Models for Open Textbooks

[Tahiya Marome]

This project is looking for ways to make open textbooks sustainable. That's a tall order. The process of publishing a textbook is not an easy one. AFTER you've got your hands on the content there is a tiny army of professionals who put that content through multiple iterations and procedures, none of which are quick or simple. That costs time, money and expertise. How do you take that process and modify it so that the product you have at the end is the same level of quality and value, but allows you to offer it to the consumer without cost? The short answer is there is no direct way to do it. So what can you do instead?

Well, you look at the pieces and see what you have to work with.

Writing content = cost is the subject matter expert
Editing content = cost is fact checkers and editors
Graphics and visual aids = cost is creation and processing
Layout = cost is graphic designers and layout artists
Revisions = cost is proof readers
Printing & Binding = cost is production
Digital supplements = web development, CMS integration
Distribution = cost is shipping, mailing, stocking

Open textbooks make the argument that we can save huge costs on writing, editing, graphics, layout, digital supplements and revisions by having instructors and other subject matter experts contribute their skills and intellectual property without charging anyone. This clearly begs the question what, other than altruism, would motivate authors to do that? Barbara Illowsky, author of Collaborative Statistics, had a few words to say about that. She explained that the book had already been published traditionally, that she was getting great feedback on how to make the book better, she enjoys seeing the changes that other instructors implement in their derived copies, she feels that open textbooks is a movement she has passion for.

Another model, proposed by the project participant Flatworld Knowledge, suggests that you can pay the authors and editors, and charge students nominal fees for the digital supplements on an as needed basis to support the costs of production.

A third model proposes institutional underwriting in various scenarios where the educational organization took responsibility for funding open textbooks. Institutional subscriptions is one idea.

Other people have proposed the use of advertising to underwrite the textbooks. This has sprouted a couple of discussions questioning the notion of providing a captive audience to for-profit companies through students' educational materials.

All of these ideas have merit and we want to examine both the theory and reality they might lead to. What I hope will happen is that someone out there will come up with some hybrid or completely new way of looking at this.

Anyone? Anyone?

[Skip Knox]

Like Jud, I simply already had content developed. It migrated from hand-written notecards into word processing and from there onto the web. With each iteration, the notes got expanded and were turned more into narrative. I'm now engaged in screen scrapes back to word processing format. Yeah, irony.

For me, there was really no question of compensation. This is something I was doing anyway. I have always strongly felt that this information should be available for free. Heck, I'm not saying a dang thing that can't be found in a dozen other books. Mostly out of print books! If I give it away, it never goes out of print. Hah, take that, publishers.

My basic principle is: information is free, education costs money. Anyone can read any or all of what I have written. They may learn some information about the past that way, but they aren't going to learn how to be a historian. For that, you have to take my class. That's what I have to offer that is unique.

The question of maintaining the document after I no longer can is a vexing one. How long should the website remain online? Take it down the day after I retire? The day I decide no longer to maintain it? Gosh, there are pages I haven't revised in years as it is. How often do I need to revise the description of the sack of Carthage? OTOH, I daresay there'd not be much point in keeping the website for a hundred years.

Is there a necessary relationship between the website and the book? I'm only going to do this screenscrape thing once, I can tell you. So should the book disappear when the website does? How long should Lulu keep it?

These are interesting questions. I look forward to hearing from others about it.

[Jud Sage]

I started using the web to supplement classroom teaching about 1996. It didn't take long to figure out that for history, at least, the web was an open textbook. For starters, it was a just a matter of directing students to the best sources. Meanwhile, I was developing what I called "topic summaries" and putting them on my own web site. By the time I retired from classroom teaching and started teaching only on line, I had about half of a text book already written plus hundreds of documents on or linked from my web site.

A few years ago I saw a presentation by Lulu at the League C.I.T. conference and eventually decided to finish and publish my text. The hard part was the writing, but I use Dragon voice recognition software, which is very accurate. Since I had been lecturing on American history for 30 years, all I had to do was fire up Dragon and start talking. Of course I had to edit it, and that was the most tedious part.

I have found the Lulu process very easy to use. Once I have the text ready to go, I upload it as a Word file (my two volumes are about 400 pages each) and Lulu converts it to print ready. I can design my own cover, etc. The entire process takes about 10 minutes. For graphics I use public domain B&W photos, mostly from the LOC, National Archives, etc. The process of revising is just as easy, or more so, and the next buyer gets the latest version, since Lulu is print on demand. Lulu also gives me my own storefront. And it's free.

[John Redden]

There are reasons other than altruism and one is customization. If you consider the connexions module model an instructor can easily modify a module to better fit their class presentation. They can add their own multimedia or text and derive a customized module. The ability to convey your particular idea more easily has value.

Also, the module idea seems to put to rest the need for global subject expertise. Module authors need only become "micro-experts" in the subject of the module. It is much less time intensive to become a micro expert but the trade off is that we need lots of them!

Assuming that we need more authors for small amounts of time maybe we could ask institutions to donate faculty office hours, flex schedule hours, sabbaticals, mini-sabbaticals or publication credit in exchange for modules. How many community colleges are there in the US? This along with an organized effort targeting certain high use disciplines could produce textbooks rather quickly, I would think.