You might think there wouldn't be much room for
traditional publishing in the world of open and free educational content. However, Richard Baraniuk, director of the Connexions and OpenStax initiatives at Rice
University, would disagree.
Baraniuk is already using open educational
resources (OER) to create free learning materials through his nonprofit
organization, OpenStax College. If traditional publishers can build on the
material, he's all for it.
"We're trying to provide better access
to all high-quality learning experiences," he told University Business.
"If what we offer saves traditional publishers money, they're able to
lower their costs and that will help advance education."
Textbooks will be modular, allowing
instructors to choose multiple sources for each class. They will then be
able to modify the difference sources of content to suit each student, who will
also be able to collaborate on developing the text, according to Baraniuk.
"There's nothing stopping students from becoming authors," he said. "The students in my engineering class conduct a research project every year and then archive their results in Connexions, so they're published authors. These projects get used by people around the world and they get referenced and built on by others."
"There's nothing stopping students from becoming authors," he said. "The students in my engineering class conduct a research project every year and then archive their results in Connexions, so they're published authors. These projects get used by people around the world and they get referenced and built on by others."
