New strategy would drop college textbook costs to zero

[alp227]

Holding a whiteboard, the University of Maryland, College Park students scrawled their complaints and posed for a picture.

"My name is Justin and I spent $114 on ONE textbook," a student wrote. "My name is Jeff and I spent $736 on textbooks," wrote another.

The images, posted online by the Student Government Association in recent months, are designed to highlight the rapid rise in the price of college textbooks over the past decade. This semester, the University System of Maryland is exploring ways to bring that cost to zero with "open-source" electronic textbooks — the latest experiment in changing the way students in Maryland and across the nation are taught.

Unlike electronic versions of textbooks sold by publishers, open-source textbooks are made up of materials gathered from various sources and are not protected by copyright. They are often designed to be interactive, with links to source material and multimedia elements. The materials are licensed openly, so anyone with an Internet connection can access them.

A pilot program, which the university system estimates is saving 1,100 students a combined $130,000, is the latest in a shift on the nation's campuses toward digital learning. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the California State University system and the Washington State college system are among those that have built libraries of free online course materials in recent years.

Read more: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/education/bs-md-college-open-source-textbooks-20140322,0,6567208.story

[MineralMan]

1. Beats the hell out of my old method.

When I went back to college on the GI bill, paying for textbooks was an issue. Some books I could buy cheaply in older versions from local used book stores, and books for my English major classes were no issue at all, since they were cheaply available. But then, there were other texts that I couldn't substitute.

Fortunately, the University Library had a few copies of each text. I'd borrow those for a three week period at the beginning of the semester, before classes began and do cram sessions of reading them while I had them, taking notes as I went. Fortunately, I'm a fast reader with a great memory, so that worked for me.

This new scheme is terrific, and there's so much open source information out there now that it should work, as long as professors buy into the idea, instead of insisting that you buy their book as the class text. That always annoyed the crap out of me.

[Democracyinkind]

2. If they manage to achieve quality and relevancy this way, it is very promising. nt

[frazzled]

3. This doesn't sound so new

Well, in a way--I'm not sure about using only materials that are not protected by copyright. That would entirely limit the types and quality of material available to a great number of courses and syllabi.

My husband (like many academics) has been using digital course readings for his students for a long time (it works for his field). He tends to use materials from the database maintained by his institution, where rights to hundreds of journals and other materials have already been paid and cleared.

On the other hand, I recall when my son was doing his undergraduate and doctoral work in mathematics. The textbooks are crazy expensive: rare and obscure things whose extraordinary costs (hundreds of dollars for a thin book in an arcane subject area) must be due to the minuscule demand for them. What he used to do was kind of not kosher. He'd buy the books he knew he'd really want to keep for decades, but for many of them, he'd send away for an "Asian" version, pirated (most likely) copies that were a quarter of the price, though printed on godawful thin, cheap paper that was likely to deteriorate very quickly. It would get him through the course. This is the kind of copyright stuff I think probably really does need to stop, if we want high-level textbooks to be continued to be written.

[truedelphi]

4. Your son's strategy sounds cost effective

And given how little money most college kids have at their disposal, admirable.

But one well kept secret about "high level textbooks" is that the authors, usually tenured professors at one of America's universities, are persuaded to make subtle alterations to their texts every two or three years, so that the used books cannot compete. Sometimes it just involves throwing a few new paragraphs per chapter into each text book. That throws off the page numbering, and since students need to know that their page 241 is the same as the teacher's page 241, it guarantees that most students will shell out for the new version.

[A Simple Game]

11. I had one book that the professor said the only difference between it and

the previous edition was the order of the chapters.

I probably only used half of the "required" books when I went to college, and the half I used I probably only read half of them many I just used for reference.

In my IT and IS courses much of the material in the books was outdated and caused me to wonder why I even bought the book(s) in the first place. The Problem is, that for someone to put together a good IT book, have it proofread and published almost guarantees that much of it will be outdated when it is printed and distributed. The historical facts don't change but are freely available on the internet, no need for a book.

I remember reading somewhere that most of what you learn in the first two years in many of the technical courses of a four year curriculum will be worthless by the time you graduate. I know that is true for much of my college experience.

The most I paid for the book in one course was $186. The cheapest, other than for a novel, was about $60 for a used book. None of my professors were the authors of the required texts and all admitted the texts were a very bad deal for the students. Some teachers didn't use texts which saved money.

[Hoppy]

5. One problem is with the profs who write their own books.

Then assign those books, then update the book each year and require the students to buy the latest edition.

[Aerows]

9. I was in a course like that.

The book was nearly as poor quality as the teacher and class itself. I got a B and I didn't even care as long as I didn't have to deal with that idiotic professor again. It was so bad, half the class had dropped it when they could. I slogged it out, but lord, what a kook.

[hfojvt]

10. well it sure is nice

to meet one of my former students.

Wait, what?

[Aerows]

12. If you *DO* happen to be that professor

and I seriously doubt it because you seem to be capable of constructing a sentence properly and keeping up with the topics of discussion that you post in, then it is good to see you are doing a lot better now than you were back then .

