With about 9000 resident and commuter students at USM, paying on average $900 per year on textbooks, that’s $8.1 million a year which goes mostly to publishers. The USM bookstore gets a chunk of that but not as much as publishers and shipping costs.

I propose that we open an open source digital textbook library. Students write the books as part of the course work, faculty edit the text for quality, and the next semester of students pay a small fee to acres the database of texts. This way, 100% of the money stays at USM, students have their work published into a useful tool instead of discarded into the recycling, and we all save big time because we cut the publishers and freight out of the equation.

We are a university of bright individuals, we have the human capital to pull this off. It’s a win for students who pay less, faculty could be financially rewarded also, administration gets to balance the books.

I want to hear what people think of this, prove me wrong if you can. Poke holes in my theory if you’re able.

Roll Over. Speak. Convert into free open source digital! They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks but the text book market as we know it is broken and in need of a new trick. The problem is that professors pick text books but the students buy them. This process has allowed the prices of books to become inflated because the decision maker in this process is not the buyer. The resulting lose-lose situation is what we Micro Economic types call, market failure. What we have is an inelastic demand curve, that is to say that publishers increase their price, and instead of students refusing to pay the higher price, we are forced to buy the book because we have to have it at any price.

So what do we do? We get involved. Right now there is a resolution working its way through the student senate about text books highlighting ways that we can work together to achieve lower prices. There are also plans on the books to promote the easiest to implement alternative affordable text books.

What is an affordable textbook? An affordable text book is defined as anything other than a brand new text book. This includes: used books, binder ready books, book rental programs, library reserves, Campus Book Swap, ebook, and finally the holy grail, open source text books.

Open source textbooks ship under a creative commons license which means that the are free to edit and modify with much less restriction than copy righted textbooks. The practical application is that you can often view, download, and edit an open source text book without infringing pesky copyright laws. Students can even print them for a reasonable $25 at a local publisher. That’s music to college student’s ears because they wont have to chose between spending all their money out of pocket on books or failing their classes.

A company named Flatworld Knowledge is hoping to put a dent in the problem by publishing open source text books. Flatworld Knowledge is still in beta so it has only published 4 books for 20 schools. Co-Founder of Flatworld Knowledge, Jeff Shelstad says that the spring beta campaign is expected to reach 1,000 students from 25 schools with 10 brand new business and economics open source texts this spring.

Many nay-sayers are reluctant to believe in any false hope of free text books but Flatworld Knowledge has confirmed that their model works. In the midst of an economic crisis they have just hired three sales and marketing employees and continue to sign authors on board at a rate of 1 every three to five weeks. Full steam ahead in a whimpy economy.

Now the question you’ve been waiting for. If Flatworld Knowledge is open source, how they get paid? They have a very reasonable model for their books and supplements. The corner stone of their pricing model is the online textbook, which is free. You’ll be able to purchase a digital book (PDF/Kindle) for $1.99/chapter or $19.95/complete text. The audio book version will go for $2.99/chapter and $29.99/text. From there the next step is a printed textbook which will be shipped to your door for $29(B&W)-$59(Color). Lastly, the company will also have study supplements like online quizzes, sample test questions, and flash cards for purchase. Their pricing model is very attractive to students who are used to paying upwards of $150/text and given the amount of student resentment towards large publishers, Flatworld Knowledge shouldn’t have any trouble staying in business.

With the current state of economic affairs something needs to be done. Research has indicated that textbooks account for up to 20% of the cost of tuition and have become a tipping cost that can be the deciding factor of attending college. In addition, here at USM, students have been hit with the perfect storm of rising book costs and continued tuition increases over the past six years.

The future does seem promising but all of this talk is, well, just talk. When will we see some results? Sooner than you may think. The University has heard student concerns about rising textbook prices and want to help ease the burden imposed by increased tuition costs. Though no specifics are being released yet, and no promises can be made, key administration members will be meeting in the near future to discuss role that textbooks play in the University Maine system.

