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While open educational resources (OER) are often touted as an important step in keeping the cost of course materials in line, finding quality materials can be a problem , especially for K-12 instruction. Teachers surfing the web for individual lesson plans is not really an ideal way to deliver excellent content. “There’s more bad OER out there than good; that’s a fact,” Rebecca Kockler, assistant superintendent of academic instruction for Louisiana, said during a panel discussion at the recent SXSWedu conference. “We need to find the quality stuff and elevate it for everyone.” The Louisiana Department of Education has taken a positive step in the right direction by making integrated curriculum available on its website. The content is aligned with the state’s core standards and adaptable to the needs of individual students, providing teachers with more time to just teach. The Louisiana approach also couples professional development for teachers with the sharing of best practices and cur...

Another new entrant to textbook publishing hopes to make course materials more affordable by focusing on an online platform. Lead Winds , of Newnan, GA, provides device-agnostic online, chapter-by-chapter access to its textbook, an audiobook version of the title, and study notes for each chapter, as well as video tutorials and videos of students sharing tips on the content. The cost is $35 per student, although if an institution opts for inclusive access as part of tuition, that price tag can be even lower. The company has two titles ready for the summer and fall 2018 terms, The Exceptional Writer  (English composition) and The Exceptional Speaker (public speaking), with more in the pipeline for release in 2019. “This product is designed to meet students’ needs academically and financially,” says co-founder Brent Mayes. “It fits visual, aural, verbal, logical, and solitary learning styles. And it is accessible on all devices, so the materials travel with the students and are presen...

Public-domain documents are often important sources for open educational resource (OER) providers. Educators could soon have more public-domain documents from which to choose . The Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, passed in 1998 in honor of the late entertainer and congressman, extended copyright protection of future works to 70 years after the creator’s death (previously 50 years) and added 20 years to the copyright of works already in existence. The law expires at the end of the year and there appears to be little momentum to extend it any further. “We are not aware of any such efforts, and it’s not something we are pursuing,” a spokesperson for the Recording Industry Association of America said. Historians have criticized the copyright protections because they prevented preservation of some works that are nearly 100 years old. In addition, the Internet has led advocacy groups and companies such as Google to organize public opinion against open-access limits . “I haven’t seen...

While the issue of higher education affordability simmers, some point to required course materials as a cost that could be reduced without undermining students’ learning. As the campus information hub for course materials, college bookstores must stay on top of new formats, programs, and practices. The second Course Materials eXperience (CM-X) will help course materials specialists and store managers become knowledgeable about new developments and operational efficiencies to keep costs down for students. CM-X is a concentrated track within Campus Market Expo (CAMEX) hosted by NACS in Dallas, TX. CM-X opens with a networking event on Friday evening, March 2, and then moves into a full day of educational presentations, roundtable discussions, and a working lunch. As a followup to last year’s CM-X publisher panel, a new group of executives from the major textbook publishers will offer their thoughts on how the industry is evolving. Other sessions will explore inclusive-access programs, op...

Many K-12 pupils are now accustomed to using their own computing device in school every day and more are learning from course materials created or customized by their teachers rather than standard textbooks. Those are two of the edtech trends identified in EdSurge’s annual Edtech Outlook report on emerging innovations. About 60% of K-12 kids now go to schools with a 1:1 ratio of pupils to devices, most often some sort of tablet or netbook. That has changed the mix of learning materials available to teachers, who no longer have to rely on traditional textbooks. In many cases, teachers are heading to online educational marketplaces to download free or low-cost materials to fit their particular lesson plans, instead of molding lessons around the textbook. “[Publishers’] slow transition to digital has cost them significant market share as lower-cost, more nimble startups have undercut their performance,” said the report. Teachers are also turning to artificial-intelligence apps to complem...

More colleges and universities are offering inclusive-access programs for course materials because they see the model as ensuring wins for many involved . Students get their course materials at discounted prices on the first day of class, making instructors happy. Publishers are guaranteed 100% sell-through for offering significant discounts on the content, which provides institutions with a way to show they are keeping costs in check. There’s also a role for the campus store because they have established relationships with all the parties involved—faculty, publishers, and students—and have the means to handle the transactions. However, not everyone sees it as the best or only option. Proponents of open educational resources view inclusive access as a model that just replicates the same publishing structures that led to rising textbook prices in the first place. Some faculty members also see inclusive access as an academic-freedom issue, limiting their choices on content to just one pu...

A number of colleges and universities have kicked off the new academic year with announcements of initiatives intended to save students on their course materials expenses. Here are a few: The board of governors for Florida’s state university system approved a $656,000 program to develop a catalog of lower-cost digital course materials. The catalog will list open educational resources (OER) available free online, along with digital versions of traditional textbooks available at a reduced price negotiated with the publishers. The catalog will be ready in time for the fall 2018 term. Fort Hays State University, Hays, KS, launched several projects through its Open Textbook Grant Program this fall. The program, administered by the campus library with funding from the FHSU Foundation, provided grants to several faculty to create or adapt open books or supplemental materials for their courses. The Colorado Legislature appointed a 14-member Open Educational Resources Council to recommend how...

Sara Goldrick-Rab, professor of higher-education policy and sociology at Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, will deliver the keynote address at the 2017 Textbook Affordability Conference (TAC), Nov. 10-12, at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta. Goldrick-Rab is author of the Amazon bestseller Paying the Price: College Costs, Financial Aid, and the Betrayal of the American Dream and founder of the Wisconsin HOPE Lab, the nation’s only translational research laboratory focused on ways to make college more affordable. Her keynote speech will discuss reasons why campuses must collaborate with internal partners to address affordability. TAC 2017 will also feature presentations from Robin Baliszewski, managing director, Pearson North America; TJ Bliss, director of development and strategy, Wiki Education; and Rick Anderson, associate dean for collections and scholarly communication, J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah, Salt Lake City. All TAC 2017 learning events are ...