The OER Knowledge Cloud: Why All Self Respecting Economists Should Support Open Textbooks

Why all self respecting economists should support open textbooks

Published	January 2014
Periodical	Volume 2014, Pages blog- January 14th, 2014
Publisher	Innovation Memes

ABSTRACT

As the title suggests, this post makes the theoretical case for treating online textbooks as a public good, which means that some combination of government and non-profit funding should be used to fund the development and maintenance of open textbooks.

Keywords

Other number	December 9th, 2014
Refereed	Does not apply
URL	http://innovationmemes.blogspot.com/2014/01/why-all-self-respecting-economists.html
Access date	December 9th, 2014
Export options	BibTex · EndNote · Tagged XML · Google Scholar

Viewed by 252 distinct readers

CLOUD COMMUNITY REVIEWS

The evaluations below represent the judgements of our readers and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Cloud editors.

Click a star to be the first to rate this document

▶ POST A COMMENT

Beshears, Fred

This one starts with the assumption that high quality, open, online textbooks are already available. It then points out that since faculty don't have to pay for the textbooks they select for their courses, they don't ...

Match: Beshears, Fred; libraries; open textbooks

OER in context: Reforming the textbook market and higher education

Beshears, Fred

Here are descriptions of and links to a few of my blog posts on Open Educational Resources (OER). Many also discuss OER in the context of reforming both the textbook market and traditional institutions of higher ...

Match: Beshears, Fred; open textbooks

David L. Kirp on the British Open University

Beshears, Fred

This is an extended quote from a book by UC Berkeley Professor David Kirp. It provides an excellent description of the team-based approach the OU UK uses to develop their online courses.

Match: Beshears, Fred; open textbooks

The case for Creative Commons textbooks

Beshears, Fred

This is an article I wrote back in 2005. It starts with a discussion of the high cost of textbooks ($900/year per student), and then considers a very novel idea for financing an open alternative to commercial textbooks. ...

Match: Beshears, Fred; open textbooks

Productivity commission: Tales of the widespread demise of Canadian publishers are just that

Katz, Ariel

Related Articles Coming to terms with copyright

Match: copyright

Open content: From walled gardens to collaborative learning

England, Ashley

The 2009 Horizon Report for Australia and New Zealand lists Open Content as one of the key emerging educational technologies in the next two to three years. While Open Content appears to be relatively straightforward it ...

Match: libraries

Stealing the goose: Copyright and learning

McGreal, Rory

The Internet is the world's largest knowledge common and the information source of first resort. Much of this information is open and freely available. However, there are organizations and companies today that are ...

Match: copyright

A new polemic: Libraries, MOOCs, and the pedagogical landscape

Almeida, Nora

The Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) has emerged in the past few years as the poster child of the online higher education revolution. Lauded and derided, MOOCs (depending on who you ask) represent the democratization ...

Match: copyright

Panel on open library, scholarship and learning at Athabasca University

Anderson, Terry; Ives, Cindy; Elliott, Colin

AUSpace: Building an effective institutional repository to support research communities and open access. AUSpace is Athabasca University’s (AU) digital content repository. Its goal is to preserve and disseminate AU ...

Match: libraries

OER Mythbusting!

Grodecka, Karolina; Śliwowski, Kamil; Creative Commons

This site has one purpose – to bust myths about Open Educational Resources! There are two parts – a mythbusting guide and a quick introduction to OER. Both will help you find fast, simple and useful answers to ...