OpenStax College, a publisher from Rice University, has announced to expand its catalog of open access textbooks by 2015. The expansion will be funded by a grant from the Laura and John Arnold Foundation (LJAF) and it will more than double the number of textbooks available.

With a plan to develop open access textbooks for five different subjects, OpenStax launched in 2012 with their introductory physics and sociology textbooks. Currently, their introductory physics and sociology textbooks have been downloaded more than 70,000 times and over 150 colleges, universities, and high schools have adopted the textbooks. This fall, two new biology textbooks and an introductory anatomy textbook will be made available. The recently announced expansion will add six more subjects to their collection, including chemistry, economics, precalculus, psychology, statistics, and U.S. history.

Since OpenStax hires the same content creators that major publisher’s employ, and its textbooks are peer-reviewed by hundreds of faculty reviewers, it costs more than $500,000 to develop each textbook. Grants from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the 20 Million Minds Foundation, the Maxfield Foundation, and most recently, the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, allow OpenStax to offer these titles to students for free.

Ultimately, OpenStax plans to develop 25 textbooks for the nation’s most-enrolled college courses. It is estimated that if OpenStax captures 10 percent of textbook adoptions for each of its 25 planned textbooks, college students could save about $750 million over five years.

If you would like to read the full press release, visit:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-05/ru-roc050213.php

Open Course Library (OCL), a project funded by the Washington Legislature and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to create open access textbooks for the 81 most common community college courses, has announced that it has completed textbooks for its remaining 39 courses. The open access nature of the textbooks means that anyone can freely share or adapt the textbooks, as long as it is properly attributed to the author.

The first 42 courses of the OCL project were released in October 2011 and the early calculations showed $1.3 million in student savings. The recent news release was accompanied by a Student PIRGs estimation, updating the number to $5.5 million in student savings to date. On average, a student who took an OCL course saved $96 on textbooks.

The OCL’s materials have the potential to save students millions of dollars, however faculty have been slow to adopt them. Currently, only about 105 faculty members or departments in Washington have adopted OCL materials. A 2011 Student PIRGs analysis estimated that student savings could reach $41.6 million annually if OCL materials were adopted statewide.

The problem with OCL textbooks is that they are not mandated by the state for instructors to use, so the hardest part is getting them to take a look at the materials. In addition, OCL is at a disadvantage because, unlike commercial publishers, it does not employ a sales team to encourage open-course adoption. Another concern is that many faculty worry that these textbooks will be of lesser quality than the commercial publishers’ textbooks. However, David Lippman, a Pierce College math instructor and co-developer for several OCL textbooks, disagrees with that sentiment and vouches for the quality of these textbooks. He stated that his OCL courses over the past two years have saved students $50,000 on textbooks, compared to traditional publisher textbooks, while his students achieved the same or greater academic success.

You can read the full press release here:
http://opencourselibrary.org/wp-content/uploads/OpenCourseLibrary_FINAL_04302013.pdf

One of the largest etextbook pilot programs to date has been announced for fall 2013. The pilot will include 50 publishers and about 30,000 textbooks. It is a continuation of the etextbook pilot sponsored by two non-profit organizations, Internet2 and Educause. The goal of the pilot is to provide students with substantial savings, enhance digital educational materials, and to test a new etextbook purchasing model by delivering e-textbooks to students and faculty via an institutional site license, rather than through individual purchases by students. Institutions participating in the pilot are allowed to select their textbooks from 50 different publishers and from three etextbook platform providers: CourseSmart, Courseload, or MacGraw-Hill Education.

The University of South Florida participated in the pilot of fall 2012 with over 3,000 students and currently has about 1,600 students in the spring 2013 pilot. Those students were provided with their etextbooks at no charge for partaking in the pilot. A data report from the fall 2012 pilot is almost finalized and the results will be posted on the TAP website soon.

If you would like to learn more about the pilot, visit:
http://www.informationweek.com/education/instructional-it/e-textbook-pilot-puts-college-books-in-c/240150097

Wiley has recently announced that it will partner with OpenStax College, a non-profit organization which produces introductory level open access college textbooks.

