Rice U. Hopes Mix of Grants and ‘Add Ons’ Will Support Free Textbooks

eekilcer@gmail.com's bookmark collection 2012-08-15

Summary:

"Rice University this year started an unusual textbook-publishing venture whose books are free to download thanks to a mix of grants and revenue from optional “add ons,” such as homework problem sets... The project is called OpenStax College, and it grew out of Connexions, a free Rice-based platform that allows anyone to create and publish e-textbooks.... For now, OpenStax is still operating in “phases” that depend on outside funds. In this first phrase, grants from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, 20 Million Minds, and the Maxfield Foundation will pay for five textbooks to be published... The textbooks have been adopted at universities including the College of William and Mary, in Virginia; Miami University, in Ohio; and the University of Massachusetts at Boston, Mr. Harris said. He added that OpenStax hopes to save one million students a total of $95-million within five years."

Link:

http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/rice-u-hopes-mix-of-grants-and-add-ons-will-support-free-textbooks/38823

From feeds:

Open Access Tracking Project (OATP) » abernard102@gmail.com
Open Access Tracking Project (OATP) » eekilcer@gmail.com's bookmarks

Tags:

oa.new oa.universities oa.textbooks oa.education oa.funders oa.business_models oa.publishers oa.comment oa.physics oa.oer oa.usage oa.costs oa.students oa.connexions oa.prices oa.courseware oa.20_million_minds_foundation oa.hewlett_foundation oa.gates_foundation oa.maxfield_foundation oa.openstax oa.rice.u oa.sociology oa.books oa.hei oa.ssh

Authors:

eekilcer

Date tagged:

08/15/2012, 14:52

Date published:

08/15/2012, 07:46