eclectic, pragmatic, enthusiastic
According to Reuters: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishers Inc has reached a deal with more than 70 percent of its creditors to cut $3.1 billion in debt as it faces a lagging textbook market due to drops in educational funding. The publisher said it plans to restructure through a pre-packaged, court-supervised Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The HMH … Read more
I had a chance to learn more about Boundless last week. Extraordinarily interesting stuff. Boundless is definitely “an OER company.” A Boundless textbook is comprised of 95% or more pre-existing OER, with a very minimal amount of newly written material. Their development model appears to be as follows: take a popular textbook, analyze its structure … Read more
Boundless’ authoring model appears to be based on “reverse engineering” publishers’ most popular textbooks. The big publishers’ court case comes down to a single question – is reverse engineering the same as creating a “derivative work?” The question is critical because the creation of derivative works is regulated by copyright. If the court finds that … Read more