Pros and cons of free textbooks

[Parasaurolophus]

So, for my field, I just don't see the point of using textbooks produced for profit.

Again, cynical me. Who gains from producing textbooks for non-profit?

The author gets kudos and a rep boost, if that's what you mean. Plus a textbook that exactly matches their own class needs.

This is exactly like a lot of open-source software. Someone writes it for his/her own needs, and then gives it away to whoever wants to use it. If I need something, and I can make it for myself, I don't necessarily care about trying to even find out if there's anyone who'll pay me for it. I'm just happy I can save others the time I had to spend creating it.

Yeah, totally. This is true of computer game modding, too. And the results can be spectacular!

[Diogenes]

There is no free lunch.

Why would some organization pay to create a free textbook when publishers create and sell books? Students can buy the previous edition for very cheap.

Let's see who is writing "free" textbooks or otherwise trying to influence education.

Economics.
Biology.
Biology.
Political Science.
And my personal favorite... World History.

Is it really worth it?

I don't feel like those are representative samples like the Creative Commons ones like Open Stax series. I'm a CC professor myself and a number of my colleagues have written open access books. Since we are teaching focused, that's seen as their scholarly contribution over research, which we don't really do.

But I get your concern and we should root out any attempt of your examples into higher ed. As a millennial, I attended a middle school that was "sponsored" by Coca Cola.

[Kron3007]

So, for my field, I just don't see the point of using textbooks produced for profit.

Again, cynical me. Who gains from producing textbooks for non-profit?

The author gets kudos and a rep boost, if that's what you mean. Plus a textbook that exactly matches their own class needs.

This is exactly like a lot of open-source software. Someone writes it for his/her own needs, and then gives it away to whoever wants to use it. If I need something, and I can make it for myself, I don't necessarily care about trying to even find out if there's anyone who'll pay me for it. I'm just happy I can save others the time I had to spend creating it.

Yeah, totally. This is true of computer game modding, too. And the results can be spectacular!

For software, I often find open source programs better than proprietary ones.  I dont know if that translates to textbooks, but there is no reason to think that all open-source textbooks are bad. 

As for who benefits, I suppose the author benefits in some way. They might not make money, but there are other reasons to publish.  I pay thousands of dollars per year from my grants to publish articles.  I make $0 from this activity, yet it is of value to me.  If I were to write an open source text book, it would have a similar value and I would spin the crap out of how great it is as a learning resource, breaking down learning barriers, etc.  It may not get someone tenure, but if you already have tenure it could be an interesting addition to the CV.  From a less cynical perspective, I could see someone doing this just to create a free resource for students.

   

[Kron3007]

So I'm not completely sold on the idea that free textbooks are the future. It's not obvious to me that the majority of students benefit from my using them compared to the ones they would pay for.

To me the better question is if any students are suffering when you use them.  If they learned as well and saved some money it is a plus.  If they are not learning the material as well, it is probably not worth saving the money.

That being said, a lot of students dont even buy the books these days from what I have seen.

[downer]

So I'm not completely sold on the idea that free textbooks are the future. It's not obvious to me that the majority of students benefit from my using them compared to the ones they would pay for.

To me the better question is if any students are suffering when you use them.  If they learned as well and saved some money it is a plus.  If they are not learning the material as well, it is probably not worth saving the money.

That being said, a lot of students dont even buy the books these days from what I have seen.

Whatever differences there are are pretty subtle, so I would not say that there is any major loss due to open access books. The textbooks I am using have some features I like compared to other books, as well as some aspects I don't like so much.

I suspect quite a few students actually learn better from a printed book than from reading online. I know I find it quite difficult to navigate an online textbook in the same way I might do with a printed copy. It's harder to stick post-it notes in the online one, or write marginal comments. And these "digital natives" just don't read very much. They lack some close-reading skills. Their deficiencies might be heightened when using online text. But that's just speculation.

[Aster]

A less celebrated advantage of using professional textbooks is that it forces the laziest and sloppiest professors to actually maintain a minimum level of professional currency. You know the ones, the folks that have been teaching obsolete garbage for decades because they can't muster enough minimal effort to actually behave like a professor.

I have colleagues at Big Urban College that don't use professional textbooks. They proudly claim that their own knowledge is sufficient enough for teaching. Or, they have this book that they self-published 20 years ago that they teach with. So I guess you'd think that these were the smartest and best trained PhD's who maintained scholarly activities that would keep them current in their field? Nope, it's the opposite. Most of these boasters are the professors with the lowest educational degrees, or the professors with the oldest degrees. Nearly all of these boasters are the professors that the rest of us shake our heads at, whose assessment and teaching errors we regularly have to correct because the lazy-butt professors' knowledge base froze in place at the completion of their terminal degree. Heck, these are people whose currency in their field is in the the friggin 1980's... These are the boasters who really can't use a modern textbook because it would *force them* to god forbid update their curriculum and assessment for the first time in 20 years. So they hunker down in their hole of ineptitude, parroting their "I don't use a textbook!" mantra until they retire.

