Version:1.0 StartHTML:0000000189 EndHTML:0000051723 StartFragment:0000004316 EndFragment:0000051687 SourceURL:file://localhost/Users/user/Desktop/Red%20Hat:FWK%20education%20blog.doc <meta name="Title" content=""> <meta name="Keywords" content=""> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"> <meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"> <meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 11"> <meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 11"> <link rel="File-List" href="file://localhost/Users/user/Library/Caches/TemporaryItems/msoclip1/01/clip_filelist.xml"> <style>  </style> FLAT WORLD KNOWLEDGE: OPEN COLLEGE TEXTBOOKS Disrupting Traditional Textbook Publishing’s Heavy Toll on America’s Future Sanford Forte Today, everywhere in our nation, families – adults, and their children - are facing a tragic loss of future possibility and personal fulfillment because of high textbook prices. Fact: the cost of traditional textbooks has become a major impediment to students completing a college education, and/or deciding to enter college. We will learn more about the data behind this unfortunate and unnecessary fact later on in this essay, but first it’s important to point out the scale of the problem, and its impact on students, teachers, and American society. Long-term demographic research tells us that individuals who achieve college and other post-secondary education credentials 1) have longer life spans; 2) have better access to health care; 3) have better dietary and health practices; 4) have greater economic stability and security; 5) have more prestigious employment and greater job satisfaction; 6) have less dependency on government assistance; 7) have greater use of seat belts; 8) have more continuing education; 9) have greater Internet access; 10) have greater participation in leisure and artistic activities; 11) make more book purchases; 12) have higher voting rates; 13) have more detailed knowledge of government; 14) have more community service and leadership involvement; 15) have less criminal activity and incarceration; 16) have more basic self confidence, and so on. This is only a partial list of well-researched advantages that accrue to those who achieve a post-secondary education; thus, a costly fiscal and social tragedy occurs when these advantages are lost, because every year thousands of students literally cannot afford high-priced traditional college textbooks, and as a result drop out of college, or decide not to attend college; this is unacceptable. A very recent, detailed <a href="#http://www.publicagenda.org/theirwholel">Gates Foundation Study</a> finds that the cost of traditional college textbooks and materials is one of two primary reasons (among six) for students 1) dropping out of college; and/or 2) deciding not to attend college. Further, U. S. Department of Labor <a href="#http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-05-806">analysis</a> incidentally shows that 72% of the total annual educational expenditures made by a Community College student goes to pay for textbook, while public four-year university students pay between 26-42% of their total annual educational expenditure for college textbook expenditures. These outlandish percentages – i.e. the cost of textbooks relative to the cost of education - have actually increased since the Department of Labor analysis was completed a few years ago, with textbook prices steadily accelerating, on average, at three times the rate of inflation - as they have for the last 15 years. The responsibility for this unacceptable situation falls squarely on the shoulders of traditional educational textbook publishers; their too-high-textbook prices, and inefficient publishing models are breeding an unacceptable tragedy in the making because massive, long-term fiscal and social diseconomies result when large numbers of college-age students either drop out of college, or decide not to attend college simply because they are unable to afford their college textbooks. It’s also well known that <a href="http://www.studentpirgs.org/textbooks/">students have been complaining for years</a> about <a href="http://www.flatworldknowledge.com/customer-video">high textbook costs</a>. When students drop out of college, or decide not to attend college because they can’t afford college textbooks, they and our society suffer the cumulative fiscal and social costs of long-term advantages otherwise gained if those students had otherwise been able to complete their college education. Just one student who leaves school because s/he cannot afford too-expensive college textbooks results in a net cumulative loss in fiscal and social advantage that runs into the millions of dollars over a lifetime. Multiply this loss by many, many thousands of students every year; the personal and societal toll of the current, traditional textbook is staggering, running into tens-of-billions of dollars of lost collective opportunity, over thousands of lifetimes! This hurts individuals, and it hurts our nation. The traditional college textbook business is broken; it cannot be any more upside-down than it already is; it’s causing losses that all Americans share in