Open Textbook Publishing
The open educational resources model, including textbooks, has emerged as a response to rising text prices, a need for greater access to high-quality learning materials, the proliferation of e-reader devices, and a trend in publishing toward electronic media. Many contend that educational resources should be open and that instructional models increasingly depend on open content. Open textbooks can be offered by commercial publishers or found in open repositories. Open resources can promote active learning through student interaction with the text, particularly when they contribute to authorship. Although open textbooks face questions about the accuracy and reliability of their content, they allow higher education instructors to design content for their courses on an as-needed basis, choosing from an array of books, articles, videos, audio recordings, and readings.
Source: Educause 7 Things
Posted in: Emerging Markets Poll
jenaca 12:06 am on September 7, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Our program relies largely on this emerging technology, as a teacher this is a wonderful way to use different kinds of technologies to learn, as well as save on the rising text prices.
David Berljawsky 3:03 pm on September 7, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
This is a fantastic idea. It levels the playing field somewhat between that haves and have not students. My one concern would be the quality of the texts (but I have the same concern for wikipedia), however I believe that this one negative does not take away from the positive benefits of this technology.
David William Price 7:24 am on September 8, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Again, my concern is about editorial control. Wikipedia works as well as it does because of the editorial control of its members. I also question how contributors are compensated. For those of us who make money as writers and designers, I’m not sure how we can justify taking things from people and not paying for them.