Student PIRGs report on open textbooks

A new report regarding open textbooks has been released by The Student PIRGs. The report titled “How Open Textbooks are the Path to Textbook Affordability” concludes that “the next step toward textbook affordability is to promote the creation and adoption of open textbooks.” It says that rentals, e-textbooks, and e-readers are limited in the ability to reduce costs and address student preferences because they only match the preferences of some students. However, open textbooks can reduce costs substantially and accommodate the full spectrum of students.

Some of the Student PIRG data that contributed to this conclusion matches data from the NACS Student Watch study however, there are some differences. For example, in regards to student preferences, the Student PIRGs data shows that 75 percent of students prefer print while 25 percent prefer digital. The NACS study found a similar statistic but when students were subsequently asked the primary reason for purchasing print over digital only 42 percent indicated that their preference for print was the primary reason for their purchase choice. The next two reasons were: lack of inventory (19 percent) and that the professor used the print copy (13 percent). This shows that while a majority of students may prefer print to digital, that preference is decreasing in its relevance as a reason not to purchase digital -- suggesting that the preference for print over digital may be lessening in significance. If the content is available and if the faculty chooses digital more students may be ready to switch. Preference for print may have been definitive before but it is more marginal now.

The Student PIRGs report also estimates that students would spend an average of 80 percent less on textbooks each year if they moved to all open textbooks. This compares to 61 percent less for rentals, 52 percent less for e-textbooks, and 39 percent less for e-reader textbooks. While open textbooks may be more affordable now, the model may not be sustainable over the long term. As more faculty adopt open course materials, it may have an impact on overall educational affordability because revenue that goes to support financial aid, tuition sustainability, and other institutional expenses will be lost. This is not an argument against seeking lower cost course materials. Rather, it is an argument that open source still presents enough shortcomings that it is not yet a panacea for the textbook affordability problem.

While open textbooks will certainly play a part in the future, the associated limitations need to be worked out before they can be widely adopted. College Stores should be thinking about ways to incorporate open textbooks into their offerings. College Stores have an opportunity to provide access to the digital versions and offer printed versions through print-on-demand so that the store remains the primary source for student content needs, regardless of format or source.

Online testing and study aids...

There have been a couple news stories lately about online testing and study aids for students. Two in particular seem to be getting some attention: ACETheExam.com and Flat World Knowledge.

ACETheExam
ACETheExam was announced in a press release earlier this week. It is a new initiative by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt to offer students practice exams in four popular courseareas: Intro Psych, US History, Principles of Economics and General Chemistry. In brief, the tool allows students to buy self-scoring practice exams made up of 15-20 questions that cover key topics in the course, drawn from a typical textbook. When I taught as a faculty member, this is the type of content students used to get for "free" as part of the "add-ons" that came with textbooks. It may be a publisher strategy though to reduce the cost of traditional textbooks and make more money off of the ancilliaries, since many states and students are pushing for a separation of the add-ons from the traditional texts.

Given the current state of technology, I expected this tool do more than just self-score quizzes at 5-6 cents per question. The SAT exam prep tools by ETS might be a good model to look at. If you get an answer wrong, it may ask you more questions, and then take you to lessons to explain the concepts. Such an approach allows for more self-directed learning. Perhaps I am a bit idealistic, but in the end, shouldn't it be about learning and not just the test? Perhaps when several people pushed me the link on this new development I was expecting a bit more.

Flat World Knowledge
Flat World Knowledge (FWK) is another group that has been getting a lot of press lately. Thanks, perhaps in large part, to the press stories coming out of the Student PIRGS lately that focus on open source textbooks. I have received a good number of e-mails on stories about FWK, and several requests for my opinion. The marketing certainly has been interesting, with the cute stick-figure videos. The real product does not come out to 2009, however. I have not seen the actual product yet, and screenshots are not enough to quel my ingrained faculty cynicism, so it is difficult to assess the real quality.

That said, I do have to admit that I like some of the basic elements of the business model -- faculty pick the content, students pick the format. This is an idea I have pushed for a while now. We are working on some initiatives to do the same. The faculty are a barrier though. Some of the student data I have seen suggests that students are afraid (for lack of a better word) to buy textbooks in a format other than what the faculty member is using. This is changing, and faculty are becoming more sensitive to textbook prices (and their role in causing textbook prices to increase). Faculty really have to be won over though. Solving that puzzle is critical.

It is interesting that they plan to give the digital away for free, but then charge if students want other formats. Their site explains:

We then turn around and sell things of value to that large market – more
convenient ways to consume our free book (print, audio, PDF) and efficient ways
to study (study aids). Sure, we’ll make less money per student than the big
guys. But that’s okay. We’ll be selling to a lot more of them, and we’ll be
doing it for a lot less money (thanks to technology like web-hosted services,
XML, print-on-demand, and more). Like we said… just a smarter way to do
business. For all of us.

So here is the dilemma. Most students do not currently like digital versions of textbooks. While there appear to be no statistical difference in student outcomes when they use the digital versus the print, students do report greater eye fatigue with current delivery options. This gets coupled with the digital divide problem -- students who can make best use of the digital option are typically the more economically well-positioned, because they have better access to computing technology, higher quality displays, and are more likely to have had more exposure and experience with technology -- allowing them to be more comfortable with the digital option. Thus, students who need the lower cost option most, the socio-economically disadvantaged, are likely to have to rely on the traditional media more. So the dilemma is that poorer students still have to pay more to get content in the format that best matches their needs, experience, and access to technology.

That said, there is no perfect solution to this problem out there. We are working to solve this problem too, and our solution will also have its problems. As the Japanese saying goes, "nothing is so good that it cannot be improved." While it means competition for us, in my opinion FWK is a good step forward for the course materials industry as it will help further test out models where the content and the format are separated. FWK, like AceTheExam, will charge for access to study guides (and likely other ancilliaries), further emphasizing the split among pieces of content. It will also test out some new business models to reduce costs that could work to the whole industry's advantage -- such as print-on-demand.

Bottom Line:
While it means competition for us, FWK's business model also represents opportunity. By separating the content and the format, I also see opportunities for FWK to work with college stores. Our paired strengths may create a greater win-win for students and institutions than separate initiatives. There are advantages for a company like FWK to work with college stores -- and for college stores to work with FWK. Both sides have some unique advantages. Anyone from FWK reading this note who might want to have a discussion?

Open access textbooks

Nicole Allen, textbooks program director for the student PIRGs submitted an update and gave me permission to repost some of the update here. A big push of the student PIRGs this year will be open access textbooks -- essentially free, self-published textbook equivalents. Some sources of information on open textbook content from Nicole:

• I think many of you might be interested in a new publishing company - the world's first open textbook publisher Flat World Knowledge. They provide commercial-grade textbooks open for faculty to modify and free for students to read.
• The California community colleges has created CCCOER - a consortium devoted to developing open textbooks and other resources for use in community colleges to reduce costs and improve learning outcomes.
• Another place to visit for resources is MERLOT - another huge repository of online material. One innovative feature MERLOT offers is a mechanism for ratings and peer reviews.

A related source to check out is Connexions. I think Connexions is a very interesting approach to self-publishing and open access textbooks.

I am not sure if open access textbooks will make a big dent in the traditional textbook market, but certainly it is an interesting movement worth watching. There is some interesting innovation happeninig in this space motivated, of course, by a desire to reduce the cost of textbooks.