The Salt Lake Tribune has published a great article on Utah’s transition to open textbooks. But perhaps the most enlightening part of the article isn’t in the article at all – it’s this comment:
The books are open source, meaning that the person who wrote the book is doing it for the goodness of mankind and expects no compensation. I know that’s hard to believe, but I’m a teacher and have been working on some of the science books mentioned. Other than the State Office covering the price of my substitute for two days I haven’t been paid a thing (same for the other 20-30 teachers on the project). The books are now done and FREE for the world to use. The best part about these books is a year from now after using them in our classrooms we’ll get back together (USOE covering our subs) and fix the issues we have found and make them even better to again be posted for the world to use for FREE.
Now THAT’s what I’m talking about.