Alternative Publishing Models For Cost-Conscious Professors

"There are two things we can learn from this outpouring of low-cost course materials. The first is that there are many roads to Rome. There are commercial casebooks at fairer prices, there are subsidized free casebooks, and there are unsubsidized free casebooks. There are PDF downloads, ebooks, print-on-demand hard copies, Word files, interactive maps, wiki-style websites, and more. The second lesson is that the time is now. We have all the tools we need, and some of them are working very well indeed. There are no major financial or institutional obstacles to switching over to affordable course materials now. Professors, find them and use them in your courses. If they don’t exist, help to create them. Students, ask your professors to consider casebook costs. Administrators, find out how much your faculty’s assigned books cost, help them identify cheaper alternatives, and help support your faculty when they want to contribute to bringing these costs down by creating their own...."