A modern textbook is the equivalent of "No Child Left Behind" for professors. It's a low bar, but at least it's a bar. Ha ha.

[dismalist]

A less celebrated advantage of using professional textbooks is that it forces the laziest and sloppiest professors to actually maintain a minimum level of professional currency. You know the ones, the folks that have been teaching obsolete garbage for decades because they can't muster enough minimal effort to actually behave like a professor.

I have colleagues at Big Urban College that don't use professional textbooks. They proudly claim that their own knowledge is sufficient enough for teaching. Or, they have this book that they self-published 20 years ago that they teach with. So I guess you'd think that these were the smartest and best trained PhD's who maintained scholarly activities that would keep them current in their field? Nope, it's the opposite. Most of these boasters are the professors with the lowest educational degrees, or the professors with the oldest degrees. Nearly all of these boasters are the professors that the rest of us shake our heads at, whose assessment and teaching errors we regularly have to correct because the lazy-butt professors' knowledge base froze in place at the completion of their terminal degree. Heck, these are people whose currency in their field is in the the friggin 1980's... These are the boasters who really can't use a modern textbook because it would *force them* to god forbid update their curriculum and assessment for the first time in 20 years. So they hunker down in their hole of ineptitude, parroting their "I don't use a textbook!" mantra until they retire.

A modern textbook is the equivalent of "No Child Left Behind" for professors. It's a low bar, but at least it's a bar. Ha ha.

And there are some non-lazy professors who just want to save the kids some money. How can we tell the difference?

We can't. Thus, I return to the idea that if the material in the courses is relatively standardized, there's no problem. This would occur in lower level courses. If not, I would wonder why.

[Ruralguy]

I just wanted to save them money. It was actually a bit of a pain to change texts. It saved me nada,

[lightning]

A less celebrated advantage of using professional textbooks is that it forces the laziest and sloppiest professors to actually maintain a minimum level of professional currency. You know the ones, the folks that have been teaching obsolete garbage for decades because they can't muster enough minimal effort to actually behave like a professor.

I have colleagues at Big Urban College that don't use professional textbooks. They proudly claim that their own knowledge is sufficient enough for teaching. Or, they have this book that they self-published 20 years ago that they teach with. So I guess you'd think that these were the smartest and best trained PhD's who maintained scholarly activities that would keep them current in their field? Nope, it's the opposite. Most of these boasters are the professors with the lowest educational degrees, or the professors with the oldest degrees. Nearly all of these boasters are the professors that the rest of us shake our heads at, whose assessment and teaching errors we regularly have to correct because the lazy-butt professors' knowledge base froze in place at the completion of their terminal degree. Heck, these are people whose currency in their field is in the the friggin 1980's... These are the boasters who really can't use a modern textbook because it would *force them* to god forbid update their curriculum and assessment for the first time in 20 years. So they hunker down in their hole of ineptitude, parroting their "I don't use a textbook!" mantra until they retire.

A modern textbook is the equivalent of "No Child Left Behind" for professors. It's a low bar, but at least it's a bar. Ha ha.

Ain't that the truth. When I was first starting out, if I wasn't prepared, wasn't organized, and/or had nothing original or meaningful to contribute to a lesson topic, I could always "teach" the textbook. Hell, I could simply organize the entire course around how the textbook was organized.

[csguy]

Last time I taught Computer Security I used Security Engineering by Ross Anderson as my main text. He had made it available online for free.
Pros: Anderson is one of the leaders in the field. The book is quite comprehensive It was free.
Cons: It's not really written as a text book so it doesn't have all the extras that publishers typically provide such as test questions, homework problems and lecture notes. It covers the whole field of security engineering so some of the chapters are not relevant to computer security. It was also fairly heavy reading for many of my students.

[Aster]

A less celebrated advantage of using professional textbooks is that it forces the laziest and sloppiest professors to actually maintain a minimum level of professional currency. You know the ones, the folks that have been teaching obsolete garbage for decades because they can't muster enough minimal effort to actually behave like a professor.

