Report on Digital and Open Textbooks

The Student Public Interest Research Groups (PIRG) has released a report on their recent study of digital textbooks: “Course Correction: How Digital Textbooks are Off Track and How to Set Them Straight.” The report recommends support for “open textbooks” that are offered free online. You can download the entire Report at the Student PIRG website. Today’s LA Times and the The Chronicle of Higher Education Wired Campus provide media coverage about the Report.

Europe Begins a Pilot Open-Access Project for EU-Financed Research Results

Following in the footsteps of the National Institutes of Health, which now demands researchers who received funding from it to deposit their results in the institutes’ online archive within 12 months of publication, the European Commission has launched a pilot project to provide open access to E.U.-financed research findings. (Chronicle link)

Crowd Sourcing Turns Business On Its Head

Listen to this NPR story (3:59) and ask “How might this model work in higher education?”

Hmm…. if we open our courses, and textbooks, and let students design the learning materials and spaces they want… what would happen to participation and retention rates?

Free digital texts begin to challenge costly college textbooks in California

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-textbook18-2008aug18,0,4712858.story?page=1

Rice U. Buys Rights to Popular Textbook to Offer It Free Online

from Chronicle:

Students taking statistics at some community colleges won’t need to shell out $50 for the textbook Collaborative Statistics anymore. Rice University is making the book available free online after buying the rights from a commercial textbook publisher.