My Investigation into Open-Access Textbooks

            The question that I try to answer here is “what can writing studies do to combat academic publishing oligopolies?” and “what can we do as teachers to combat academic publishing oligopolies?” I see these questions as worth answering because, basically, academic publishers damage public good in a direct exchange for higher and higher profit margins. When I first decided to get involved in this battle, I didn’t realize it, but there are actually two separate and distinct fronts on which the battle is being fought: the first front is academic textbook publishing, and the second is scholarly article and book publishing. Though similar, both fronts on this battle have their own separate problems and potential solutions. Here, I will focus on open-access textbooks specifically.

            Regardless of whether open-access textbooks are viable, clearly, something needs to be done about how students purchase their texts. An excellent source (Okamoto “Making Higher Education More Affordable”) outlined many of the problems associated with the current system of academic textbook publishing. Basically, publishers charge more than they should: the cost of textbooks has increased “more than four times the rate of inflation” over the past few decades (Okamoto 268). Many problems have come a long with this increase in price. A study of over 14,000 students in Flordia has revealed that a 7.2% of students have claimed to have failed a course because they were unable to afford the texts for the class (Okamoto 269).When I was in Pittsburgh, I had a heated conversation with a Pearson author about open-access textbooks (Sid Dobrin, chair of University of Florida’s English department), and he was not only very frank in his motivation for writing texts for Pearson (money), but he also said that he thought it was impossible for students to successfully be able to use open-access textbooks.

Figure One: Sid Dobrin, Pearson textbook author and English department chair

On the contrary to what Sid said and how enthusiastically he argued, I believe that open-access textbooks can work, or at least, that current textbooks can become more affordable, and that not trying for some kind of better and cheaper solution for students is selfish. I'm not arguing that Sid is selfish (I understand his desire for a secure retirement), but I think that someone needs to do something. The article described different legislative efforts to make texts more affordable: including a bill in Washington that limited course materials to less than $30 per class and a bill in California that funded the development of open source electronic textbooks (Okamoto 270). It is important to note, however, that these bills tend not to work unless there is strong enforcement with the state; they are just lofty ideals that don't change much.

Overall, I think that the most promising places to look will be where schools have somehow suceeded in making their textbooks affordable. The same could be said about the other front that this war is being waged on: what can we learn from the UC system rejecting Elsevier? How did that work for them? Will this lead to better prices for all schools on scholarly information? And if so, how can other universities emulate this victory?