I have colleagues at Big Urban College that don't use professional textbooks. They proudly claim that their own knowledge is sufficient enough for teaching. Or, they have this book that they self-published 20 years ago that they teach with. So I guess you'd think that these were the smartest and best trained PhD's who maintained scholarly activities that would keep them current in their field? Nope, it's the opposite. Most of these boasters are the professors with the lowest educational degrees, or the professors with the oldest degrees. Nearly all of these boasters are the professors that the rest of us shake our heads at, whose assessment and teaching errors we regularly have to correct because the lazy-butt professors' knowledge base froze in place at the completion of their terminal degree. Heck, these are people whose currency in their field is in the the friggin 1980's... These are the boasters who really can't use a modern textbook because it would *force them* to god forbid update their curriculum and assessment for the first time in 20 years. So they hunker down in their hole of ineptitude, parroting their "I don't use a textbook!" mantra until they retire.

A modern textbook is the equivalent of "No Child Left Behind" for professors. It's a low bar, but at least it's a bar. Ha ha.

And there are some non-lazy professors who just want to save the kids some money. How can we tell the difference?

We can't. Thus, I return to the idea that if the material in the courses is relatively standardized, there's no problem. This would occur in lower level courses. If not, I would wonder why.

That is incorrect. Yes, you can, and Yes, we do. Within one's academic discipline, and particularly for undergraduate courses, it is quite easy at most universities to tell if your colleagues are dropping the ball at their teaching and assessment duties. I assess this every single semester at my institution for professors within my discipline. Heck, part of *my job* is to directly assess those colleagues. Anyone who has worked as a course coordinator, department head, faculty mentor, graduate teaching supervisor, dean, etc. is well familiar with the assessing of faculty. It is usually part of their job.

After sufficient time-in-grade of evaluating one's faculty, evaluators will usually adopt their own tips and techniques that they've identified as working pretty reliably at their institution, their department, their faculty, etc... And for many of us, one of those tools is identifying whether or not a professor is using a modern, professional textbook. If nothing else, it provides a minimum level of academic standards for most undergraduate course types. If professors aren't maintaining their academic credentials through research or other scholarly activity, adoption of a modern textbook is the failsafe. For institutions where the faculty *don't* regularly perform research or pursue scholarly activity in their discipline (e.g., purely teaching colleges). there must be *some* mechanism that maintains their professional development. We are content matter experts. There are professional obligations associated with maintaining that title.

[dismalist]

A less celebrated advantage of using professional textbooks is that it forces the laziest and sloppiest professors to actually maintain a minimum level of professional currency. You know the ones, the folks that have been teaching obsolete garbage for decades because they can't muster enough minimal effort to actually behave like a professor.

I have colleagues at Big Urban College that don't use professional textbooks. They proudly claim that their own knowledge is sufficient enough for teaching. Or, they have this book that they self-published 20 years ago that they teach with. So I guess you'd think that these were the smartest and best trained PhD's who maintained scholarly activities that would keep them current in their field? Nope, it's the opposite. Most of these boasters are the professors with the lowest educational degrees, or the professors with the oldest degrees. Nearly all of these boasters are the professors that the rest of us shake our heads at, whose assessment and teaching errors we regularly have to correct because the lazy-butt professors' knowledge base froze in place at the completion of their terminal degree. Heck, these are people whose currency in their field is in the the friggin 1980's... These are the boasters who really can't use a modern textbook because it would *force them* to god forbid update their curriculum and assessment for the first time in 20 years. So they hunker down in their hole of ineptitude, parroting their "I don't use a textbook!" mantra until they retire.

A modern textbook is the equivalent of "No Child Left Behind" for professors. It's a low bar, but at least it's a bar. Ha ha.

And there are some non-lazy professors who just want to save the kids some money. How can we tell the difference?

We can't. Thus, I return to the idea that if the material in the courses is relatively standardized, there's no problem. This would occur in lower level courses. If not, I would wonder why.

That is incorrect. Yes, you can, and Yes, we do. Within one's academic discipline, and particularly for undergraduate courses, it is quite easy at most universities to tell if your colleagues are dropping the ball at their teaching and assessment duties. I assess this every single semester at my institution for professors within my discipline. Heck, part of *my job* is to directly assess those colleagues. Anyone who has worked as a course coordinator, department head, faculty mentor, graduate teaching supervisor, dean, etc. is well familiar with the assessing of faculty. It is usually part of their job.

After sufficient time-in-grade of evaluating one's faculty, evaluators will usually adopt their own tips and techniques that they've identified as working pretty reliably at their institution, their department, their faculty, etc... And for many of us, one of those tools is identifying whether or not a professor is using a modern, professional textbook. If nothing else, it provides a minimum level of academic standards for most undergraduate course types. If professors aren't maintaining their academic credentials through research or other scholarly activity, adoption of a modern textbook is the failsafe. For institutions where the faculty *don't* regularly perform research or pursue scholarly activity in their discipline (e.g., purely teaching colleges). there must be *some* mechanism that maintains their professional development. We are content matter experts. There are professional obligations associated with maintaining that title.

Not in non-standardized courses. Or one knows everything.