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A student-driven initiative plans to turn the page on skyrocketing textbook costs by promoting an affordable, online educational resource that's picking up steam across the nation: open-source textbooks. Starting this fall, the University System of Maryland Student Council will pilot a program to allow interested faculty members in high-enrollment, entry-level classes to use open-source textbooks.

"This past semester, William Kiker and I (Kelly Wroblewski) applied to be part of a pilot iPad program at our high school.  As members of a small project based  learning community within Austin High School in Austin, TX, we latched on to the ShowMe app pretty quickly."

As someone who has taught large courses at a University of California, I can assure readers that my job could have easily been automated. Most of college-the expansive campuses and large lecture halls-will crumble into ghost towns as budget-strapped schools herd students online.

"On Tuesday, San Jose State University announced an unusual pilot project with Udacity, a for-profit provider of the massive open online courses, to jointly create three introductory mathematics classes. The courses will be free online, but students who want credit from San Jose State will be able to take them for just $150, far less than the $450 to $750 that students would typically pay for a credit-bearing course."

The Amarillo Area Center for Advanced Learning in Texas is replacing textbooks with digital open educational resources (OER) for its math and science classes using iPads. The specialty high school in Texas recently implemented a 1:1 iPad initiative, and the OER pilot program is intended to help cut costs while providing students with access to high-quality, easily updatable learning resources on their iPads. The district selected a free, Web-based solution, Net Texts, to provide teachers with access to a library of more than 21,000 free OER learning resources from Curriki, Khan Academy, and several universities and colleges.

All OMS CS course content will be delivered via the massive open online course (MOOC) format, with enhanced support services for students enrolled in the degree program. Those students also will pay a fraction of the cost of traditional on-campus master's programs; total tuition for the program is initially expected to be below $7,000. A pilot program, partly supported by a generous gift from AT&T, will begin in the next academic year. Initial enrollment will be limited to a few hundred students recruited from AT&T and Georgia Tech corporate affiliates.

Washtenaw Community College is the first community college in Michigan to put a textbook-free learning program in place. The Kaleidoscope Project uses open educational resources - basically online textbooks - to help make higher education more affordable. She says the project will be in place in one reading and one intermediate algebra class this fall, but the hope is that it can be expanded in the future.

"Over half of American college students have used an eTextbook in their studies, but only around 3% of textbook sales in the United States are digital. Institutional adoption of eTextbooks is low in the United States, as only 5% are broadly deploying them. Adoption in the United States is typically limited to pilots or individual faculty."

The Utah Open Textbook Initiative (UTOT) began in 2010. From a small pilot involving less than 10 teachers and three grades, UTOT has grown to a statewide program for grades 7 - 12 that improves science learning and drastically reduces the cost of providing every student with access to quality science curriculum. This whitepaper describes the UTOT process for successfully creating and adopting open science textbooks.

The University System of Maryland will this fall launch a pilot project to gauge the efficiency of open educational resources (OER), James Jalandoni, president of the system's student council, said on Monday. "We have made it a priority to start tackling the issue of textbook costs and the impact they have on college affordability," Jalandoni said.

Twenty-first-century learners have expectations that are not met within the current model of higher education. With the introduction of online learning, the anytime/anywhere mantra taken up by many postsecondary institutions was a first step to meeting learner needs for flexibility; however, the choice and determination of delivery mode still resides with the institution and course instructors. Recently, the massive open online course (MOOC) movement has been introduced as an undeniable force in higher education, and the authors argue that it is distracting leadership from focusing on alternative options for supporting the needs of learners who demand both personalization and real access to learning opportunities. The key element to the MOOC movement is its openness that enables student access to education. In this article, the authors present the multi-access learning framework that envelops the MOOC phenomenon and merges course access modes enabling student choice and agency. The authors report results from a pilot study on one type of multi-access course, where students were able to choose their mode of access. In this case, remote students accessed the course via webcam and joined their on-campus classmates and instructor who were together face-to-face. Implications for multi-access learning in relation to the MOOC movement are discussed.

"The eTexts: Adopt, Remix, Create program supports instructors who want to find better textbook options for their students. This initiative is being piloted by DoIT Academic Technology and the UW Libraries to encourage a transition away from high cost commercial textbooks and to explore new paradigms for course readings. We encourage instructors to think broadly and creatively about what might make their course materials better."

"Although the open-source textbook concept has been embraced by student groups such as the Student Government Association in College Park, university officials say the challenges include connecting professors with the materials they need for the textbooks and creating a system to assess the quality of the books. Another complication: Many universities are bound to contracts with private companies to run campus bookstores, where many students purchase their textbooks. University System of Maryland financial records show that the bookstore contracts are not always lucrative, however - last year the system lost about $1 million."

"1/5 of all Sakai institutions appear to be actively running, piloting, or planning to switch to a different LMS. The most popular LMSs being run in parallel are Blackboard Learn and Canvas."

The House education committee, led by Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., released its reauthorization proposal over the summer in four smaller bills that respectively focus on simplifying the financial aid application process; increasing transparency by creating a centralized "College Dashboard" containing information on student outcomes; increasing financial awareness by providing counseling options for students and families; and promoting innovation through competency-based education pilot programs. All but the first bill have been passed in the chamber, but Democrats have criticized the House package for not doing enough to curb the high cost of college.

"ACE announced today that 25 colleges and universities are joining an alternative credit consortium as part of an innovative initiative to create a more flexible pathway toward a college degree for millions of nontraditional learners. The 25 institutions serving in this pilot project have agreed to accept all or most of the transfer credit sought by students who successfully complete courses that are part of a selected pool of about 100 low-cost or no-cost lower division general education online courses. These institutions also will help identify the sources, criteria and quality of the courses."

"Faculty and students at UC Davis, meanwhile, are developing what they call "hyperlibraries" of faculty writings, homework questions, research and other content available online that are then vetted, and, like a Wikipedia page, constantly expanded and adapted to meet specific needs. The goal is to produce e-textbooks in the chemistry, biology, statistics, math, physics and geology fields - dubbed ChemiWiki, BioWiki, MathWiki, etc. - that eventually will supplant traditional texts, which can cost up to $300 per copy, said UC Davis chemistry professor Delmar Larsen. A pilot study of the ChemWiki last spring found that students in a general chemistry class who used the online materials would have spent about $125,000 had they bought new textbooks, Larsen said."

"Penn State researchers have been piloting a technology that allows faculty (and students) to build e-textbooks algorithmically using keywords to gather together materials from open resources."

"What Anbar has in mind is something he calls "active OER." That's taking the standard digital textbook and expanding it with the addition of digital resources, including simulations that are both interactive and adaptive. "The learner doesn't just move something around in the simulation but actually gets prompting feedback that guides them to success," he explained. That's where Smart Sparrow comes in: The company produces aero, a learning platform that allows the instructor to pull together lessons from a set of templates that can include text, tests, assessments, virtual labs and field trips, and other digital components. For the purposes of the consortium, those elements would be pulled from OER materials."

Early this morning teacher Don Wettrick found out he's among 8,000 chosen to get a pair of Google Glass - voice activated, Internet-connected eyewear that can be used to film videos, browse the Web or see maps transposed on streets. A pair of the slim glasses will become part of Wettrick's innovations course in the Johnson County school district. Students will test out the glasses and come up with new applications.