Tom's Two Cents

I am pleased to announce that Elizabeth Hanson and Jenae Kirby,  instructors at Shoreline Community College, have co-authored an open textbook that faculty and students can use for free. On-Ramp to Nursing Assistant Certified is designed for students who speak English as a second language who are beginning their healthcare career training. Previously, Elizabeth authored a Human Anatomy textbook for a major publisher. This time she and Jenae Kirby were funded through an SBCTC grant, and because of the SBCTC Open Policy their NAC textbook is available free to the world.

Yesterday I helped Elizabeth post her NAC open textbook on Lulu.com, a website for digital and print-on-demand publications. We started with the 180-page word document, added a Creative Commons CC BY license to the title page, and the NAC open textbook was published on Lulu.com in about 30 minutes. It’s great that Lulu lets authors select a Creative Commons open license!

A couple caveats with Lulu:
1. Students have to create a free account with Lulu to “order” even the free books (no biggie).
2. There is a 30-60 min. delay to access even free, digital textbooks. I’m not sure why the ordering process isn’t instantaneous, but the user gets an email when the file is ready for download.

Another comparable print-on-demand service is Amazon’s Create Space. I like it because print copies tend to be cheaper and students can download open textbooks more quickly. Both services give you a free ISBN and allow you to add new editions later. Like Lulu, Create Space can convert Word files to make them available via iPad and eReaders like the Amazon Kindle. We were not able to do this yesterday because the NAC textbook contained some text boxes. Once these minor issues are ironed out the NAC open textbook can be made available in a variety of eReader formats. It is currently available as a PDF.

One caveat with Create Space: Setting up a  account requires the author to give it a bank routing number or other financial information (presumably for authors to collect royalties). It would be nice to be able to skip over this part for open textbook authors. I need to experiment a bit more before deciding which service I like best for publishing open textbooks. I’ll post an update soon.

With the NAC open textbook printing in color was important. If your students need a printed color copy of your textbook, Create Space is significantly less expensive than Lulu. For a color 180 page softcover book Create Space charges $13 per book compared to Lulu’s $56 cost. If you have found other good print-on-demand solutions for publishing open textbooks please post them in the comments.

Related Posts:

• CA’s Digital Open Source Library and WA’s Open Course Library
• Will publishers engage with open textbooks?
• My 140th Blog Post: Tweets on Open Education

It’s been exactly one month since the band Walk Off the Earth uploaded their cover of Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used to Know” to YouTube. More than 48 million views later, they are on fire and courting multiple record labels.

Think of it this way, if 1 in 20 viewers bought this song for $1 , this group would have made $1 Million in a month (assuming there were 20 million unique viewers). Along with the iTunes link and the direct download link, they also sell T-shirts. That’s the power of viral web sharing. The world’s greatest marketing tool is free.

Enjoy the song…

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California Bill Pushes for Free Online College Books (via KQED MindShift)

Here’s a quick summary of the bills (there are actually 2):

• The first CA bill would create 50 open textbooks for high-enrollment college courses that would be free online and available in print for ~$20.  Book contracts would be awarded through competitive grant process open to publishers, faculty and organizations, and must use a Creative Commons Attribution license.

• The second bill would create the “California Digital Open Source Library” to serve as a platform for accessing and customizing the 50 open textbooks, and will include incentives for faculty to adopt these and other open textbooks.  It also requires that publishers provide free library reserve copies of textbooks adopted in high-enrollment courses at California’s public colleges.

• No cost is indicated in the bill summaries, but an article on KQED’s website quotes $25 million.  This is a lot of money given the state’s budget issues, but the return would undoubtedly be huge — the state has close to 3 million college students, at least half of which are at the community colleges where books on average cost more than tuition (as of ’08).

How this compares to the Open Course Library:

• WA is covering more courses (81) with less money (about $2 million).  However, CA would create a full open textbook for each course, while the Open Course Library can include non-open materials as long as the cost is under $30.

• Both programs use the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) open license for all new materials, which allows the public to freely use, distribute and adapt the material.  It also would allow publishers to improve and re-sell proprietary versions.

• Both aim to address high-enrollment courses, but WA’s focuses specifically on community college level.  It appears that CA will focus on all three public systems: the UCs, CSUs and CCCs.

Thanks to Nicole Allen and Brandon Muramatsu for this information!

Related Posts:

• Publishing Open Textbooks to Lulu and Create Space
• Three Things You Should Know About the Open Course Library
• Going Open: Lessons Learned from the Open Course Library
• Will publishers engage with open textbooks?
• My 140th Blog Post: Tweets on Open Education

Pearson’s new OpenClass LMS hit the Google Apps Marketplace today. While this has already been covered in several places, I’ve had many discussions about the wide array of learning management systems out there, and the one question that comes up repeatedly is “how do we know they won’t just get bought by someone else?” It’s a trust issue.

Pearson’s sustainability model for OpenClass it isn’t clear at this point, and that makes building a relationship of trust difficult. In contrast, the for-profit company Instructure is gobbling up market share with their LMS, Canvas. Instructure has made two smart moves Pearson could learn from: (1) Their code is open source — not so much to invite outside development, but more as a defense against the LMS IP being sold to the highest bidder. (2) Instructure has made their sustainability model clear. They provide enterprise-level services for Canvas, which allows them to continue to invest the Canvas platform.

It’s ironic that openness has emerged as a way to protect IP from corporate takeover, but in a very real way this is what Instructure has done with Canvas. And institutions who have had their LMS bought out from under them will think twice before exposing themselves to that risk again.

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Three months ago I blogged about concerns I have over McGraw-Hill’s MH Campus portal. If you are not familiar with the tool, MH Campus allows faculty to easily insert content from McGraw-Hill and its partners into their course. This includes some content that is available at no charge to faculty; but make no mistake, using this content comes with a price.

I submitted a question about open sharing at a MH Campus webinar a few weeks ago. My question was not addressed live, but everyone who submitted questions was promised an eventual response. My answer came today, and McGraw-Hill made it clear: “MH Content is not for sharing.”

My question: Many of our faculty are interested in sharing their course materials on the open web. Does the MH Campus allow for this its free content to be shared on the open web. If so, why not share the free MH Campus materials as Open Educational Resources with an open license?

The answer to your question is No. Faculty can share any of their own material with others but MH Content is not for sharing. The terms of service for MH Campus can be found at mhcampus.com under the legal tab.

It’s a shame, really, because with the same basic MH Campus tool plus an open license McGraw-Hill could have done something really innovative.

Most faculty understand that the teaching IS sharing. They are content experts after all — the same group publishers draw from when developing their own expensive content with the old model. But faculty who mix MH Campus and similar materials with their own course content will find their ability to share the result is severely limited.

There is an important lesson here: weaving the proprietary in with the open renders the result unsharable. So if you want to keep control, keep it open!

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