and have to pay for, as we collectively pick up the tab for the lost opportunity left in the wake of the traditional textbook publishing industry’s profits, as the industry remains completely out-of-touch with college student’s and teaching institution needs. Another unfolding tragedy that results from American students dropping out college or deciding not to enter college - due to too-high textbook costs - is the collective American loss of long-term international competitiveness that results. It’s unacceptable that American students who require more education to stay even with ever more educated counterparts around the world should be victimized by the structural inefficiencies of the traditional textbook market. Incidentally the international student counterparts of American students pay far less for textbooks in their respective countries than students in America do. Believe it or not, identical international versions of college textbooks published by traditional American textbook publishers for American students sell at retail, abroad, for only a fraction of their retail cost in America. Thus, a black market has sprouted in America for foreign editions of American textbooks! How have we come to this, where American students have to illegally purchase American published international textbook editions from foreign black markets, in order to stay in college? Traditionally expensive college textbooks contribute to an increase in domestic social stratification; the pain resulting from high textbook prices - and the limits to educational access thus caused - is not shared equally. American students today are more economically challenged, having proportionately less income to spend in terms of real dollars than past generations - yet traditional college textbooks have increased at three times the rate of inflation for the last fifteen years. High textbook prices are thus contributing to the growing “attainment divide” in America, victimizing those who most need college and post-secondary training. Who would have imagined that the <a href="http://www.saycampuslife.com/images/textbooks.jpg">traditional textbook</a>, of all things – one of our most taken-for-granted and timeworn educational tools - would have evolved to so costly a tool that it is now an essential impediment to education? High college textbook prices exist only because we choose to let them exist; we no longer have to endure this egregious and untenable situation, because there are viable alternatives to the ‘old’, expensive textbook publishing model; <a href="http://www.flatworldknowledge.com/">Open educational textbook solutions</a> are <a href="http://www.flatworldknowledge.com/catalog">here</a>, now - it’s time to move forward, for our children’s and our nation’s future well being. Full disclosure: I am Director of Business Development at <a href="#http://www.flatworldknowledge.com">Flat World Knowledge</a>, a new venture-capital-backed textbook company that creates open-licensed college textbooks as a key strategy toward ending the toll taken on American students and American society that results from outmoded pricing and business models deployed by traditional college textbook publishers. The word, “open”, implies possibility, access, promise, and inclusiveness, among other positive connotations. America strives to be an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_society">open society</a>, transparent in ownership, invention, access to the public good, and opportunity. Universal access to post-secondary education in America helps create the necessary social ingredients to sustain our open society; education stimulates invention and opportunity; education lends power to the promise of democracy; education helps create social equality, putting an end to intolerance of difference. Cicero, the great Roman philosopher and statesman wrote, "Freedom is participation in power". Cicero has been shown to be largely right though the example of the American experience. Education is an enabler of the "participation in power" that Cicero spoke of - i.e. the better one understands one's world, the more effectively one can participate in it, shape it, and adapt to the shock of externally induced change – like the kind of rapid change that our nation is experiencing now, as technology accelerates, and increased international competition challenges our nation as never before. Education also helps to inoculate our culture against the ignorance that domestic and international tyrannies would feed on. In modern American society, college education or post-secondary certification is a key ingredient for personal and political power; without advanced education there is no democracy; there is no equality; there is no opportunity. With the latter as an obvious given, how ironic then that traditional textbook prices have been, for years, thwarting the very open access to college education that is necessary to maintain the American promise. Open Textbooks are one of many important solutions necessary to fix this problem. <a href="http://creativecommons.org/">“Open” licensing</a> of textbook content can greatly contribute to the reduction or elimination of the growing