Thursday, May 24, 2012

Focus on humanities and social sciences:

OAPEN combines the advantages of an independently operating commercial venture with the benefits of being embedded in the scholarly community. Joining the OAPEN network involves no membership costs, while giving you privileged access to information-sharing and lobbying that are an important part of the initiative. Listing your titles in the OAPEN Library involves a fee which starts at around €700, depending on the size of your frontlist, as well as the number of titles submitted to the OAPEN Library.

http://www.oapen.org/about?page=join

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Coursera is an organization that provides very modular instructions from Stanford, Michigan, etc.

www.coursera.org

Akademos

Akademos value proposition
(helps professors identify what textbook to use for their class).

http://www.youtube.com/AkademosInc

Open learning idea (take classes from different universities, combine them, and get a college degree)... Genius!!

http://degreed.com

Chegg

Chegg's offering of eTextbook Reader

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=xKU1LMl3CZM

http://www.chegg.com/etextbooks/

This is a must-see video from Flat World

http://blip.tv/flat-world-knowledge/flat-world-knowledge-burt-peabody-video-3685112
http://www.flatworldknowledge.com/

Flat World and their unique business model (freemuim?)

http://www.the-digital-reader.com/2011/01/20/flat-world-knowledge-raised-15m-funding-for-their-open-textbook-platform/#.T70LoUWXS5I

Open Course

Open Course Library - A Gates Foundation initiative

"The Open Course Library is a collection of expertly developed educational materials – including textbooks, syllabi, course activities, readings, and assessments – for 81 high-enrollment college courses. 42 courses have been completed so far, providing faculty with a high-quality, affordable option that will cost students no more than $30 for textbooks. All materials are shared under a Creative Commons (CC BY) license unless otherwise noted."

https://sites.google.com/a/sbctc.edu/opencourselibrary/

All sorts of awesome news in regards to ereaders and etextbooks.

http://www.the-digital-reader.com/2012/03/22/uk-students-arent-buying-ebooks/#.T70FlUWXS5I

A strategic ebook acquisition company

http://www.ebrary.com/corp/index.jsp

Why Aren’t Students Using E-Books?

Its comes down to the textbook price

http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2011/11/why-arent-students-using-e-books/

Textbooks could be selected on a basis of "likes" on the near future.

"Other tools under development that I have viewed--but cannot yet speak about in detail--will rate content in ways similar to Amazon’s rating system or will use a system like Facebook’s to “like” content. Developers of these products feel that if crowdsourcing is useful in the commercial world, why not in education?"

http://thejournal.com/Articles/2012/05/16/Textbook-adoption-opens-up.aspx?Page=3

Thursday, May 17, 2012

http://www.coursesmart.com/go/reader

CourseSmart Reader for textbooks

http://maclearning.org/articles/16/audiotorium-note-taking-on-i-pad

Note-taking App option for Apple products

Disruptive eBook sales Structure

http://www.flatworldknowledge.com/educators

This company makes the online version of the eBook free. You can pay for other formats.
Also, The content is editable for professors.

E-Textbooks Saved Many Students Only $1

http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/new-study-shows-e-textbooks-saved-many-students-only-1/34793

Key points that I found interesting:

Some professors had to give tutorials to their students on how to use the ebook. What a pain.
Access to the books was inconsistent in classes due to connection problems.
2nd to last paragraph - More than half of the survey respondants didn't like the eBooks, but are still willing to try, especially if the price structure were "disruptive." Under $35 was the price quoted.
The reader comments are also interesting to read through.