Legislation is in the California Senate council aiming to create a digital library for California public secondary education schools. It would create an internet resource housing open-source academic resources. Open-source materials are made public under open licenses and can be distributed online at nominal cost.
These resources would be based primarily on the findings of a California Open Education Resources Council, a council that would identify the 50 most widely taken lower division courses and then approve the open-source materials created for those classes. Though the bill did not state the way the council would go about identifying which classes to include, and though the focus of classes differs from university to university, the library is still a positive effort to provide low-cost materials to all California public establishments.
This legislation, if moved out of conference and passed, would allow tutorial materials to be more widely spread throughout the California public education system. Just as importantly it would ease the financial strain on students who pay loads of dollars every semester for cheap textbooks.
The council wants to answer fears about the standard of open source textbooks. In addition, making the switch to open source materials may be a bother for some professors but this digital opensource library will help in alleviating one of the biggest financial stresses students face.
Beyond simply choosing which courses to provide opensource texts for, the council would make a system permitting publishers and faculty members to make an application for funds to make these digital textbooks and other academic materials for the library to propagate. By having faculty members from the universities work straight in the formulation of these textbooks, the quality of materials employed in university classes would be better maintained. Professors should still be compensated for their work, but with the new library system, students won't have to pay the premium price that they currently do.
These resources would be based primarily on the findings of a California Open Education Resources Council, a council that would identify the 50 most widely taken lower division courses and then approve the open-source materials created for those classes. Though the bill did not state the way the council would go about identifying which classes to include, and though the focus of classes differs from university to university, the library is still a positive effort to provide low-cost materials to all California public establishments.
This legislation, if moved out of conference and passed, would allow tutorial materials to be more widely spread throughout the California public education system. Just as importantly it would ease the financial strain on students who pay loads of dollars every semester for cheap textbooks.
The council wants to answer fears about the standard of open source textbooks. In addition, making the switch to open source materials may be a bother for some professors but this digital opensource library will help in alleviating one of the biggest financial stresses students face.
Beyond simply choosing which courses to provide opensource texts for, the council would make a system permitting publishers and faculty members to make an application for funds to make these digital textbooks and other academic materials for the library to propagate. By having faculty members from the universities work straight in the formulation of these textbooks, the quality of materials employed in university classes would be better maintained. Professors should still be compensated for their work, but with the new library system, students won't have to pay the premium price that they currently do.
About the Author:
Mr. Bob Jones has been working to help students locate the cheapest school textbooks for over 10 years. For additional information or to see how a college textbook price comparison site works visit his textbook website at http://www.cheaptextbooks.us.
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