What's the difference between money-making and profit-taking? Are the for-profit mega-publishers who print obscene numbers of textbooks for equally obscene profit any different than Halliburton and their ilk?
This morning's Inside Higher Ed in their "Views" section (essentially an op-ed) featured Robert Brooker, a textbook author, discussing "The Value of a Textbook." If you're paid to do a full-time-plus job, when do you find time to write a textbook? Aren't you already being paid, to some extent, to write the text, as it flows from teaching and learning obligations inherent to the title "professor?"
Many online "textbooks" have been made available for "free." Basically any programming you want to learn can be learned online--it might not be as clean as an edited book, but frequently there are tips and real feedback from real people that can solve problems faster than any book ever could. For more traditional learning, there are programs such as Connexions, which allow for seemingly "interactive" teaching without any actual interaction. Again, much better than a static text.
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