Don McCubbrey's Blog

A Wonderful Article on Global Text from the Times (UK) Higher Education

Published on May 28, 2009, it sums up the project's status very well.  Here's the first paragraph:

"Expensive textbooks put the brakes on higher education for many students in developing nations. But a project aiming to make such books available for free via the internet could change all that, writes Jon Marcus".

It's called "Breaking the book barrier".  I'll let you take it from here.

Some Publicity on Global Text at DU

There were three publications on Global text and/or the high cost of textbooks at the University of Denver in the past three weeks.  One was on DU Today, a University web-based news channel, and the other two were articles in the student newspaper, The Clarion.  Take a look. The reporters and editors did a nice job.  The photographer did a nice job too, especially considering what he had to work with.  Here they are:

DU Today - October 2008

The Clarion - September 2008

The Clarion - October 2008

Enjoy!

Open Education 2008 Conference

I usually have a topic in my courses on competitive intelligence and how the Internet can be used as a tool for environmental scanning.  Imagine my embarrassment when, shortly after I had the thought of hosting a conference on open education/open textbooks, I found out that there has been such conference for the last TEN YEARS!  Cathy and Vic from the Hewlett Foundation were the source of that nugget of information and I thank them for that.

So, I attended the conference and it was absolutely wonderful.  Most of the players in the Open Educational Resources (OER) space were there.  The sessions were terrific and everyone was friendly.  I got to meet and talk with some interesting folks from all over the world, some of who I'd already chatted with over the phone.  The website for the conference has more information and, sooner or later will have presentations, etc from the conference available.  There were lots of takeaways, but three of the most important were:

1. Much of the attention of attendees was on developing open "chunks" of content, with the idea being that instructors could visit a repository and string content together in a customized manner.
2. Still, there was a lot of interest and progress on the development of open traditional textbooks and that textbooks are likely to be appropriate for developing economies for the next five or ten years.
3. Global Text's focus on developing economies seems to be a differentiator for us.

Global Text article in the Chronicle of Higher Education

The Chronicle of Higher Education had an article on the Global Text Project, written by Andrea Foster, in its November 16th edition.  If you're a subscriber to the Chronicle. you can access the article at the following link: Software Group Gets Online Textbooks to the Developing World.  If you're not a subscriber, try this link for some excerpts from Open Access News.  As a subscriber, I can email copies of the entire article to individuals, so if you'd like to see it, send me an email at dmccubbr@du.edu.  It's a good article and we've received expressions of interest from a number of people who would like to get involved.

Students Protest Textbook Prices in Colorado

According to an article by Erika Gonzalez in this morning's Rocky Mountain news, the concern about textbook inflation has finally reached Colorado.  Maybe it's been here for awhile, but under my radar screen.  Anyway, more than a thousand students on the Auraria campus (Metro State College, CU-Denver, and Community College of Denver) rallied  to protest textbook cost inflation.  As you've been reading on this blog for awhile, there is concern about the issue and students want something done.  Andrew Bateman, the student government leader at Metro State was quoted in the article as saying "It would be nice to know how long they're keeping a book in circulation, because if the next book is coming out in five months, it's essentially worthless because a student can't sell it back".   Here's the link to the article:  "Hundreds protest textbook prices".

Civil War at Harvard over Textbook Costs

Eye-opening article in yesterday's Boston Globe re: student concerns over the textbook cost issue at Harvard,with a headline that reads: " In Harvard Square, a war over words".  The first paragraph says that "A battle over book prices is raging in Harvard Square between student leaders and the Harvard Coop, the book store created by students 125 years ago to cut down on costs." Take a look.

For me, one of the most interesting parts of the article was the number of states that are introducing legislation in attempts to give students some relief: "Prices of college texts have spiked so severely across the country that since January, 86 bills to make them more affordable have been filed in 27 states, including Massachusetts, according to a national college bookstore group. College students on average spend $700 to $1,000 a year on textbooks, according to a May 2007 report by a congressional advisory committee, which also recommended various solutions to reduce prices, including creating online book databases easily accessible to students".

Is this a sea change or what?

