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And now, the OpenStax Introduction to Sociololgy text is available for download. It comes in a PDF, epub, or “Web View” format. PDFs can be printed or read on a computer (and on many e-readers, including the Kindle); epub files are open-source ebook files (think Nook, NOT Kindle). “Web View” simply means reading the textbook online, with color images and linked footnotes and references.
So what makes OpenStax digital texts different? Mostly, the fact that they’re free. Rice University in Houston is the main driver behind OpenStax College; the Rice imprimatur will carry weight. The texts (there is currently a complete College Physics book as well) are “peer-reviewed” and “meet most scope and sequence requirements.” The available formats ought to cover any tablet/e-reader on the market.
The vision behind OpenStax is to cut the cost of a college education—a worthy goal, of course. I finished two college courses in the fall semester of 2011, and the texts for those classes ran over $240. That’s not unusual for college textbooks. But what if free, or low-cost, books really can catch on? How would they change self-study, and distance-learning, and continuing education? If you could download a quality text—not a study guide, not notes, but a full textbook—that cost you nothing, would you be more likely to resume/enroll in college? How would it affect your children’s education? Would you prep them if you had the chance? If enough free texts covering enough subjects became available, would community colleges expand their offerings? Would employers do more to fund post-secondary education for their workers?
Online schooling already has begun to change the way people are educated. Could OpenStax texts take online colleges to a higher level?
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