The decision by Flat World Knowledge to stop providing
free versions of its textbooks brings to mind the old adage, “Nothing in life
is free.” Flat World plans to continue providing course materials at a price
well below the cost of most textbooks, but the move will help make “our
business healthier,” according to Flat World co-founder Jeff Shelstad in an
interview with Inside Higher Education.
Flat World educational content was produced by paid
authors to ensure high quality and marketed to professors to assign in their
classrooms. The plan called for the company to make money by charging students
for printed versions of the free and open educational content it created, and
for enhanced study aids and other add-ons.
While those premium services did not sell as well as
hoped, moving away from completely free content was also a matter of fairness,
according to Shelstad. Some institutional partners paid licensing fees for
every student using the materials and others paid less. Establishing a minimum
price of $19.95 is fairer to all while still making it affordable to students,
he says.
Flat World continues to be an affordable textbook
solution, just not free, according to Cable Green, director of global learning
at Creative Commons. It may also open the door for other free textbook
providers, such as Boundless Learning, which markets its textbook alternatives
directly to students.
“This reinforces the notion that sustainable business
models are hard to find, and I don’t think that’s a surprise,” said Ariel Diaz,
co-founder and CEO of Boundless. “We still see an opportunity to make
the case that we’re better because we’re free and open, in that we can leverage
the eyeballs and error-finding that we got from our community to lead to a
better product as a result.”
That’s possible, but Flat World isn’t going away either.
Shelstad reports that most of the company’s partners and faculty users have
been supportive of the change, understanding that it allows Flat World to
continue to produce course materials that have been popular with students.
