Rice University announces open-source textbooks | Inside Higher Ed

abernard102@gmail.com 2012-08-20

Summary:

... “But soon, introductory physics texts will have a new competitor, developed at Rice University. A free online physics book, peer-reviewed and designed to compete with major publishers’ offerings, will debut next month through the non-profit publisher OpenStax College. Using Rice’s Connexions platform, OpenStax will offer free course materials for five common introductory classes. The textbooks are open to classes anywhere and organizers believe the programs could save students $90 million in the next five years if the books capture 10 percent of the national market. OpenStax is funded by grants from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the 20 Million Minds Foundation and the Maxfield Foundation... In the next five years, OpenStax hopes to have free books for 20 of the most common college courses... The process has taken more than 18 months and will go live next month with sociology and physics books... Two introductory biology texts, one for majors and another for nonmajors, are slated to go online in the fall along with an anatomy and physiology book... Community colleges catering to lower-income students have been among those most enthusiastic about the new materials, suggesting to Harris that the open-source books could help increase access to higher education...”

Link:

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/02/07/rice-university-announces-open-source-textbooks

Updated:

08/16/2012, 06:08

From feeds:

Open Access Tracking Project (OATP) » abernard102@gmail.com

Tags:

oa.biology oa.new oa.business_models oa.publishers oa.comment oa.physics oa.oer oa.costs oa.funding oa.connexions oa.textbooks oa.courseware oa.sociology oa.stem oa.books oa.ssh

Authors:

abernard

Date tagged:

08/20/2012, 15:12

Date published:

02/09/2012, 14:32