Pearson Announces Custom Textbook Service – Project Blue Sky
Similar to 20MM Mix, major textbook publisher Pearson has announced to provide a service that will allow instructors to create custom etextbooks with open access content and Pearson material. As a...
View ArticleFlatworld Knowledge Will Revoke Free Access to Textbooks in 2013
Flatworld Knowledge has decided to end their free online textbook business model in January 2013. Originally, they offered students free access to textbooks and made money by selling digital study...
View ArticleBookboon Comments About Flat World Knowledge and the Free Textbook Model
Bookboon.com has commented on Flat World Knowledge’s abandonment of the free etextbook business model, explaining to their users that they will not be forced to do the same. According to Bookboon, Flat...
View ArticleInternational Used Textbooks May Become Illegal
It all began with Supap Kirtsaeng, a student from Thailand attending an American college, who noticed that the textbooks he used in class were sold cheaper in his homeland. He asked his family if they...
View ArticleThe Rise of Textbook Prices Compared to Other Goods and Services
Mark J. Perry, a professor of economics at the The University of Michigan Flint Campus, has written an article for the American Enterprise Institute emphasizing the rising costs of textbooks. For the...
View Article20MM Partners with Chegg to Sell Previously Free Textbooks for Small Fee
The Twenty Million Minds Foundation (20MM) has spent about $1.5-million in developing open access textbooks written by high-profile scholars, but they are learning that professors are still hesitant to...
View ArticleTechnology Allows Students More Freedom When Buying Textbooks
The two most important factors that are reshaping the textbook market are economics and technology. The expensive price tag on textbooks is motivating students to find alternatives on the internet or...
View ArticleWhite House Announces New Policy to Make Federally Financed Research Open Access
John P. Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, issued a memorandum on February 22nd calling for federally funded research to be made publicly available within a...
View ArticleDigital Public Library of America Will Debut in April
Next month, the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) is scheduled to make its public debut. During a two-day event from April 18-19th, the DPLA will be unveiled at the Boston Public Library. Daniel...
View ArticleBoundless Still Being Sued by Publishers After Rewriting Textbooks
Last year, a free-textbook company called Boundless was sued by three major textbook publishers. Pearson, Cengage Learning, and Macmillan Higher Education filed a joint complaint in March 2012 against...
View ArticleSupreme Court Supports Student in Textbook Copyright Lawsuit
On March 19th, the Supreme Court ruled on the case of Kirtsaeng vs. John Wiley & Sons. In a 6-3 decision in favor of Supap Kirtsaeng, they ruled that textbooks and other goods manufactured and sold...
View ArticleAmerican Anthropological Association Begins to Experiment with Open Access
The American Anthropological Association (AAA) has recently announced that it will begin to experiment with open access publishing for its journals. Currently, AAA publishes more than 20 journals and...
View ArticleWiley Announces Partnership With OpenStax
Wiley has recently announced that it will partner with OpenStax College, a non-profit organization which produces introductory level open access college textbooks. Normally, Wiley would be a competitor...
View ArticleInternet2/Educause Etextbook Pilot Expands to Include 50 Publishers in Fall 2013
One of the largest etextbook pilot programs to date has been announced for fall 2013. The pilot will include 50 publishers and about 30,000 textbooks. It is a continuation of the etextbook pilot...
View ArticleOpen Course Library Announces the Completion of Remaining 39 Textbooks
Open Course Library (OCL), a project funded by the Washington Legislature and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to create open access textbooks for the 81 most common community college courses,...
View ArticleOpenStax College to Expand Catalog of Open Access Textbooks
OpenStax College, a publisher from Rice University, has announced to expand its catalog of open access textbooks by 2015. The expansion will be funded by a grant from the Laura and John Arnold...
View ArticleedX Partners with 15 More Universities and on Track for Financial Sustainability
edX, a non-profit Massively Open Online Course (MOOC) provider founded by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, has recently announced that fifteen more universities have...
View ArticleThe GOA Released a New Report Regarding Textbook Affordability
The United States Government Accountability Office (GOA) recently released a new report, mandated by the 2008 Higher Education Opportunity Act (HEOA), which examines the efforts publishers have made to...
View ArticleThe Growing Shift from Print to Digital
The multi-billion dollar textbook industry is being disrupted by various forces, including publishers, tech start-ups, education non-profits, the government, and university professors. One of the major...
View ArticlePublisher Files for Bankruptcy as Textbook Market Continues to Shrink
One of the largest textbook publishers, Cengage Learning Inc., has recently filed for bankruptcy protection to seek help under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code for about $5.8-billion in outstanding...
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