A recent debate has started to brew over the future of traditional textbooks. As reported in earlier pages, traditional textbooks have started to find some fierce competition from non-traditional models. Whether that be in-store kiosks to online retailers, today students are looking for the best deals possible.
A new company has emerged who has taken this idea a step further. Welcome to the world of open textbooks and shared information. The company's name: Flat World Knowledge.
Eric Frank, one of the co-founders of this company, recently gave an interview to Timothy Vollmer of Creative Commons. The interview is one worth reading, and I would like to share one excerpt from this wonderful piece. Keep in mind, what you're about to read is a conversation between Mr. Vollmer and Mr. Frank.
"Why did you start Flat World Knowledge and how did you decide to approach this business using open content?
My co-founder Jeff Shelstad and I come out of a long history in textbook publishing. We left a major textbook publisher because of what we perceived as exceedingly-high dissatisfaction levels among the primary constituents in that market-students, faculty and authors. These groups were scratching their heads wondering if the print-based business model was going to be able to serve them going forward.
When we began thinking about how to build a new business model, we didn't actually know that much about open educational resources and open licensing. We started to bake a business model based on bringing prices down and increasing access for students; giving faculty more control over the teaching and learning experience; and providing a healthier and more sustainable income stream for authors.
And then we started to meet people in the open community. We spoke to Open Education scholar and advocate David Wiley (and Flat World's Chief Openness Officer) who said, "It's funny, you sound a lot like me, except we use different words." This pushed us a little bit further. Ultimately, through a very pragmatic approach to solving real problems that customers were facing, we arrived at this open textbook model."
This model has started a new round of conversation, and will most definitely influence how textbooks are written, sold, and ultimately used. Please consider reading the rest of the interview, as they dive much further into the issue.
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