educational and cultural divide that threatens America’s adaptability. Open licensing makes possible truly affordable textbooks – in this case, college textbooks, available to all who wish to pursue a college degree or post-secondary credential education. <a href="http://www.flatworldknowledge.com/printed-book/1628">"Open-licensed textbooks"</a> make it possible to openly share the intellectual property that lies on the printed pages of a textbook, or the bits that make up the online, audio (Mp3) and other digital components of that textbook – all without the restrictions of “all rights reserved” copyright imposed by traditional college textbook publishers. Open textbooks accelerate the sharing of information and knowledge – a key benefit in a world of fast flowing, and fast growing, information - encouraging virtually unlimited reuse, derivation, and mixing – thus making possible new knowledge and further adaptation of that knowledge to new learning environments. Open textbooks provide access – most importantly, <a href="http://www.flatworldknowledge.com/pub/1.0/principles-economics/31815">free</a> and open access, and choice to students and teaching institutions. Aside from the invention of the alphabet, <a href="http://www.juliantrubin.com/bigten/gutenbergmovable.html">Gutenberg's press and moveable type</a>, and the Internet - all major disruptors of establishment enterprise in their time - Open Licensing is surely the most profound development yet to enable the transparent spread of intellectual capital. Open licensing made <a href="http://www.linux.com/">Linux</a> and its <a href="http://www.ubuntu.com/">various flavors</a> possible; most Internet websites are served up from open-source <a href="http://www.apache.org/">Apache</a> servers; <a href="http://moodle.org/">Moodle</a>, a powerful open learning platform, is fast becoming the Learning Management System (LMS) of choice, worldwide; the <a href="http://openlibrary.org/about">Open Library</a>, a project unique in the history of libraries, gives unprecedented access to the world’s literature to all who have access to the Internet; <a href="http://sagebase.org/">open pharma</a> offers the promise of widely shared and cheaply available pharmaceutical formulae – to save lives and bring relief to millions; <a href="http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/personal.html">Firefox</a>, the most popular web browser in the world - including browsers promoted by Microsoft, Apple, and Google - is built on an open software platform; there are many more examples. Literally, billions of pieces of intellectual capital - writing, imagery, research, art, scientific formulae, designs, art, multimedia, and so on are licensed as Open - with open licensing growing at exponential rates, enabling a new world of creation and discovery – and now, Open licensing has entered the world of textbook publishing, to become a solution to the high textbook cost problems mentioned above. Flat World Knowledge - a new, venture-capital-backed college textbook publisher - was founded by two former long-time Pearson (the world’s largest textbook company) executives who had grown tired of ”business as usual” in the broken college textbook industry; they wanted to solve the vexing problems listed above; they chose to embrace open licensing and open technologies to help innovate solutions that would disrupt, upend, and replace the current broken college textbook publishing model. Flat World Knowledge has the answer to high-priced college textbooks; just like traditional college textbook publishers, we publish professionally developed college textbooks, fully supported by instructor manuals, study guides, and other teaching/learning aids - but that’s where any similarity between Flat World Knowledge and the traditional college textbook publishers ends. The value offered to students and instructors by Flat World Knowledge textbooks, compared to traditional, more costly textbooks, is enormous. We offer peer-reviewed and <a href="http://www.flatworldknowledge.com/catalog">professionally developed print textbooks</a>, as well as digital versions of those same textbooks in multiple digital formats – from FREE, online, to low-priced print and digital textbook options that save students 80-85% over the cost of competing textbooks! Free and choice regarding purchase is a long way from the egregious prices and lock-in book adoption games played by traditional textbook publishers - e.g. 1) complicated book and supplement bundling; 2) so-called “custom editions” that prevent resale to used book vendors; 3) overpriced digital “alternatives” that expire after 6 months of use; and, 4) the latest crippled solution, “textbook rental agreements” that compel teachers to use overpriced college textbooks for longer than they want, thus limiting academic freedom. Also, textbook rental programs do nothing to solve the underlying causes of the pricing and others problems described here, structural problems that beset the traditional college textbook publishers, because textbook rentals, or not – too-high textbook prices will continue to be the norm, with textbook rentals just another pricing shell game that hides the