Disrupting the textbook industry with free textbooks
You might think that Apple’s iBooks 2 partnering with major textbook publishers to bring low-price textbooks to iPad-toting college students is disruptive to the textbook industry. After all, $14.99 for a e-copy of a textbook beats the $200 you might have to pay for a hardcopy.
But what if textbooks for free? This is what Rice University is proposing through OpenStax College. According to the website:
OpenStax College offers students free textbooks that meet scope and sequence requirements for most courses. These are peer-reviewed texts written by professional content developers. Adopt a book today for a turnkey classroom solution or modify it to suit your teaching approach. Free online and low-cost in print, OpenStax College books are built for today’s student budgets.
The first textbook for physics and sociology will debut in March this year. With personal and scholastic budgets falling, perhaps the idea of open-source textbooks could take off?
