![[H]ard|Forum](/styles/hardforum/xenforo/logo_dark.png){kind=logo}
Open Source Textbooks, Yes Please
- Thread starter John_Keck
- Start date
Now most of my classes have online homework through the publisher. So even if I don't need the book for the class I still have to shell out $70 to $100 for the online access code.
This would be great for public schools. When I was in high school the school couldn't afford to buy new books so the students were stuck with outdated material. The entire school district itself actually. They couldn't afford the likely millions of dollars it would have cost to replace every single text book to an up-to-date version. This is a hindrance to the learning process. Schools shouldn't be forced to teach children from outdated material. So something like this could really be helpful. The way that one company that offers college text books is doing it sounds like it might work for public schools as well. Free access to the digital version of the material or a small fee for a physical copy.
It is a hindrance to the learning process but, that doesn't mean it will change. Corporations, publishers or otherwise, have proven over and over and over again that they would rather hold out for the big bucks once in a while than make a little every day.
I know, but that doesn't mean I cant support this movement and hope it works. I know it'll never work in colleges due to the close relations with professors, the colleges, and the publishers. Still, it needs to happen in K-12 schools. The quality of the education system in this country is only getting worse and outdated text books are one of the problems.
SixtyWattMan
Supreme [H]ardness
- Joined
- Aug 4, 2008
- Messages
- 4,466
That's why I never buy textbooks unless it is IMPOSSIBLE to complete the class with it.
tacosareveryyummy
Supreme [H]ardness
- Joined
- Jul 25, 2005
- Messages
- 5,300
Fortunately, as a physics major in college, textbooks were never required. However there were many liberal arts classes that required random books just so I could read one short story or some shit in it. Friends and I just split the cost of the book and shared.
And this is why the parents of the students should be required to buy the books for their kids instead of letting other people's tax dollars pay for the books.
If, for some legitimate reason the parent is not able to pay for the books, then they should be required to apply for assistance under a very strict set of rules. For example, if the parents are spending money on booze, drugs, cable tv, overly expensive vehicles, etc. they should not qualify.
The government should not continue to encourage the mentality of an entitlement society.
As for the price of textbooks.. yes, they are way overpriced.
I don't believe, however, that they should be free. Who is going to produce them if they can't make any money from them? A company can't stay in bisiness by giving stuff away.
I don't see all book becoming free. People are going to want to be paid for their time and effort to write the books. You have to pay writers, reviewers, publishers, etc...
Unless you plan on wikipedia or something like that to replace textbooks you will still need writers and reviewers. Instead of publishers you need to pay for hosting and people to run the site.
Unless you plan on wikipedia or something like that to replace textbooks you will still need writers and reviewers. Instead of publishers you need to pay for hosting and people to run the site.
I agree on all accounts. I mentioned a small fee for physical copies. So something like $20-30 for a physical copy of the book, while keeping free access to the digital version. Or maybe a fee per school for access to a digital library with a small fee on top of that for a physical copy.
A per student fee might work fine for the digital version. The school pays the fee and then charges the parents a slight amount more to cover admin costs, etc.
Each student would need to have a username and password to be able to access the digital copy.
They could download the copy in say, password protected PDF format... the PDF going to a server to check the username and password. There are some companies that already do this sort of thing with design documents, etc.
That way, it would help cut down on people posting the book for download for free.
A hard copy of the book could also come with free access to the digital version.
And if the student needed to print out some material from the book, then they would be able to.... hopefull they have laser printers or do it at the school library or else they would be spending more on ink then they could have bought a hard copy of the book for.
How can we have open source text books in USA? This would violate one of many communist pillars we nonchalantly follow in USA. A federally run education system is unconstitutional & put in place to dumb down the masses so you do not ask the right questions like where did federal income tax for people come from? Or what was gulf of Tonkin? USS Liberty ? The list goes on & on...
1st Sgt. Burke
Limp Gawd
- Joined
- Nov 1, 2004
- Messages
- 436
I like how the cost, or portion of, is suggested to be absorbed by the parents of said student. I, however, am 29 years old and dont have the luxury of having my parents pay anything for my college expenses.....
I don't think very many parents could afford to pay for the books themselves. Most text tooks run about $150 or more. Schools don't buy new copies every year but only about once every 5 - 7 years for better schools areas, others might be longer. If a parent had to buy the books themselves you are looking at 6 - 8 classes a year, so about $900 - $1200 a year for text books. At the end of that year they books are no good and then what will they do with them? If all the kids had different books with different revisions that would make it much harder to teach them, it also makes it harder to assign homework as you can't just say do problems 1 - 10 in chapter 1 as problems 1 - 10 might be completely different in different revisions. So with 2 or 3 kids in school parents would be paying about $2k - $3k+ in books a year.