high cost of traditional college textbooks, with the idea that “people won’t notice”. What happens when, 5 years from now, students are paying just as much for a rental as they do for an entire book, now? That’s due to happen if textbook prices continue to rise at their current rate. Flat World Knowledge textbooks are of the highest quality, and equal in every way to their more traditional and expensive college textbooks – in fact, our college textbooks are far superior to traditional college textbooks in the price/value equation – including 24/7 access to content, and impressive ease-of-use. Most Flat World Knowledge authors already have one or more successful textbooks under their belt, while authors publishing for the first time are peer-reviewed academic superstars who are well-known in their respective disciplines; they have superb academic credentials; and, they maintain the unique writing and organizational skills necessary to create world-class college textbooks. Our authors love the Flat World Knowledge open-license publishing model – so much so that they are choosing to sign contracts with us instead of traditional textbook companies. They want to share their knowledge with students in a way that works; they want to be part of the solution to the problems listed above; they want to be well remunerated for their work. Flat World Knowledge fills all these author needs, and more. Our publishing model has proved wildly successful, with Flat World Knowledge textbooks already adopted at more than 500 unique colleges and universities in America, all within our first year of doing business. This is a stunning success in the staid, established world of commercial college textbook publishing, where progress and innovation have always lagged (but somehow, prices have not). We’re letting students and college instructors decide if we’re doing things right; judging by these results, we’re on our way to forever changing the way college textbooks are solicited, published, and distributed. Flat World Knowledge publishes high quality, <a href="http://www.flatworldknowledge.com/catalog">professionally developed college textbooks</a>, fully supported by instructor manuals, study guides, and other teaching/learning aids - but that’s where any similarity between Flat World Knowledge and the traditional college textbook publishers ends. Unlike the traditional textbook publishers, our we open license our textbooks, enabling us to offer our textbooks in their entirety, for <a href="http://www.flatworldknowledge.com/pub/1.0/principles-economics/31815">free, online</a> - at the same time offering our textbooks in black-and-white (grey-scale), professionally formatted, print soft cover editions for only $29.95 - a far cry from the new textbook prices imposed by traditional textbook publishers (with traditional textbook prices averaging from $100 - often, for a small paperback - to well over $200-$300+ in many disciplines). Flat World Knowledge also offers textbooks in digital formats – e.g. in download-to-print (PDF) versions for only $19.95 (entire formatted book) or $2.00 per chapter. We provide audio (Mp3) versions of most of our books for only $39.95, or $4.00 per audio chapter. We offer study aids for $1.00 per chapter. All of our textbook content can be used in eBook readers (Kindle, Nook, etc.); our textbook content is also compatible with Learning Management Systems (LMS - e.g. Moodle, Blackboard, eCollege, Angel, etc.) used in many of today’s colleges and universities. Just like traditional publishing companies, Flat World Knowledge ships textbooks to college bookstores in bulk, but we add the convenience of shipping direct-to-student, because we publish our books on demand (POD). We strive to make the textbook purchase experience as easy as possible. Also, print-on-demand keeps us from having to carry the large, expensive inventories carried by traditional textbook publishers – creating another economy that we pass on to students. Open licensing our textbooks also enables us to bring immediate, complete control over textbook content to instructors and curriculum developers. This is a groundbreaking innovation in commercial college textbook publishing. <a href="http://www.flatworldknowledge.com/Customize-Tutorial">College instructors and curriculum developers are free to alter the content of our textbooks</a> – i.e. to create their very own derivatives of our textbooks – all in a very easy drag-and-drop environment. Individual chapters in Flat World Knowledge textbooks are easily rearranged from their original order – or eliminated altogether - to fit the needs of the teacher’s specific course outline. College instructors tell us that they love this feature, as it permits them to add their own content, and further adapt our textbooks to their student’s needs and their teaching preferences. Imagine the time, money, and frustration saved by college teachers from this feature, alone. After an instructor or curriculum developer makes an edit in one of our textbooks, edits are rendered instantaneously and embedded a unique URL, with the now-changed textbook given a new ISBN number (so it’s easy for the bookstore to order in print). The