This is the video that started me thinking about about open source textbooks. In trying to determine if David Wiley had more concrete recommendations on this submit, I was able to locate his site. There I found links to several businesses focused on open source. Note – open source is not exactly the same as free. I was most interested in Flat World Knowledge. For purposes of evaluation, I looked for psychology and found an Intro Psychology book. I happen to be teaching this college course at this time.
It appears that this is a scribd publication – the pdf version bears this label. The author makes some money if the book is printed or purchased, but not viewed online – I assume the same is true for the distributor. I was interested in cost – $2.50 to print a chapter, $25 to print the book, $35 to purchase a black and white version, $25 for the ebook version.
So, just some thoughts. I am assuming this resource is of equal quality to the text I am presently using – hard to say if this is true and I am betting the established authors are still going with publishers. I use a custom print from Cengage that contains 10 chapters. The $200 figure Wiley quotes must be for books in chemistry or something. I think most educators realize that a $200 book cost would statistically atypical. Because I will use the Intro text I assign again, the student can sell this book back for half value. The students this semester are using a new black and white custom printed book for a little over $50 (actual cost after reselling). See my post on the “beer money ploy” for an explanation of how to interpret the real cost of textbooks. So, my interpretation is that the real cost comparison would be $35 + postage vs. about $50 at bookstore with return (I am assuming there is no practical way to return the $35 version for half your money back).
What would it cost the student to self-print? Not sure – I can’t really tell how many pages would be generated. That would be $25 + cost of printing. This has to be more expensive than purchasing the book for $35 unless you actually do not pay for the paper and printer supplies.
I think the ebook version might be a good deal. There does not seem to be much of an advantage for printed versions. The real cost savings here is to view the content online. Of course, the author gets nothing in this case and must hope that most students will opt for a print version. There must be data on viewing vs buying. It would be nice if these data were available. What do you think would happen if the online viewing option was not included?
Perhaps some of these numbers will be helpful. I think my numbers are realistic and take into account several variables that are typically not included.
