The Global Text Project has published a document listing international open education resource (OER) links. Continents include Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, and the rest of the world. There are links to OER View/Download
Excerpt: “We are on the cusp of a global revolution in teaching and learning. Educators worldwide are developing a vast pool of educational resources on the Internet, open and free are for all to use.” -The Cape Town Open Education Declaration
American Book Company’s Classified Textbook Prices, 1915. $1.00 in 1915 = $21.80 in 2011.
Most Expensive Textbook: Church’s Descriptive Geometry, etc. (2 vols) $2.50 ($54.51 in 2011 $)
New University Algebra. With Answers $1.58 ($34.44) , Key to the same $1.50 ($32.70)
Textbook Equity was selected as a semi-finalist in the 2011 Milken-PennGSE Business Plan Competition. Proposing a sustainable business model to produce and market open textbooks, Textbook Equity will submit the final plan in March, Finalists will be announced in April, and the Final competition is in June. Top prize is $25,000. We are happy about this progress.
As of January 25, 2010 Textbook Equity website is live. Though there are still hundreds of hours of work remaining, such as open textbook processing, and incorporation of the collaboration tools, interested students, authors, administrators, and publishers may scan and comment on the textbook research. We pat ourselves on the back.
Dateline: Santa Clara, California
Textbook Equity’s business plan, which outlines a sustainable business model for supplying open textbook to community college students, won first place (shared) in the services sector business plan competition. The business plan, the result of six months of the intense entrepreneurial “boot camp” at Santa Clara University’s California Program for Entrepreneurship, highlighted the major changes in the cost structure of publishing industry. Unique ideas in the business plan includes open content, performance rebates to students, and royalties to open content authors. Essential to a sustainable business model are maintaining quality and version control, ease of access, outputs in digital and print formats, and adoptability.