newly changed textbook (a legal derivative, enabled by the open license) becomes immediately searchable by school name and/or course number, so that students can easily locate it on our website. When teacher edits are made to the original content, our algorithms automatically 1) repaginate the entire book; 2) re-index the entire book; 3) establish a new table of contents for the entire book, thus accommodating all edited changes and making them available in a completely new derivative, for free on the Flat World Knowledge website, where students can take notes on the free online version of the textbook, and keep their notes private, or share them – whichever they choose. Thus, for the first time in the history of college textbook publishing, teachers can easily adapt already excellent content for their classes, and students can choose what parts of a textbook to buy, or choose not to buy, and/or read the entire textbook online, for free. Incidentally, the changed (edited) print edition is also ready for sale and shipment at the same prices noted above ($29.95 B&W softcover; $59.95 color), within 72 hours. Imagine adopting a world-class textbook, and then being able to add your own case studies, links, and examples – if you want – and then having your changed book made available online for free to your students (with no advertising noise, or strings attached), and also available in print within a few days for only $29.95, including all the lower-priced priced digital options mentioned above – again, including free. This is revolutionary. Literally, we give instructors and curriculum developers the power to alter our textbooks in ways that make them more relevant to students; adaptable to regional and cultural differences; adjustable to state-mandated assessment needs; and so on. In sum, we're using Open licensing and other open innovations (we also use open source code, server technology, etc.) to offer choice, flexibility, and control for the first time in the history of the textbook publishing industry to a degree unmatched by any current publisher, and to a degree that has made Flat World Knowledge an industry leader and primary disruptor of the "old", expensive and inefficient model of traditional textbook production in America, thus enhancing educational access in America. With Flat World Knowledge textbooks, college instructors are no longer compelled to redo their class curriculum frameworks every few years, as they were when traditional textbook publishers used the “book-out-of-print” excuse to force more expensive (and all-too-often largely unchanged, from the last edition) textbooks into the classroom. College teachers have been complaining about this for years. No more. Flat World Knowledge listens; we will never come to a college instructor and say we’re taking his/her textbook out of print, because the open-licensed book and it derivative live into perpetuity. In fact, when we do create new editions of our textbooks (as we plan to do, to keep them current), a college teacher can borrow what s/he wants from our new edition and plug it into the Flat World knowledge book that they’re already using, for free. How’s that for convenience, and listening to the customer? What's even more exciting is that our publishing and business model is profitable, and fast proving to be self-sustainable. We're using our long-earned publishing experience, deep knowledge of established consumer buying behavior to create textbooks that are marketed and sold in a way that the academic community and students understand - in a way that is no different than they have been purchasing textbooks for the last 50 years, with the difference that we’re bringing orders-of-magnitude more value to students and college instructors than traditional textbook publishers. We are delighting our customers. Besides publishing affordable, quality print textbook editions, Flat World Knowledge is also dedicated to making the college textbook easily extensible to different technology platforms – i.e. to mobile devices (Kindle, Nook, iPad, etc.); social networks (like Ning and Facebook, where new learning models are being devised); to gaming and simulation scenarios, and so on. We have just begun, and judging by the early returns, we are making significant headway in a commercial publishing space long overdue for meaningful innovation. Flat World Knowledge, a for-profit company, shares the spirit of open textbook production with several non-profit, non-commercial open educational resource repository (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_educational_resources">OER</a>) brethren – among them, the <a href="http://www.collegeopentextbooks.org/">California Community College Open Text Project</a> and the <a href="http://cnx.org/">Connexions Project</a>. We respect and support non-profit efforts in this sector; they are important contributors to change; they help spread the open college textbook meme in academia, where most OER repositories reside. The main difference between our respective business models is that Flat World Knowledge professionally develops and supports its open textbooks, using profit to sustain our mission. We passionately believe