Notes from a report by Jim Milliot of Publishers Weekly
Many anticipate that 40,000 college students at over 400 colleges will use open source digital textbooks from Flat World Knowledge this fall. Flat World went live in spring 2009 with 1,000 students from 30 colleges using its offering.
The Flat World’s pricing/business model students allows access entire textbooks for free online; pay $19.95 for a PDF download; pay $29.95 for a black and white printed version or $59.95 for a color version, or pay $39.95 for an audio version. Books are available by the book or by the chapter. Study aids or also available for purchase.
Eric Frank, a cofounder of Flat World believes a quantum leap will occur for fall 2010 when he thinks the number of students could be between 120,000 to 200,000.
If more books are read digitally, this means less text paper sold ..... another challenge for the paper industry.
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1 comment:
Very interesting technology. I wonder if a study has been conducted on evaluating the difference in performance on exams between the college student studying from Flat World electronic media and studying out of a traditional paper text book. Any comments?
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