Normally, Wiley would be a competitor of OpenStax, however they see a partnership with OpenStax as a good entry point into a previously untapped market. Wiley has not produced any college biology textbooks and they believe their partnership with OpenStax will give them a foothold in that market. In addition, Wiley does not have to commit the extensive time and resources to develop a textbook. Their plan is to supplement OpenStax’s biology textbooks with WileyPlus, a paid add-on of interactive practice and assessment tools. Regarding the quality of OpenStax’s textbooks, Wiley has stated that it is comfortable with the quality of their textbooks, noting that they follow a process similar to traditional textbook publishing, using grants to pay the author and hire peer reviewers.

OpenStax plans to release two introductory biology textbooks, one for majors and the other for non-majors, in fall 2013. At the same time, Wiley will be starting a pilot program across several universities for its WileyPlus supplements.

If you would like to read more, visit:
http://www.informationweek.com/education/instructional-it/wiley-openstax-team-on-college-biology-t/240150451

The American Anthropological Association (AAA) has recently announced that it will begin to experiment with open access publishing for its journals. Currently, AAA publishes more than 20 journals and none of them are open access. In order to access the journals for free, the public must wait 35 years after a journal’s publication. Early next year, however, Cultural Anthropology will be AAA’s first journal to switch to an open access model, allowing anyone to read it freely.

The Society for Cultural Anthropology (SCA), led by the society’s president Brad Weiss, is the section of AAA responsible for the Cultural Anthropology journal. Mr. Weiss has stated that the plan is to “provide worldwide, instant, free (to the user), and permanent access to all of our content (as well as 10 years of our back catalog).”

When Cultural Anthropology becomes open access next year, it will be the first major journal in anthropology to offer open access to all of its research. The SCA hopes their open access experiment will be a success and that it can be useful to other open-access efforts in the social sciences and humanities.

 If you would like to read the full article, visit:
http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/american-anthropological-assn-will-experiment-with-open-access/42865

On March 19^th, the Supreme Court ruled on the case of Kirtsaeng vs. John Wiley & Sons. In a 6-3 decision in favor of Supap Kirtsaeng, they ruled that textbooks and other goods manufactured and sold abroad can be resold in the United States without violating copyright law. In other words, a student can buy an international version of the textbook they need, which is normally much cheaper than the U.S. version, and then be able to legally resell it to another student afterwards.

Before the Supreme Court ruling, Mr. Kirtsaeng, a student from Thailand attending Cornell University, noticed that the textbooks he used in class were sold cheaper in his homeland. He asked his family if they would be willing to send him some of these textbooks. His intention was to sell them to American students for much cheaper prices than the college bookstores, but still generate a profit. These actions prompted Wiley to sue Mr. Kirtsaeng on the basis of copyright infringement and they won a $600,000 award. However, the case was appealed to the Supreme Court and the previous ruling from a lower court was overturned, indicating that his actions were legal and he is not required to pay the copyright infringement award.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, along with Justices Anthony Kennedy and Antonin Scalia, disagreed with the ruling. They felt that the court was ignoring Congress’ role of protecting “copyright owners against the unauthorized importation of low-priced, foreign-made copies of their copyrighted works.”

Justice Stephen Breyer, on the other hand, wrote a court opinion saying that if the ruling had come out against Mr. Kirtsaeng, it would have had far reaching implications exceeding the topic of textbooks. A decision in favor of the publisher Wiley would have affected the sale of many goods sold online and in discount stores. Retailers, such as eBay, were quick to tell the court that more than $2.3 trillion worth of foreign goods were imported in 2011, and many of these goods were bought after they were first sold abroad. In addition, it would have made it more difficult for museums and libraries to obtain works produced outside of the United States.

You can read the full article here:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=174734379

Last year, a free-textbook company called Boundless was sued by three major textbook publishers. Pearson, Cengage Learning, and Macmillan Higher Education filed a joint complaint in March 2012 against Boundless, accusing the company of violating their copyrights. However, the complaint was not about the content in the textbooks but how the content was arranged.

