Earlier this month, I wrote about the future of textbooks — if traditional hard-bound books might someday be replaced be electronic editions, or if the industry might go the way of music and movies, with many people downloading pirated versions from peer-to-peer services like Bittorrent.
After that blog post, the Spark community weighed in on the future of the textbook. Jack Andrew Chapman wrote:
In two of my units we don’t have textbooks. Instead the lecturer uploads PDFs of book chapters and journal articles to the University’s “Learning Management System”
Lianne said:
I think eTextbooks would be a good idea. For some courses. For example, in literature or history classes, and the like. But for Maths and Sciences? Forget it
And Karim Kanji wrote:
I know that every year I was at York University I had to purchase NEWER versions of the same textbook. Why? We were told that the older (one year old) texts were outdated and needed updating. The real truth: Professors had written these texts and where supplementing their “teaching” income by also selling “newer” textbooks.
Well, recently Nora talked to Eric Frank, the co-founder of one company that’s trying to reinvent the textbook publishing industry. The company is called Flat World Knowledge, and it publishes “open textbooks” which are free works that can be edited, updated, and remixed into custom course materials.” These open textbooks are free to read online, but if you want, say, a printed copy or an audio version, you’ll have to pay.
A shorter version of Nora’s interview with Eric will air on an upcoming episode of Spark, but you can hear the full, uncut interview below, or download the MP3.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Also, if your textbook needs aren’t covered by Flat World Knowledge, the Gadgetwise blog from the New York Times suggests checking out the free Bigwords iPhone app for textbook price comparison.
If you like hearing these extended interviews, why not subscribe to Spark Plus? You’ll get regular weekly episodes, plus additional blog-only content like this. [Subscribe via RSS] or [Subscribe with iTunes]
[original image by House of Sims]
August 26th, 2009 at 8:11 am
[...] link is being shared on Twitter right now. @clintlalonde, an influential author, said Nora Young [...]
September 16th, 2009 at 9:09 am
[...] CBC has a good interview with Eric about open textbooks. While an abbreviated version will air (apparently), you can listen to the [...]
September 17th, 2009 at 6:43 am
[...] “text” to your needs. To learn more about FWK’s business model, listen to this interview with Eric Frank (FWK [...]
September 17th, 2009 at 3:40 pm
[...] textbook, Exploring Business from Flat World Knowledge. (CBC radio recently did an interview with the company’s co-founder about their business model.) First, their text iss better than the one I was using, second, their supplements are better, and [...]
September 24th, 2009 at 9:37 pm
Lets get the definition right. Flat world knowledge is not a provider of "open text books" unless the code is in the public domain like McAfee's economics text book (http://www.introecon.com/), then the book is not an "open text book" period! McAfee's standard is the right way to go. This FWK model is merely an extension/variation of the current business model. It helps to lower cost of course, but lets confuse ourselves.
September 30th, 2009 at 4:47 am
[...] http://www.cbc.ca/spark/2009/08/full-interview-eric-frank-on-open-textbooks/ a few seconds ago from web [...]
November 5th, 2009 at 1:29 am
Hmmm… I agree with the previous commenter – Flat World Knowledge is hardly an "open educational resource." The books cost money to print or download. Fair enough! On the other hand, our site, http://www.smarthistory.org (which won this year's webby award for education) is entirely free and open (under a Creative Commons license) – and is intended as a supplement or replacement for the standard art history textbook – with more than 200 video conversations and pages and pages of text oo. No ads, no cost to the student. We're looking for contributors and more publicity!
November 10th, 2009 at 4:55 pm
[...] @creativecommons: http://www.cbc.ca/spark/2009/08/full-interview-eric-frank-on-open-textbooks/ [...]