Text books cost a fortune these days. And they don’t age well. And they don’t contain local information.
This morning I had a chat with former textbook publisher executive Erik Frank, who’s out to change the situation. He and another text veteran formed Flat World Knowledge to reverse the tide.
Flat World proposes to offer e-texts by known authors to students for free. (Students will pay for print & audio versions of the text, podcast study guides, mobile phone flash cards, etc.) Books will be printed on demand.
On Monday, Flat World goes beta with four business textbooks at 15 universities. They hope to have eight texts available for the ‘09 school year. David Wiley is their “chief openness officer.”
Erik described a “social learning network” students could join to study with one another; this struck me as a potential ghost town. My suggestion: offer a social network that enables instructors to swap ideas around a the topic of the text.
Can Flat World claw its way into the hidebound world of academic publishing? I’m skeptical. Then again, Erik and his co-founder have three decades of experience with traditional publishers, so maybe they have an edge. I still remember being required to buy pricey books written by my professors. Argh. I wish Flat World well.
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I think it is the natural evolution of content + web-based services, and I’m thrilled FlatWorld Knowledge has risen to the challenge. Many professors have “published” an open-source text online or made a static one available in .pdf format at no cost to students – nothing new. This solution seems to bring it all together and, as you suggest, there is no reason why social networking could not apply to instructors as well as students.
Students don’t buy the book unless they have to, and code+text combinations are forcing them to make the purchase. Frequent updates and editions are an end game strategy. Soon we’ll see “books or food” articles profiling students making a difficult choice. Congress is getting into the act and expressing concern.
My perception is this solution is beyond publishing 2.0, looking at the content of a course in three dimensions rather than the traditional, linear “all things to all students/package the whole range of content between two hard covers in four expensive colors” approach. The challenge will be to develop core content with inherent adaptability as the model takes off (and to keep up with the demand growth). An approach like Flat World Knowledge proposes may be the next step, bringing it all together. 10 years from now this company or the copycats that will rise up will be discussed in terms of how they transformed content delivery for courses K-20 and focused on customer relationships and service solutions, including customer-generated content, in a dynamic way that changed higher education.
And there’s also the option of shifting access to content from students reading printed books to students researching and reporting from online access.
Assignment for Modern European History
Week 10:
France, August 28, 1884. What’s the story? What happened next?
I have to say that I would like the idea of a free textbook, but I am not sure about being willing to pay for side items like audio version or flash cards.
When I was in college, I always tried to find used text books and sold my book back at the end of the year unless it was a book I felt would serve as a good reference. It was all about money and spending as little as possible.
If I am paying for a class and access to a teacher, I don’t expect to have to pay an additional fee to a third party to access a social network related to the course. Eliminate the teacher and offer me credit for using the social network, then you might have a chance.
With only a small handful of books in a single subject (business) area may be hard to find the right mix to be successful. When I was in school, Math and Physics instructors seemed to use their text books more than other teachers. Homework came directly from the problems in the books. Other teachers gave lectures and reading the textbook was optional. Several of my higher level classes didn’t have formal text. The instructor would hand out papers from publications and use them for discussion.
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