Not
surprisingly, college and university students love the idea of free, open-source
course materials. Some students, notably at the University of Minnesota, are
trying to persuade more faculty to assign open materials.
According
to the Minnesota Daily campus publication, the Minnesota Student Association plans to set up a task force to
preach the open-source gospel. The task force will contact professors
individually to make them aware of open educational materials, in particular to
explain what’s available in the university’s open-textbook library, which
launched in 2012.
Last year,
the student association was active in legislative efforts at the federal and
state level to support open materials with grant programs, but those bills
petered out. Now the association hopes the personal approach will encourage
more faculty to use free materials instead of asking their classes to buy or
rent books.
Campus
grass-roots efforts like this are likely to sprout up at more institutions in
response to student dissatisfaction over the cost of course materials.