Open Educational Resources | News
OpenStax College Adding 10 New Textbooks by 2017
OpenStax College founder Rich Baraniuk with some of the publisher's free textbooks (photo: Jeff Fitlow/Rice University) |
Rice University's OpenStax College will add 10 new titles to its catalog of free textbooks by 2017, thanks to $9.5 million in grant funding from the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, Rice alumni John and Ann Doerr and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, all longtime supporters of the institutions open educational resources efforts.
OpenStax College's peer-reviewed textbooks are available online for free or in print at a low cost. The books have been downloaded more than 650,000 times and have been adopted in nearly 900 courses at community colleges, four-year colleges, universities and high schools. With the latest round of funding, the nonprofit publisher is focusing on developing more textbooks for high-enrollment courses, including several science and mathematics courses.
"Our books are opening access to higher education for students who couldn't otherwise afford it," said Rice Professor Richard Baraniuk, founder and director of OpenStax College, in a press release. "We've already saved students millions of dollars, and thanks to the generosity of our philanthropic partners, we hope to save students more than $500 million by 2020."
For more information, visit the OpenStax College site.
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Rhea Kelly is editor in chief for Campus Technology, THE Journal, and Spaces4Learning. She can be reached at [email protected].
