Open Education Non-Profit Offers $20,000 to Each College Textbook Author Willing to License Texts Openly Under Creative Commons Licensing and Allow Free Use for Students and Educators
WASHINGTON, Sept. 7, 2011 The Saylor Foundation (http://www.saylor.org), a leading provider and curator of open college-level courseware, announced that it is offering $20,000 to college textbook authors who agree to license their works under a "Creative Commons" (CC By 3.0) license, which helps creators retain copyright while allowing others to copy, distribute, and make various uses of their work including create derivative works.
Eligible textbooks will reinforce and expand upon subject areas correlating to the 200+ free online college-level courses available at Saylor.org, which are drawn from high-enrollment majors at traditional U.S. colleges. The texts will also be openly available to anyone in the world and freely distributed via various web platforms.
"According to the College Board, an average college student at a four-year public university spends over $1,000 in textbooks each year. That means that in just America alone, the total cost for course materials is in the billions of dollars. Obviously the yearly global cost is even higher," said Alana Harrington, Program Director for the Saylor Foundation.
"In the words of our trustee, we have a massive redundancy problem that needs to be addressed. We cannot succeed in providing free education unless we find a way to provide open access to relevant, quality content at zero cost. Accordingly, we launched this Textbook Challenge to gather and promote the development of quality, openly licensed texts and make them available to everyone...for free...right now."
"This is exciting news, as we have several faculty in our colleges who will likely be eligible," said Tom Caswell, Open Education Policy Associate at the Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges. "I hope this will tip the scales for others developing textbooks and considering going open."
About the Saylor Foundation
The Saylor Foundation (under its legal name, The Constitution Foundation) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization headquartered in Washington, D.C. The Foundation was established in 1999 by Michael J. Saylor, Chairman, CEO, and President of the business intelligence company Microstrategy. Mr. Saylor serves as the Foundation's sole trustee.
The Foundation's focus since 2008 has been its Free Education Initiative, through which it is using technology to drive down the cost of education to zero. Saylor.org will serve as a zero-cost alternative to those that lack the resources to attend traditional brick-and-mortar institutions and, if they are willing, a complement to mainstream education providers. Saylor expects free, asynchronous, web-based learning opportunities to motivate people to pursue personal growth and career ambitions as well as lead to institutional change amongst education providers everywhere.
More information about the Saylor Foundation is available at www.saylor.org.
Jeff Davidson
Saylor Foundation
Jeff.Davidson@Saylor.org
301-675-6618
Camie Rodan
Saylor Foundation
Camie.Rodan@Saylor.org
202-333-4005
SOURCE The Saylor Foundation
