Ranting & Raving on Instructional Design, Education & Technical Training

One of the students in Michael Wesch‘s video “A Vision of Students Today” holds a sign that reads “I buy hundred dollar textbooks that I never open.” Well, a small group of renegade publishers plans to fix that on both counts.

Flatworld Knowledge is one such attempt to “open source” the textbook industry. Founded by ex-pat textbook publishers, Flatworld is offering textbooks free of charge:

Our books might feel like your current book – for a minute. They are written by leading experts and are peer-reviewed, edited, and highly developed. They are supported by test banks, .ppt notes, instructor manuals, print desk copies, and knowledgeable service representatives. There the similarity ends.

Instead of $100 plus, our books are FREE online. We don’t even require registration! Students enter the URL they’re given by their instructor and start reading. It’s that easy. No tricks. No popup ads. No “a premium subscription is needed for that”. In fact, our free online books go beyond what standard print editions provide with integrated audio, video, and interactive features, powerful search capabilities, and more..

Even better – include the book where the rest of your course is! If you are an instructor using an Course/Learning Management System (like Blackboard, Angel, etc.) you will be able to integrate our book (and our instructor supplements) directly into your LMS (beginning March 09). Yep. Still free.

It is what it is. Just great books, by great authors, at a great price – zero. But we are NOT an eBook publisher… Don’t want to read online? Don’t. Read “Convenient Choices” below to learn about the convenient and affordable choices we offer students.

Flatworld allows students to read the books online for free, download audio or PDF versions, or buy printed copies:

Some will read online. Some won’t. Some want print books. Some don’t. We’re not smart enough to figure it out. So we won’t. Now there’s a novel idea. Let instructors adopt the best book for their class. Let students adopt the best format and price for them.

Kayo doesn’t read books online. She orders the black and white softcover for about $29 bucks. It shows up in a few days. Too bland for her friend Sam – he orders the color edition for $59. Not Sharon. She commutes everyday, so nothing but the audio book on her iPod will do. Then there’s Chaz. He’s indecisive. He decides, well, not to decide. He’ll order the self-print .pdf chapters when he needs them for $1.99 per chapter. Cool. And don’t forget Tessa. She never has enough time. She’ll cut to the chase with our mp3 study guides, mobile flash cards, and online practice quizzes with feedback. That’s convenient. That’s choices. That’s Flat World Knowledge.

Textbooks can be built to order and customized for a particular class or application:

Use our books “off-the-shelf”. After all, they’re crafted to meet market needs. But when was the last time you thought of yourself as “the market?” We thought so. So go nuts. Use our “build-a-book” platform. Drag-and-drop chapters into a new table of contents that suits your syllabus. Don’t cover the last chapter? Trash it with a click. Beginning Summer 09, you will be able to edit Flat World open textbooks down to the sentence level. Replace our example with one of yours. Add a paragraph on your pet research topic. When you’re done, click “adopt” and we’ll give you a special URL for your students. If they buy a print version, it’ll be of your unique book. Thank you print-on-demand technology! And thank you, Creative Commons. That’s our open license that allows you to do everything above and more, without any special permissions.

The current catalog is small but interesting. Titles like “Introduction to Economic Analysis,” “Risk Management for Enterprises and Individuals,” and “Project Management in a Virtual World” are available. The feeling you get from visiting their web site (and thinking back on buying textbooks in college) is that they are on top of an idea whose time has come.

Another novel venture called Scitable by Nature Education is offering mix-and-match articles on genetics that are coupled with social networking tools and content uploads from instructors and authors so that custom course materials can be dynamically fashioned as needed by teachers and presenters.

It will be interesting to see if these ideas and others like it spill over to other technical and scientific subjects and maybe even get adopted by corporate training departments that always seem to need training materials on fundamentals and industry standards.