March 25, 2008
Wikipedia Co-Founder Calls on Philanthropists to Help Make Textbooks Free Online
Larry Sanger has a suggestion for anyone who has some money they want to put toward a good cause — give away textbooks online. In fact, he argues, a single fat-cat philanthropist could give any student with an Internet connection free high-quality textbooks and educational videos.
Mr. Sanger is a co-founder of Wikipedia, the popular encyclopedia that anyone can add to or edit, and he now runs a spin-off of Wikipedia called Citizendium.
This week Mr. Sanger posted a public appeal to philanthropists in the form of an online petition, outlining his vision of a world where textbooks cost children nothing. He’s asking other Internet users to sign on, and about 20 have done so as of this writing. (The letter focuses on K-12 textbooks, but it seems that a similar logic could be used for college textbooks as well.)
“Sometimes the simplest ways are the best,” says Mr. Sanger in the petition. “This opportunity is ‘low-hanging fruit.’”
It’s not clear how, exactly, a rich donor would set up an online textbook publishing operation, or who would decide what goes in the books — details that seem crucial. But the idea of finding a new, open-source model for textbook publishing, supported by donors, seems part of a larger trend of using technology to give away educational technology. Think, for instance, of the effort to create a $100 laptop that will be given to children in third-world countries. So far those come pre-loaded with portions of Wikipedia. —Jeffrey R. Young
Posted on Tuesday March 25, 2008 | Permalink |Comments
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I don’t know about K-12, but in college it irks me that a student can have a $300 ipod, own a $500 iphone, and still complain about how unfair it is to need to spend $100 on text books for a class. Are we re-enforcing spending as an entirely frivolous activity?
— juniorprof Mar 25, 02:45 PM #
Absolutely agree – there is no reason to keep supporting the massive textbook industry when a more efficient – and even more fun – way of learning can be obtained through a variety of techniques on the Internet. Just as Google has proven how useful books online are, I’m sure textbooks online will be coming soon.
In response to juniorprof,
textbooks generally are useful only for the length of a semester or school year. That’s it. iPods and iPhones have much more longevity and usefulness. And when did you last buy a textbook? $100 will get you a very cheap one, whereas if you’re in grad school some medical/legal books will cost between $500-700.
— Bob Kosovsky Mar 25, 05:35 PM #
But you can still use the iPod and cellphone after the semester is over!
— John Thompson Mar 25, 06:11 PM #
And the above comment eloquently expresses the problem with the way most students approach learning
— Jim Eckert Mar 25, 08:21 PM #
Back in my day, we lived in 120 sq ft dorm rooms with a roommate and a bunk bed. The bed filled 40% of the room. No bathroom, not even a sink.
Today’s students live in luxury condos, drive new cars, and bring $2000 (on the low end) laptops with them to play games and surf the internet while eating lunch. They have broadband, and a $100/month plan that allows unlimited calls and text messages on their $300 cell phone.
Yeah, $150 for a textbook is the biggest problem they’ve got. Pardon me if I don’t shed any tears over a $150 textbook.
— me Mar 25, 09:43 PM #
There are a lot of people who support this idea, and I am one of them. I write books that are mainly aimed at preservice and inservice K-12 teachers, and nowadays I make all of them available free on my Website. To access these books, look under the eBooks item in the Main Menu of http://i-a-e.org/.
— David Moursund Mar 26, 02:13 AM #
The price of textbooks certainly is an issue, they’re not cheap. However, the idea of free textbooks is riddled with problems – which texts are selected as free; how do we ensure properly academic and peer reviewed texts are provided this way; etc.
As for student iPods, mobile phones (cell phones), and laptops, sure a lot of students do have high range ones – certainly something an educator’s budget doesn’t run to, but that is not all students. There are some who work their way through college, and struggle to make ends meet. These are the ones who need free textbooks, as well as people from developing countries.
It needs a more thought through solution from publishers, collges, schools, universities, and governments to ensure that we can get books to the people who need them.
Also, of course, changing our culture, where people don’t think its a sign of high status to have the latest gadget, phone, or whatever else, but will instead valur people on their knowledge and wisdom, then we would solve a lot of these problems – I apologize for the Utopian vision.
