Nearly 3 million students are using Rice University-published online textbooks this year
Uploading education
More and more students and educational institutions are opting out of physical textbooks each year. One company leading the digital textbook revolution is located right here in Houston.
OpenStax is a Rice University-based publisher of open educational resources. The company has been publishing its free resources since 2012, growing its presence to over 36 college and Advanced Placement courses, according to a news release from Rice.
This year, over 90 percent of students will log on to free textbooks digitally in some way — through a website, PDF, or on OpenStax, the release states, and OpenStax new app received almost 58,000 downloads in just a month.
"We are exceeding even our own expectations of growth and impact on a daily basis," says Daniel Williamson, managing director of OpenStax, in a release. "This tells us that people believe in what we've created and that we need to keep going."
The company, which focuses on access to textbooks for students, also provides print books at a lower cost, and OpenStax entered into a deal with Vretta Inc. to expand this print program to Canada earlier this year.
OpenStax itself is responsible for saving 9 million students over $830 million, per the release, not the mention the fact that digital resources is driving the cost of textbooks down in general.
"Until a few years ago the college textbook bubble had seen sustained growth — textbook prices had risen 800 percent over 50 years," says Mark Perry, a scholar at The American Enterprise Institute and professor of economics and finance at the University of Michigan, in the release. "In 2017, there was a market-wide drop in textbook prices, and I believe that free alternatives like OpenStax books are central to that disruption."
OpenStax has plans to continue its growth with the launch of Rover by OpenStax, which is a low-cost online math tool that incorporates a step-by-step feedback technology called Stepwise.