The publishers argued that the way which Boundless creates its textbooks violate their copyrights. Boundless creates its textbooks by asking students which traditional textbook they need and then compiles open content to create free versions of the textbooks. The publishers say the Boundless textbooks are too similar to the publishers’ versions and that Boundless is stealing the substance of their books.

Ariel Diaz, chief executive of Boundless, disagrees with the publishers’ accusations, saying “you can’t copyright facts and ideas.” Despite feeling confident in their case against the publishers, Boundless has rewritten the textbooks which were accused of copyright infringement. However, Mr. Diaz has stated that the rewrite was not in response to the lawsuit, since they still stand by their original versions, and instead just the evolution of the company’s products. In addition, Boundless has filed a counterclaim which asks for the judge to rule that the rewritten textbooks do not violate any of the publishers’ copyrights. Boundless claims that the publishers’ lawsuit is now moot since the infringing textbooks are no longer available.

The publishers’ lawyer says that the rewritten textbooks do not change anything and they will continue to press their lawsuit.

If you would like to read the full article, visit:
http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/free-textbook-company-rewrites-its-content-following-publishers-lawsuit/42809

Next month, the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) is scheduled to make its public debut. During a two-day event from April 18-19th, the DPLA will be unveiled at the Boston Public Library. Daniel J. Cohen, a leading digital-humanities scholar, is designated to be the project’s founding executive director.

Mr. Cohen indicated that the DPLA will function as a gatherer of information and a gateway to it. It will be a nationwide collaboration of state and regional digital libraries which will consolidate local content and upstream it to the nationwide DPLA. The general public, scholars, and teachers will have free access to digital collections and cultural resources across the country.

Mr. Cohen is a strong advocate for open access information and sees digital rights management as a great obstacle for the general public. He says, “right now we can see many of the ways in which cultural materials are being locked up or attached with DRM [digital rights management]. We really need a national organization to say, ‘We need a strong public option.’”

However, Mr. Cohen is worried that the general public is not even aware of the DPLA, saying that “99 percent of Americans have not heard of this before.” He is striving to make the DPLA visible to the public, but he also wants them to understand that the DPLA is meant to supplement and strengthen public libraries; it is not a replacement for them.

If you would like to read the full article, visit:
http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/with-new-leader-digital-public-library-of-america-prepares-for-its-debut/42691

John P. Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, issued a memorandum on February 22^nd calling for federally funded research to be made publicly available within a year after publication. Typically, the results of public financed research are published in scientific journals that demand a pay-wall to access. The goal of the new policy is to enable broad public access to scientific results. Federal agencies that exceed public financing of $100 million a year for research will be required to abide by this new policy and provide public access to the research data. Within the next six months, these agencies will submit their plans for how they will provide research results to the public.

If you would like to read more about the new policy, visit:
http://chronicle.com/article/White-House-Delivers-New/137549/

The two most important factors that are reshaping the textbook market are economics and technology. The expensive price tag on textbooks is motivating students to find alternatives on the internet or to all together forgo required textbooks.

According to the National Survey of Student Engagement, approximately one out of four freshman don’t buy required textbooks because of their price. When they asked seniors about buying textbooks, they discovered that only one out of three bought their textbooks and the trend may be growing.

The internet has been a major disruption to the textbook market, introducing retailers such as Amazon and eBay. Students no longer feel forced to buy their textbooks from campus stores and they have found out that they usually get better deals online, whether it is through buying, renting, sharing, or illegal copying.

The Chronicle recently conducted focus groups with undergraduates at Foothill College and the University of California at Berkely to identify the different ways that students are buying their textbooks. Over a dozen students participated at each university, covering a range of majors.

Check out The Chronicle’s article to see how these students are getting their textbooks:
http://chronicle.com/article/Students-Get-Savvier-About/136827/?cid=wb&utm_source=wb&utm_medium=en