Two Proposed Bills to Help with Textbook Costs in California

The September 24 edition of Inside Higher Education had the following story on two bills wending their way to Governor Arnold Schwartzenegger's desk:

"Competing bills to deal with student complaints about textbook prices have arrived on the governor’s desk in California, the Los Angeles Times reported. Both bills would require more disclosure about changes made from one edition to another, but one bill (backed by student groups) would require more than the other (backed by publishers)".  If you click on the LA Times link you'll get the entire story.  The Guv is to make his decision on whether or not to sign either bill by October 12.

The Empire Strikes Back

Many students try to deal with the high cost of textbooks by buying international editions from offshore Internet sites, or from entities that buy offshore editions in bulk for resale in the US.  In general, international editions are paperback editions of the US edition and cost about half as much.

Now the publishers have struck back. Saw this in today's edition of Higher Education News:

"Two suits by publishers against entities that were importing to the United States versions of textbooks not planned for sale in the United States have been settled, the publishers announced Wednesday. One suit was brought by Pearson Education, John Wiley & Sons and Thomson Learning. The other was brought by those three plus McGraw-Hill. The settlements include damage payments to the publishers and pledges to stop the sales".

Sort of reminds you of the  problems senior citizens have in trying to import prescription drugs from Canada, doesn't it?

And Even More on the Cost of Traditional Textbooks

 
"Make Textbooks Affordable"  is one of several initiatives of  The Student Public Interest Research Groups (PIRG). The Make Textbooks Affordable site contains a rich source of news, resources, and even possible solutions to the high cost of textbooks. Dave Rosenfeld is the campaign coordinator. Dave's analysis of a May 2007 report by the Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance, sponsored by US Department of Education, is worth a read. (The report's title is "Turn the Page - Making Textbooks More Affordable" and contains a total of 95 pages).

Quoting from the section of Dave's analysis most related to the Global text Project: 

"There are many 21st Century Technologies that are dramatically less expensive and more flexible than traditionally licensed books. The report correctly identifies many of the alternatives to high-priced textbooks. It is our view that many of these options represent the single greatest path to real competition in the textbooks market, a view recently endorsed by the New    York Times and examined in more depth in our recent report, Textbooks    for the 21^st Century.

"We believe that in the Internet age, there’s little reason for the cost of a textbook to be so high. There are hundreds of thousands of professors able and willing to create learning content and the argument that royalties are needed is a myth; very few professors who publish ever see royalties; the incentive to publish is predominantly for reputation building, not financial enhancement.

"There are a few models for    providing this content, we believe that the most viable have two key principles:   

• The content is peer-reviewed or otherwise      evaluated by faculty and housed on a university or faculty-sanctioned      site. This is the model for Rice      University      Press, Connexions, California          State University’s MERLOT program, and the Global          Text Project.    

• Second, that the content          is Creative      Commons licensed or equivalent. This is an alternative licensing      system that content providers may use to allow their work to be more      openly utilized by others with less restriction. This licensing program      retains many of the most powerful publishing incentives (recognition and      attribution among peers).

"This is not just about “online” vs. “paper” textbooks. The content that most of these repositories offer can be used in both digital and print only formats, depending on the proclivities of the faculty and students who use them. What is unique is that the offerings are much less expensive than traditional textbooks".

Please take a look when you have some time

Textbook Costs in the US

Concern over the cost of textbooks in the US is heating up and is an issue that is not going to go away.  Good evidence of this is the story that came over the AP wires this morning, entitled "Tough Problem:  High textbook Costs". Here's a couple of quotes from the article, by Brian Bakst:

"In Minnesota, legislators are considering more tightly regulating the textbook publishing industry and requiring professors to be more cost-conscious in choosing course materials. At least a dozen other statehouses, from California to Connecticut, are taking up the issue.

"This is the hidden cost to higher education," said Democratic Rep. Frank Moe, the Minnesota's bill sponsor, who also teaches at Bemidji State University. "Reasonable profit makes sense. But the margins they are making on these textbooks is just absurd."  Another quote I like is:

"The textbook industry pulls in more than $6.5 billion a year at college bookstores, and college books which have tripled in price since 1986. The industry estimates four-year college students spend $644 annually on books; a 2005 government report put the figure at about $900 per year, but that figure includes supplies, too.

At one legislative hearing in Minnesota, student leaders displayed a shrink-wrapped bundle of materials for a single Spanish course. The tab: $193".

The whole article is worth a read.  Initiatives like the Global Text Project can help solve this "tough problem".