Some parents have enough trouble coming up with the $500 per kid a year for school for book rental, supplies and everything else that they have to pay now. Which is actually something that you over looked. Books are not paid for 100% by tax money, at least not in all areas. Where i live parents pay about $30 or so per class a year for book rental (some classes result in higher book rental, some lower). Then over the course of the 5 - 6 years that a school uses the same book the schools get the money back to pay off the cost of the books. So tax payers aren't covering the cost of the books. Not all states, or counties in some states, are like that and do pay for books using tax money resulting in no rental fees for the students.
![Zarathustra[H]](https://cdn.hardforum.com/data/avatars/m/9/9298.jpg?1707758471){kind=avatar}
Zarathustra[H]
Extremely [H]
- Joined
- Oct 29, 2000
- Messages
- 38,907
What always used to piss me off back in college were the frequent edition updates. The content didn't change at all, but they mixed up all the questions and page numbers to make it impossible for people to use otherwise perfectly adequate books unusable.
They did this for the sole purpose of preventing the use of used books, and forcing students to pay $500 every semester for books.
Completely and totally unethical. Publishers are the real enemy. Anything that hurts the publishers is good in my book.
The article has nothing to do with college, its about K-12.
VA Supremacy
Limp Gawd
- Joined
- Jun 18, 2009
- Messages
- 475
I realize the article is talking about k-12
Rice University is trying a rental textbook program which could easily be done in k-12 grades. I believe some school systems have already lend out laptops.
School systems need cost saving measures but firing teachers shouldn't be one of them so its a nice idea to cut the costs of textbooks.
Hopefully college students have more programs like Rice's or open source textbooks like the article since quite frequently books go out of print that the Prof loves very much and is required for the class, also a new edition comes out with little to no changes for no apparent reason other than to milk a captive audience and some Profs always upgrade to a newer edition every time so buying a used one is almost moot unless it doesn't have a new edition.
Rice University is trying a rental textbook program which could easily be done in k-12 grades. I believe some school systems have already lend out laptops.
School systems need cost saving measures but firing teachers shouldn't be one of them so its a nice idea to cut the costs of textbooks.
Hopefully college students have more programs like Rice's or open source textbooks like the article since quite frequently books go out of print that the Prof loves very much and is required for the class, also a new edition comes out with little to no changes for no apparent reason other than to milk a captive audience and some Profs always upgrade to a newer edition every time so buying a used one is almost moot unless it doesn't have a new edition.
I love how all the generalizations about those who cannot afford expensive text books relates to the parents being alcoholic, TV watching poor people. Jesus.
Yes. Fuck the poor. Those lazy assholes. Sitting on their asses smoking crack and having babies for welfare. They're all like that! And they're BROWN! don't forget that! They're "not like us!"
The same people making those arguments would probably be OK with the science texts outlining the origins of Jesus' riding dinosaur "Sparky" and our "6000 year old Earth."
Yes. Fuck the poor. Those lazy assholes. Sitting on their asses smoking crack and having babies for welfare. They're all like that! And they're BROWN! don't forget that! They're "not like us!"
The same people making those arguments would probably be OK with the science texts outlining the origins of Jesus' riding dinosaur "Sparky" and our "6000 year old Earth."
I think you need to learn to read better. No one in this topic said anything remotely like that.
Hense why I said that there should be an assistance program for those who legitimately can't afford the books.
Those who could afford the books should NOT be able to be on an assistance program.
It is called responsibility... I don't care what coler your skin is, what your religion is, who you are related to, what your political views are, etc... you aren't entitled to my tax dollars because you REFUSE be responsible and provide for you family.
It is so bad around here that the subsidized government housing is available for any houshold making less that 100k/year.
As i stated above some public schools do charge book rental and have for years. grade schools were cheaper, but then highschools were more expensive. Did a quck lookup for the K-8 for my local school, 9 - 12 depends on your class selection. K - $86, 1st grade - $93, 2nd - $96, 3rd - $88, 4th thru 6th - $95, 7th - $108.57, 8th - $119.33
They list prices of the actual books and stuff for a few of the grades (most cost between $30 - $50 each). for 4th grade it comes to $432.69 for the books for the year. So not as bad as i was thinking. They buy new books every 6 years, so that gives them about $570 in rental fees for that time frame, that is enough to cover the cost of the books for that period and give them extra for is the cost of any books go up the next time they buy them.
what are you talking about the earth isn't that old and Dinosaurs aren't real and never existed, all of those skeletons are fakes made to lie to the general public.
I agree with you though, like i said, a lot of people wouldn't be able to afford the cost of the books. And just because they can't doesn't mean they are spending it on drugs, alcohol or other stuff. Most are probably spending it on food and rent.