These are exciting times and we stand on the frontier of opportunity. It’s a win-win for students and USM. The University can adopt affordable text books for students to ease our financial burden and emerge as a leader in progressive forward thinking. The publishers are counting us out, but we still have a few tricks left up our sleeve. The publishers have taught their over priced textbook a few tricks of their own. They’ve taught it how to have frequent new editions, they’ve taught it to bundle with CD’s, and they’ve taught it to maximize profits. Let’s see if we can teach the over priced textbook one more trick, how to play dead.

To learn about all types of affordable textbooks you can join the Facebook Group:
Students For Affordable Text Books

To sell your books for more, and buy your books for less visit: www.CampusBookSwap.org

To Learn more about open source textbooks, visit: www.FlatWorldKnowledge.com

For information on how we can make textbooks affordable, visit: www.MakeTextBooksAffordable.com

Where the new textbook dollar goes. Source: National Association of College Stores (NACS) *:College store numbers are averages and reflect the most current data gathered by the National College Stores. Publisher numbers are estimates based on data provided by the Association of American Publishers.

I’m proposing a free student run college which would operate somewhat like a combination of study group and a class. Let me give you an example. I like building websites. I’ve been doing it for a few years now. I’ve done it for friends, I’ve done it for money, and I’ve done it for the fun of doing it. Sometimes, I’ve done it for school. I’ve placed projects and files on websites for presentations and projects. I have this talent, that’s right I’ll honk my own horn, and I’m willing to share it with others in exchange for information on their talents. Imagine if you will, being able to sign up for a ‘class’ that is run by students, on topics that you’re interested in, that are free. These could help advance you in your career or help introduce you to a known area of weakness. It would be a risk free optional way to get information about an upcoming class that you know you are going to struggle with, but before your GPA is on the line.

There is no reason why this couldn’t happen next semester, or even next week if people wanted to do it. Thoughts or comments?

I have a vision in which students are paid workstudy funds to capture all classes at USM. By capture, I mean that they either record video, audio, or both. These students would be hired as Faculty Assistants to help faculty. One main job of the TA would be to post all audio/video recordings of the classes on a special online class. In this way all classes would be placed online, the day of the class. These classes would be available via RSS in a podcast like form.

Now here lies in the rub, class attendance is optional. It would take some fancy statistics, but I am guessing that if we made class attendance optional, only a fraction of the students would be showing up to any 1 given class. That would mean that we could theoretically enroll many more students for each class. You would have to stream line the work load, home work, test, quizes, and it would mean larger student to faculty ratios, but considering the possibility of widespread faculty cuts, I would much rather see this option.

Its a win win, because as Prof. Grover would say, we are not fighting over who gets a bigger piece of the pie, we are expanding the pie it self. We could actually lower tuition under this theoretical model because we would be engaging an economy of scale by increasing class size. Lowering enrollment would mean that a lot of people recently laid off, may be able to afford more training until they can find or become specialized into a new career. There are some issues to be explored, but I think its worth finding out. I would even be willing to do a case study as a proof of concept. Thoughts?

Topics of discussion will include transportation, energy, and consumer goods and services to name just a few.

There will be plenty of parking but no admission.

Gail Darrell

Tom gave a great introduction to many of the issues facing communities that are fighting corporations last night. Today, Gail brought some first hand experience of her dealings with corporations in her town.

Did you know that New Hampshire has a provision written it’s constitution that states citizen responsibility and duty bound, when confronted by a law that doesn’t work, to revolt against it and replace it with a law that does work. That’s just one of the things that Gail and Tom learned as they set out to protect their town from a Nestle bottling plant. Thankfully the New Hampshire constitution made it easier for the communities to work the issues than in Pennsylvania but its still not over.

While sitting through Tom’s first seminar last night and now sitting in this one, I can’t help but be reminded of the Erin Brokovitch starring Julia Roberts. Its because the actions taken by many corporations and politicians are so distrustful and deceiving that this all seems like a movie.  I’m sitting here and listening to Tom and Gail share example after example of how they were being pushed around. Gail even gave an example of how they needed to incorporate a provision in the ordinance that they passed to not allow selectmen to overturn the ordinance because the in the previous version they did just that.  They held a closed door meeting with out any members of the community present, and they nullified the ordinance that the community passed.  The selectmen didn’t post the nullification or tell anyone about it so the community slept easy thinking the ordinance was still on the books.