— Liu Xiaoxian Mar 26, 05:41 AM #
And textbooks don’t suddenly burst into a loud rendition of “You Ain’t Nuthin’ but a Hound Dog!” in the middle of a class.
One $150 text is infinitely more valuable in class than a hundred iPods.
— Richard Mar 26, 06:14 AM #
To those of you (Juniorprof & “me” & Richard) who are annoyed with students who have money to spend on things other than textbooks: you’re looking at a small slice of the student population. To a working student who is paying her way, $600/semester in textbooks is another 4 hours per week waiting tables all semester long. That’s after earning money for rent, tuition and transportation. That comes out of study time. Rich kids can go to rich schools and buy expensive texts, but for some people, high prices and lack of money makes it harder to get an education. Let’s not punish poor students just because rich students buy ipods. And textbooks prices are a scam anyway.
— Commuter school prof Mar 26, 07:49 AM #
The world is not black and white. There are alternatives to spending big dollars on textbooks. Used copies, renting books or even reselling them back which cuts the cost done. It is not as simple as free or not free. We also have to remember that if ALL textbooks become free who will publish these? Will there be sufficient competition so that faculty will have good choices to pick from. There are many questions to consider, but the idea is worth exploring.
— Bill Mar 26, 08:29 AM #
I tire of those entitled authors who are on their eighth, ninth, and tenth editions. With very little difference with each edition, it seems an excuse for the publisher and the author to make money at the expense of the students. How many of the people on this list who are making fun of students for not wanting to purchase a $150 textbook would cheerfully pay that amount for the instructor’s editions that we get for free?
— Kathy Mar 26, 08:48 AM #
As a long-time college bookstore director, the price of textbooks is a constant issue. Students aren’t really upset about textbook prices per se but rather their lack of choice in the matter. They feel that publishers and academia are taking advantage of their lack of choice. I’ve always tried to determine what a reasonably priced textbook actually is. The $200.00 anatomy book that launchs a student into a career in health sciences or the 5.00 book, one of twenty-five in a humanities class required readng list, where the professor only has the class read the first ten because she runs out of time. With the availability of used books, on-line buying, course anthologies, digital delivery, and students who do fine without a textbook, students and faculty have more choices then ever before. If professors actually use the textbook as a learning tool for the students’ successful completion of the course, students concentrate on value rather then price. If the instructor doesn’t use the book or fails to manage the syllabaus and the students are left with books they don’t open, no matter how inexpensive, the value of the $200 book is more than the $5.00 book. Publishers, faculty, college bookstores, libraries, and administrators need to work to make sure that every expense the student incures while in college has value in the students successful completion of college toward the degree. Then we don’t have to have these 30 year long arguments about the price of textbooks, the food, parking, lab fees, the required course bu the terrible professor, etc.
— jb Mar 26, 09:14 AM #
Students buy 50-75 textbooks in a typical undergrad experience. Textbook publishing is very, very profitable.
In many families it’s the parents, not the students, who are scraping the dollars together every term.
Complaining about the other things students spend money on is deflecting.
I like the idea of philanthropists helping students to buy the texts they need, but Bill’s comment about the publishers is correct. No profit, no books.
JB’s comment gets to the heart of the issue. We need to take responsibility for the expenses we inflict on students.
— Tad Mar 26, 09:26 AM #
Oh no, you did a no-no. Jimmy Wales ALWAYS gets pissed off when someone calls Larry Sanger a Wikipedia Co-Founder.
http://www.wikitruth.info/index.php?title=Jimbo_Found_Out
Jimbo wants the credit for Wikipedia allllll to himself.
— L Mar 26, 11:07 AM #
I previously attended a university that purchased required textbooks and then rented them to the students on a semester basis. The most I ever paid per semester for 12 credit hours of books was $85. Freshman year was $45 a semester.
This year I have a professor who only uses internet sites (including wikipedia) for our required readings…cost=free. When will publishers realize that people are getting fed up with high text prices??
Also, I am putting myself through school and have to pay for everything. The switch to having to buy my books every semester was literally tramatic. It takes at least 5 extra work hours a week to make up the cost and that’s 5+ hours I could be studying.
— kathy Mar 26, 07:42 PM #
Talk about your modest proposals, eh folks?
A “philanthropist” providing free books?!
