made an online textbook for PSYC100: Introduction to Psychology in 2010 after he became annoyed with new editions of the published textbook--which he said essentially contained the same content with different page numbers.
[...] Bishop admitted the $100,000 grant is not enough to accomplish all the center's goals at such a large scale; however, she said the act would be a sign of support from the Maryland legislature and be helpful when the initiative tries to get funding from national foundations, such as the Hewlett Foundation or the Gates Foundation.
Nonprofit MarylandReporter adds:
Open [Knowledge] Textbooks Could Save Students a Bundle
"The state is moving rapidly towards free textbooks online", said the bill's sponsor Sen. Jim Rosapepe (D-Prince George's) in an interview. "If the bill passes, it will be state policy that we want to move in that direction as much as possible."
The bill, SB424,[1] passed the Senate in an overwhelming 44-2 vote [March 9], with only two Republicans voting against it. The House version, HB967, cleared the Appropriations Committee, 23-2 [March 9], and heads to the full chamber for a vote.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in 2015 that textbooks prices had jumped over 1000% since 1977.
[1] Incorrect link in TFA corrected.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday March 14 2017, @06:25PM (1 child)
From the summary:
Some professors at this university have already made the switch to OERs. Lecturer Scott Roberts made an online textbook for PSYC100: Introduction to Psychology in 2010 after he became annoyed with new editions of the published textbook--which he said essentially contained the same content with different page numbers.
It's often a lot more insidious than that. If all they did was renumber the pages, it would be easy -- you could still just say "read chapter 6" or even if they changed chapter/section numbers, you could shift those.
A lot of the issue is often within exercises/problems. Textbooks frequently renumber and randomly move around exercises with each edition, just enough that it's a pain to continue using the old version. In the old version, you assigned #1-10 and #15-20. Now, to use the same problems, you'd assigned #1, 2, 5, 7-10, 12, 16, 21-23, or whatever. Some exercises disappear entirely. A few new ones are added. Occasionally (particularly in the first couple editions), the editing of exercises seems to be for a pedagogical purpose -- correcting errors, reordering things to flow better or group difficulty better, editing ambiguous questions, etc.
But after the 3rd edition or so, it's often mostly about making it too annoying for both professors and students to have a mix of old and new editions. (Same with other seemingly random moving around of content.) And if a prof even wants to continue to use an old edition to save students a few bucks, after a couple years, it often becomes harder and harder to get be sure you're getting the right used copy of an old edition.
As someone who has taught at colleges, I agree that textbook prices are mostly outrageous. And when it's been up to me, I frequently work without a textbook and just use my own materials, perhaps supplemented with a cheap "handbook"-like book or whatever as a written summary of some material. (Some students just want that reliability when studying, etc.) On the other hand, textbooks are sometimes a necessary evil when classes are prerequisites for other classes in a department, and you need standardization across all sections. It's generally easier to just rely on a standard text in the field than try to collaborate with your colleagues to write a text (or try to force everyone to use Prof. X's materials, when half of the other profs in the department think Prof. X is an ass.) And in some cases where textbooks are used for a multiple-course sequence, their prices become a little more reasonable.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday March 14 2017, @10:53PM
It's an old, well developed, deeply entrenched game, one that should be nearing the end of its run. Already in my professional life I have gone from having 50' of library shelves in my office to being 100% reference "book" free, but with easier access to far more than 50' of curated library content both on my desk in 30" 4K resolution, and in 3 megapixel small format in my pocket wherever I go.
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