The turn out for this workshop was the largest of all the workshops that I had been to over the entire conference.

If you read this post in time, Tom and Gail will be at a Democracy School on 244 Congress Street tomorrow Monday October 20, 2008 from 09:00 – 14:00.  The value of going to the democracy school is priceless, but the cost to get in is $35.00.  If its anything like the two lectures Tom has given to the Bioneers, its money well spent.

Wampanoag Elder and Teacher Gkisebtanamoogk prepares for his presentation.

Gkisebtanamoogk has a very rich experience to say the least. If you listen to the way he speaks, it’s obvious that his cautious and calm nature are a reflection of his wisdom attained after many years of the experience.

He spoke about how this recent trend if reconnecting to nature by the public consciousness is simply seeking to replicate the traditions, beliefs, and actions his people have been living for their entire history. There is nothing like being one of the people living the American lifestyle and getting a very powerful ‘I told ya so.’ it’s a very powerful message that we’ll take home.

He also spoke of how the American Empire is destine to collapse but suggested maybe it should, maybe it would be better to start from scratch and get back to basics. He believes that there needs to be a shift in values to place a stronger emphasis on personal connection like the values of his people. I’m inclined to agree with him.

June shows us some photographs of one artists work that created a wheat field in downtown NYC.

We need to take on the environment issues in a multifaceted way. Art is one if the facets in which we can address the issues facing the environment and make an emotional connection with people in order to foster a change in public policy.

June gave the audience numerous examples of how artists are working to highlight environmental issues through art, sculpture, and environmental installations.

We saw photos of some really cool ways that artists use the environment to make their point. One artist carved water pools artistically in the rock of a mountain side to provide stores rain water to animals in an effort to right the wrongs we’ve commuted to animals and their habitat.

She cinciuded her lecture by asking members of the audience to please “Include the arts to spark environmental action.”

She started at the back and made her way down the aisle to the stage in a very robust dance. By the time she reached the stage the entire audience was clapping to the beat.

After performing dances to two more songs on stage, she lead the audience in an informal dance lesson from which the photographer where able to snap some priceless photos of the audience.

In case you have been snoozing in late like I did on Friday and Sunday, Emma has also been leading yoga at 7am for the three days of the conference.

Many people including myself have applauded the organizer of this event for putting together such an eclectic mix of information and emotion.  It seems like between almost all the presentations we had a form of artistic release be it dancing, music, music and dancing, or guided meditation.  The moderators often had us get up to stretch and encouraged us to go out side during the short breaks between presenters.  Words can’t say how nice it was as an attendee to have that type of consideration placed into the event.

Katherine outlines the ITNAmerica network and how it provides affordable transportation to the elderly.

Katherine outlined her efforts to create a transportation system to address the issue of an aging generation.

She highlights that in the past 100 years we have added 30 years to our lifespan. The percent of change in longevity has increased more in the last 100 years than in the previous 50,000.

Elderly drivers are all to often unable or unwilling to drive but still need to meet the needs of life outside of their homes in the community and beyond.

The work being done by the Independent Transportation Network America is crucial. Many elderly people need access to religious services, groceries, and doctors offices but some less obvious destinations include work, volunteer opportunities, and nursing homes to visit spouses.

The network works by organizing volunteer drivers to pick up elderly members over 60 and drive them at anytime to anywhere they need to go no questions asked.

The service is member based subscription, so the members get a bill at the end of the month which can be reduced by discounts for early planning of rides through advance notice for rides.

The service seems to me really obscure but I am absolutely sure that I would use the service when I’m older. The speaker noted that women on average out live their drivers licence by ten years. Can you imagine sitting at home for ten years waiting for a ride or having to ask family members or neighbors fir a ride every time you need food or underwear? This service is crucial to answering part of our pending transportation crisis.