[nilram]

18. LOL. My prof deserved every extra penny he got.

I don't think he revised the textbook very often, though. His mother tongue was Finnish and one day he pointed at a shard of chalk that was floating down the chalkboard (guess I'm dating myself) and said, "What's the word for that? There's no word for that in English." I asked him if there was a word for that in Finnish and he said there wasn't. He'd often remarked, though, that there was a word in Finnish for coffee brewed from grounds that had been previously used, but not in English. Sounded like "soom-pah", though I'm unable to find a source for that translation, aside from Mr. Hannula. Thanks, Mr. Hannula, you were a hoot, and I learned a lot from your course.

[Aerows]

20. Please don't mistake me

that I claim that I didn't have brilliant professors. I did. That one, however, was nuttier than a pecan pie in a fruitcake factory. Truthfully, I hadn't thought of that one until the subject of professors forcing students to buy their own books came up.

Even in academia one slips through the cracks every now and again

I had some inspiring and excellent professors.

[greyl]

15. Not really. It's easy as hell to publish and distribute a book digitally.

Muuuch easier than the paper route, so to speak.

[awoke_in_2003]

6. Textbook costs....

are out of hand. Every job I have had that provided tuition assistance never covered books.

[hunter]

7. School textbooks really ought to be Open Source.

All of them, kindergarten through graduate school.

Teachers and professors could be paid to maintain them, projects could fork or incorporate other open source works, etc., etc.

It's win-win for the teachers and students; these are the only people who really matter in this discussion.

Industries become obsolete. I think textbooks are one of those industries that needs to be obsolete.

[knitter4democracy]

19. Amen to that! I hate my textbook.

The lead Spanish teacher only sort of follows it, and honestly, I use other materials far more than I do the book.

What I hate, though, is when I take a class, and we only read a little bit of the book. All that money for two chapters?!

[Auntie Bush]

8. Maybe if we paid teachers more, they would't resort to that scam.

Maybe some brave kid should just bluntly ask, "What page is the assignment in your book?" It would be pretty nervy of him to say, "If you'd buy my book you'd know."

[Lionel Mandrake]

13. Another part of the problem

is that textbooks and related crap are designed meet the needs of the instructors, not those of the students. The publishers give the books away to prospective instructors and spend big bucks on visual aids, online quizzes, and other goodies to make the instructor's life easier. It makes business sense, because it is the instructor after all who decides which book to inflict on the students. Most instructors don't know and don't care how much the students have to pay for textbooks.

Another part of the scam is that publishers will pay instructors handsomely to "review" their books, even though such reviews seldom see the light of day.

Publishers have other ways to soak the students, including "bundling" of textbooks with useless DVDs, study guides, and other crap, and shrink-wrapping the whole pile, so that the student must buy all of it or nothing.

It shouldn't come as a big surprise that some students violate copyright laws with respect to textbooks.

[Doctor_J]

14. I have been using freebies for several years now

there are only a ouple of courses left for which I can't get suitable ones.

[Kablooie]

16. In Japan the text books are all paperbacks that students keep at the end of the year.

They are free to mark them up and can refer to them in later years if they want to.
They are pretty cheap too partly because the publishers make money selling new copies to each student every year.

[laundry_queen]

17. That's cool. As someone who spent $500 on 3 books last term, I'd say it's an improvement.

My most expensive book was $350 so last term was a bit of a bargain. It's all a big scam, really. As others have mentioned, you have slight changes every year or 2, so you can't buy used, or in my school's case, you have 'special editions' where chapters are re-arranged and added or subtracted to comply with your particular university's curriculum. Also, a lot of new books bundle online coursework and special programs that are REQUIRED by your instructor (online quizzes, assignments, questions, practice tests, etc) and since you can't reuse those internet coursework access codes, you HAVE to buy a brand new one for $40 or so. So, when you have to buy a new code, it negates the savings from buying a used book anyway, so you HAVE to buy new. It's so dumb. If you are LUCKY however, sometimes the access code gives you access to an online version of the text. Not many do that, though. And if they do, they make it really hard to read. Some are good though.

It depends, too, what your degree is in. I'm an accounting major, and there are so many changes going on with regards to accounting rules that I couldn't buy used for anything. The rules changed so fast, that even the acronyms I learned in my first year were obsolete by my 3rd year. It's crazy.

Last term, I had one book that looked more like a magazine than a textbook - 60 pages, softcover. Even our bookstore cashier took it from me and scanned it, and freaked when the price came up. $100. She said, "$100 for THIS? Omg, it looks like a magazine!" Yes, it's a total rip off, I know.

[mike_c]

21. I have mixed thoughts about this....

Up front, I'm a university professor in the life sciences, so this is an issue that is important to me.

I agree with the underlying premise that textbooks have become ridiculously expensive. For example, I used to require two separate texts in my general entomology class, but have replaced one of them with handouts of my own notes because each text was approaching $200. I fully support the open text movement, and wish that more open texts were available in the subject areas I teach, mainly general ecology and entomology. The burden of costs that textbook publishers lay on students is awful.

That said, I also lament the loss of valuable reference books in students' personal libraries. I still own most of my own college texts, and consider them among my most valuable possessions. I still use them. I've moved them all over the country, paying more per mile than I ever paid for them originally. They mean that much to me. Losing that meaning is one unintended negative consequence of pricing texts beyond the means of students. Open texts might contain the same information, but they are no guarantee of lifetime access. A book on the shelf is always available. That's a heavy loss, IMO.