Open textbooks offer affordable alternative, student interest group says

The average student spends close to $900 a year on books, according to a recent study by Student Public Interest Research Groups, a national coalition. The group is leading a campaign to encourage professors to consider adopting open-source textbooks.

Open textbooks are available for free online under an open-source license, which allows professors to customize the text. Students who would like a hard copy of a book can choose from a variety of lower-cost printing options.

Professors nationwide are starting to use open textbooks, but options are limited. Fox, a regents professor of zoology at OSU, is among more than 2,500 professors who signed a pledge on the coalition's website to consider using open textbooks.

His general ecology students pay $80 to $100 for the class textbook. Fox said he decided to keep using the book because he thought it would hurt his students not to, but he and other professors in his department are looking for more affordable options.

"We're just terribly concerned about the cost of textbooks and the more-or-less monopoly that textbook publishers have in that they charge exorbitant prices in a closed market," Fox said.

Fox said open textbooks might be a better option for his students, but he needs to learn more about them.

Some Oklahoma professors are already using open textbooks.