A N D R E W C A R N E G I E ring any bells?
—- —- —-
Of course, capitalist-naïf he was, that Carnegie. He figured to merely let folks borrow the books, read them, study up on things, and, why heck, that would be good enough. The book writers? They would get paid for a copy or two in every town — and anyone who really wanted or needed a copy for keeps could just trot right on over to the bookseller, plunk down some hard-earned coin and thus validate the writers’ worthiness at the cash register.
A little of the ol’ quid pro quo may seem a bit quaint to Utopian neo-Fabian 21st century Generation I (for idiot?) pioneers like our Dr. WikiPedia, but… Trust me, us writer folk trust naked, free enterprise because in addition to that stormy intermittent poverty, there’s free inquiry‘s fresh breezes.
—- — —-
Dr. Sanger’s swift(ian) idea that we should go pleading to some over-moneyed neo-robber baron philistine half-wits to make books (the ones deemed “best,” no less!) free for all to plunder via telephony??!!
What nerve, what insidious specious nonsense. What blood-boiling stupidity.
Anyone whose ever spent a good, long weekend with America’s philanthropy-class, the true-blueblood Newport-Telluride-Davos-Park Avenue-West Egg tax dodgers, knows only too very well that these fops and blowhards are famously among the Bell Curve’s middlewits — on a good day.
Imagine a world where these all-growed-up former boarding school C-students get to pick tomes-for-tots?! No sillier nor more dangerously absurd mythologizing machinery was ever conceived by even the most arrogant mediaeval pope or potentate.
Sanger’s idea is either Kafka-esque nightmare or Swiftian joke; but it ain’t worthy of serious thought.
— Peter Cook Mar 26, 07:53 PM #
Hey, Larry, All,
Take a look at http://globaltext.org. It’s providing free, editorially-reviewed textbooks on the Internet for students in developing economies. Initially, books will be translated into Arabic, Chinese, and Spanish. Rick Watson of UGa and I are co-project leaders. The project received proof of concept funding from the Jacobs Foundation. Four books are currently available and there are about 30 in the pipeline, with people from about 50 universities involved as content contributors or advisory board members. The website covers it all. Please get in touch if you’d like more information and/or would like to join in the work. Our contact information in on the website.
— Don McCubbrey Mar 27, 09:49 AM #
This issue isn’t going away, but it’s helpful to keep the discussion focused on facts. To take issue with a couple of statements in earlier posts:
“textbooks are only useful for a semester or school year” -Not really, since the education and degree last a lifetime.
“textbook publishing is very, very profitable” – to the contrary, profit margins are quite small and getting smaller. This is specialty publishing for markets that are generally small – not mass-market Grisham thrillers.
— Chris Freitag Mar 28, 10:57 AM #
Re: The Global Text Project. Forgot to mention in my earlier post (#17) that the Chronicle had an article on it in the Nov 16 edition. If you’d like to take a look, it’s under the Information Technology Heading and the title is “Wikis Working in the Classroom”. FYI, we’ve switched from using a Wiki to an open source content management system, but otherwise, the article describes the project pretty well. Here’s a link:
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v54/i12/12a02801.htm
— Don McCubbrey Mar 28, 01:32 PM #
Kathy notes that her professor “only uses internet sites (including wikipedia) for our required readings…cost=free.” That prof is unnecessarily limiting his students’ resources. His college’s library has paid big bucks for commercial print & online journals, books and other instructional material that is free to him and his students. Not textbooks, normally, but a wealth of readings.
— Laura Mar 29, 03:11 PM #
To the all the people who are excusing the high price of text books I say either you’re writing them or you were the type of student to have all the expensive gear and think nothing of the expense.
The students I know struggle for every penny and often do without to afford those expensive books.
An art student may find an art book they paid $100 for worth it and the learning may last them a lifetime but the same student will not feel the same about an algebra book they paid $125 for that they will never touch again.
Books in your major promote learning that will last a lifetime, books in general ed cost more, are generally worthless to sell back and change nearly every year.
I do think publishers are making huge profits but if they’re losing any money at all it’s because of students forgoing the textbooks they can’t afford and making do without them.
— Jen Apr 1, 04:01 PM #
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— Enyr Thomas Apr 12, 09:05 PM #