Penn State FINALLY offers renting the books from the (Barnes & Nobles' owned) Penn State Bookstore. Instead of paying $190 for a new book, or $130 for a used one, they offer me like $70 to rent it for the semester, which I then return at the end. I don't use the service because I can still get the international edition soft cover online for half that price.
I am a CS student at Oregon State University and we are already moving over to open source text books for at lease one class and it seems to be going well.
Maybe I am mistaken, but I believe MIT and Stanford and making some of their textbooks available online for free as well. It's only a matter of time till more colleges start to pick up on this. And with K-12 funding in the state it is, I would not be surprised if they started switching to open source text books.
Maybe I am mistaken, but I believe MIT and Stanford and making some of their textbooks available online for free as well. It's only a matter of time till more colleges start to pick up on this. And with K-12 funding in the state it is, I would not be surprised if they started switching to open source text books.
We are...!
Anyway...a lot of my engineering books are helpful to this day. Yes, they were expensive, but a lot of the material isn't easily found online (not to mention a pain in the ass to read). I like hard copies.
Cerulean
[H]F Junkie
- Joined
- Jul 27, 2006
- Messages
- 9,476
Open source textbooks would bring down the house on evil $$$ empires by colleges and publishers.
heatlesssun
Extremely [H]
- Joined
- Nov 5, 2005
- Messages
- 44,154
Screw open source textbooks! I want FOSS houses and cars! Then I wouldn't need no stinking textbooks!
More seriously this really is more of a matter of the professors that write these things isn't it? They get the bulk of the profits don't they?
More seriously this really is more of a matter of the professors that write these things isn't it? They get the bulk of the profits don't they?
Wow, what silly crap is this? Who's going to subsidize these "free" text books? Nothing is free. The writer must be paid. If you want better content, you're going to have to pay for better research and better educators. Let's start by PAYING OUR TEACHERS PROPERLY, something hardly any K-12 school district in the country has the means to do, then focus on subsidizing text books.
Now, ditching publishers... is your guillotine ready or would you like to borrow mine?
Now, ditching publishers... is your guillotine ready or would you like to borrow mine?
Uhhh, that won't work. The books aren't expensive because they are expensive to produce, they are expensive because the school wants to get paid.
Hell, some of the books I've bought were written by the professors that teach the class and you know what? I never even cracked them open.
Hell, some of the books I've bought were written by the professors that teach the class and you know what? I never even cracked them open.
A large eyeroll is due to all you saying "Nothing is free" "who is going to pay for it". There are plenty of professors that would be willing to assist in the effort to make books like this. You don't need one from every college even, just enough to cover all the topics. The best textbooks I've read were written by former professors, few of whom seem to have written them for monetary gains. And why do you care if someone wants to write a book and release it for free? Sometimes I'm embarrassed to even be on the internet, for fear of being associated with some of these stupid ideas.
TheCommander
2[H]4U
- Joined
- Apr 2, 2003
- Messages
- 2,999
Free is fine and dandy but who is going to write science and engineering books for free? Those areas are constantly evolving and writing and proof reading them requires loads of time; add in the fact that new research goes into them and that all requires time and money.
TheCommander
2[H]4U
- Joined
- Apr 2, 2003
- Messages
- 2,999
Oops. I guess that article deals with K-12 and not college textbooks.
This applies to the college textbooks as well as the k-12 ones. In case there is any confusion.
TheCommander
2[H]4U
- Joined
- Apr 2, 2003
- Messages
- 2,999
I'm wondering why people just don't buy older editions. They are almost the same as the newer ones.
GotNoRice
[H]F Junkie
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2001
- Messages
- 12,022
All of the material in the textbooks is already on the internet for free.
All that remains is to eliminate the textbook itself.
All that remains is to eliminate the textbook itself.
With all the complaints here about the cost of books, i want to point out that books for K - 12 are not as costly as college level books. My guess is partly because most schools don't buy new versions every year and they have a larger user base, thus each revision as a greater number of sells and the price is able to split some. Opposed to a college text book where you have new books being used more often to keep up on the cutting edge in a field and have fewer people buying the books. Thus the cost are higher.
Going back to the list I brought up eariler for grades 4 - 6, a math text book is $48.50, social studies books range from $50 - $70, reading $53.40, spelling $16.99, English $36 - $44
Some of those are a tad high, but nothing as crazy as college text books.
Going back to the list I brought up eariler for grades 4 - 6, a math text book is $48.50, social studies books range from $50 - $70, reading $53.40, spelling $16.99, English $36 - $44
Some of those are a tad high, but nothing as crazy as college text books.
Emission
Supreme [H]ardness
- Joined
- Dec 6, 2005
- Messages
- 4,420
Having to pay for textbooks is a hindrance to the learning process.
radioactivez0r
Gawd
- Joined
- Apr 13, 2008
- Messages
- 567
The second hand textbook market makes even Gamestop look good.