that the Flat World Knowledge model – a for-profit open-textbook company, responsive to the market (because we have to be responsive, in order to survive and sustain our mission) - is the most effective way forward to long-term sustainability of open textbook movement, and marketplace. Non-profit OER organizations use Foundation and Government grants to create open textbook projects and spread the word about open textbooks, acting as giant repositories for a multiplicity of open educational content. That said, sustainability and maintenance of the currency of content that resides in open educational resource repositories remain major challenges for the non-profit open college textbook model. In the spirit of maintaining our mission, and matching our actions with rhetoric (i.e. walking-the-talk), Flat World Knowledge has created affiliate relationships with non-profit OER groups, open textbook, and other non-profit educational ventures. We firmly believe in creating cooperative ventures with non-profit open textbook repositories; we believe mutual potentials are best realized when non-profit OER repositories use their power of peer communication to spread the open textbook meme to academic peers, leaving the creation of professionally developed and supported open textbooks to market-savvy, innovative open textbook publishers like Flat World Knowledge, who best understand the crucial marketplace logistics of on-the-ground textbook creation and distribution better than anyone, thus insuring superior execution and product support in a very complex distribution channel – encouraging use of open textbooks in large numbers [something that remains a challenge in the OER model, because the main competency in academia where OER projects live is the provisioning of content, rather than the discovery, organization, development, publishing, marketing, distribution, support and future maintenance of open textbook content. Our experience in the market, with more than 500 institutions of higher learning adopting our textbooks in less than a year is a strong validation of our approach to sustainability in the open textbook marketplace. Flat World Knowledge goal is to be in business for a long time, serving students and educational institutions with the best textbooks in the world; we believe our approach to open textbook publishing will continue to succeed, and thrive. Traditional textbook publishers will thus be compelled to reform their business and publishing models in order to compete in a more efficient open textbook marketplace that best serves students and their teaching institutions; we believe that our for-profit open textbook model will also inform key non-profit OER organizations how to more efficiently and effectively proselytize open textbooks in academia and spread the open textbook meme – thus enabling both for-profit and non-profit efforts, together, using their complimentary strengths, to generate positive impact and change the world of textbook publishing forever. Flat World Knowledge goal is also our challenge: we challenge all those who publish textbooks and other instructional aids to join us in providing affordable benefit and value to America’s students and teaching institutions, for the sake of the very future of our people, and our nation. Professionally developed, open-licensed textbooks are here to stay; open licensing leverages the naturally occurring empathic quality of sharing that's wired into our species. Open textbook publishing is a public good; it’s the right thing to do. Open licensing enables, in a sustainable way, the impulse for information to be free - in open, distributed networks - at the same time protecting the creators of that information, in ways that they choose. Open licensed textbooks also leverage technology in ways that enable choice and flexibility for textbook consumers, creating a self-supporting, sustainable open textbook publishing market that serves, rather than exploits students. Students in America are Flat World Knowledge’ neighbors; those same students are also your neighbors. We’re all in this together; sharing in the benefits that open textbook publishing can bring to us as individuals, and collectively as a nation, as we evolve to better ourselves - and by extension, the world. One open textbook at a time, we at Flat World knowledge are dedicated and determined to achieve a sustainable, profitable model of open textbook production that enables learners and instructors; that makes education affordable; that opens up opportunity; that strives in a sustainable, adaptable way to enable further educational innovation. Open is the only way forward; the “Open genie” is out of the box; Open college textbooks are here to stay; there is no going back; <a href="http://www.flatworldknowledge.com/students">join</a> <a href="http://www.flatworldknowledge.com/educators">us</a>. -- Sanford Forte Director, Business Development Flat World Knowledge 13 North Mill Street Nyack, NY 10960 Office: (877) 257-9243 x201 Mobile: (650) 888-0077 <a href="mailto:sforte@flatworldknowledge.com">sforte@flatworldknowledge.com</a> <a href="http://www.flatworldknowledge.com">http://www.flatworldknowledge.com</a>