38 Community Colleges Launch Entire Degree Programs With Open Educational Resources (washingtonpost.com) 48
Danielle Douglas-Gabriel, writing for The Washington Post: A community college reform group has selected a handful of schools in Virginia and Maryland to develop degree programs using open-source materials in place of textbooks, an initiative that could save students as much as $1,300 a year (could be paywalled; alternate source). Such open educational resources -- created using open licenses that let students download or print materials for free -- have gained popularity as the price of print textbooks have skyrocketed, but courses that use the materials remain a novelty in higher education. Achieving the Dream, an education advocacy groups based in Silver Spring, Md., aims to change that by offering $9.8 million in grants to support the development of open-source degree programs at 38 colleges in 13 states.
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Well, as an old-timer who participates in a University of Hawai`i program for "kupuna" (seniors), I was shocked last fall when I signed up for a two-semester sequence in Abstract Algebra, and found that a used copy of the textbook sold for just under $140, and a new copy was close to $200. For one book.
Books were expensive when I was an undergrad, and publishers churned editions just as they do now, but it seems greed has reached epic levels.
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For one book.
When I used to lived down the street from the university, I would sometimes browse the shelves at the bookstore. The required textbook for a graduate-level electrical engineering course cost $1,000 (new), written by the instructor (of course) and no used copies were ever available ($200 for buyback). That was nuts for the mid-1990's.
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Were there any on remedial English?
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Were there any on remedial English?
Sorry, English was my second language after Commodore 64 BASIC.
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My last semester (a long time ago) the books were nearly as expensive as the tuition. I had a class that required 16 books (it was a lit class). A friend of mine didn't buy a single one of them and still aced the class. The teacher barely referenced them at all. I was so pissed off.
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Yeah, I mostly quit buying textbooks somewhere around sophomore year (other than the very few classes where they were truly necessary).
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And you had to walk uphill both ways in a snow storm to get to the book store.
How did you know? And don't forget the part about "uphill into the wind."
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How to rip a textbook (Score:1)
Photocopying a book is lame. De-bind the book and run it through a photocopy machine that converts it to PDF with OCR.
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De-bind the book and run it through a photocopy machine that converts it to PDF with OCR.
AFAIK, That technology wasn't available in the early 1990's. In fact, I was still typing my reports on an electronic typewriter because the instructors wouldn't accept NLQ printouts from dot matrix printers and the library wouldn't get Classic Macs and a laser printer until 1994.
Public school text books should be public? (Score:1)
What is the reason, beside greed, why the public school core curriculum text books are not fully open source? Seems to me the public would be best served with open source subject material and simple competition between publishers to print what is needed at lowest cost.
Would seem to me a pretty simple National Education Initiative to develop and keep up to date a set of core curriculum texts and videos. With the content public domain school boards could then have the right to edit them to their own "standard
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Would seem to me a pretty simple National Education Initiative to develop and keep up to date a set of core curriculum texts and videos.
While I agree, this would be an excellent use of U.S. Department of Education resources. I'm afraid such a program would only become highly politicized like the Common Core [wikipedia.org] The U.S. congress is simply too dysfunctional to perform this simple task. Some politician will declare the text books invalid because they don't have a grasp [huffingtonpost.com] on the concept, or they simply don't agree with it. [wikipedia.org] The program would eventually get scrapped.
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Education is only for the Elite! (Score:1)
Unless you show me how much money your education costs, your education cannot be anywhere as good as mine!
We should make education be as expensive as possible so only a few snotty super rich kinds can get an education!
I mean we cannot have everyone educated or else poor people may rise up and be smart, get jobs and even be productive members of society!
-- the one percent.
Use better textbooks (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm trying to sort out books that cover all the material in fewer pages, lower book cost, and appreciable organization. I'm finding that some books for things like programming language design or computer science cost $20 or $50 and have clearer, more concise explanations than 1,000-page McGraw Hill tomes that cost $348.
Education incurs cognitive load. Bad education curriculum and bad materials increase cognitive load. Good study strategies decrease cognitive load. Approaching material using strong study methods--Cornell notes, SQW4R/OK4R study methods, self-testing, group discussion--increases the rate of learning and memorization while reducing cognitive load. Using better material decreases the cognitive load incurred by using those study methods (or not using any study methods). With better study strategies, better material, or both, education is faster and more successful.
Since you're learning it anyway and don't have (Score:3)
Since you are learning the material anyway, and don't have a college degree, have a look at Western Governors' University. For most courses, you only need to pass a test to complete the class, and where applicable they are industry certification tests. For example, I'm currently doing a networking course which consists of passing the Cisco CCNA .
You can study as much as you want before enrolling and paying the (low) tuition. It's a really good setup for people who like self-study. They ALSO include stud
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Holy shit this is legit and created by governors as enacted law.
Yeah a state school just like U of Texas & U o (Score:2)
Yeah, it was created by 19 state governors . In some (all?) participating states, it's a state school just like University of Texas or Texas A&M.
Something unusual is that they don't charge per credit. Instead, you pay based on time. If you complete 24 credits in one term, it doesn't cost you any more.
Their technical courses are fairly rigorous. Using the network (CCNA) example, the new CNNA covers most of what CCNP used to cover.
The "general education" humanities type courses are more easy credit. I h
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Yeah but they're all just IT, not computer science, so nothing interesting to me.
IT people are the fast food workers of the future.
Enjoy your studies (Score:2)
I hope you enjoy your studies and get some good use of them. For me, my degree is in the field with the fastest-growing salaries of all, information security. Each of my last two job changes doubled my salary, so I'm not worried about the future of my field before I retire.
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Infosec isn't a bad field, although most infosec people I meet are in the whitehat camp. You get people who are overly concerned with audits and compliance, and they don't build threat models; they get hacked and they say, "Well, our anti-virus didn't work! We have all the right stuff!" when all they have is a checklist of industry best practices and off-the-shelf products.
If you're going infosec, get yourself some penetration testing and some risk modeling training while you're in there. Operational r
That comes from non-infosec management (Score:2)
> You get people who are overly concerned with audits and compliance
In experience (20 years in the field), that's more coming from management. It frustrates those of us in the field, and we laugh at it, but we do have have to provide the executives documentation that they can use it court when the company is sued. Plus of course PCI and such is required by external contracts.
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They seem to have a lot of IT stuff but not Computer Science stuff. Kind of boring.
Free Coursera Course For Cash (Score:2)
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Something to consider: when I come across an open-source, free for the online edition textbook that I use and find useful, I try to support the author by buying a hardcopy. Usually these are not expensive and if I can afford it I think supporting the authors who are generous with their knowledge and expertise may encourage others to do the same.
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Why should we shovel loads of cash into the pockets of greedy publishers!
FTFY - College bookstores don't make that much in textbook profits, which is why half the floor space is for sweaters, knickknacks and other items that have better profit margins.
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The big foam index finger with the team's logo is my favorite. I simply cannot go into a college bookstore without buying one. Also, the sippy mug that can't be tipped over. I mean, how do they even make such a magical thing? Probably some kind of nano technology.
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Ever wonder how wildly expensive textbooks can be low margin inventory?
Nope. Spent three years working in the campus bookstore in the early 1990's. So I know how the system works. If the publishers gave the bookstore generous discounts, the textbook got a lower price. If the publishers has less than generous terms or makes returning books for credit difficult, the textbook had a higher price.