California and its Open Textbook efforts

Open educational resources

From Hal Plotkin, founder of ReelChanges.org:

Last week, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed Assemblyman Ira Ruskin's bill, AB 2261, which will expand participation in the public domain -- or open educational resources -- free textbook project I initiated at Foothill-De Anza five years ago.

As some of you know, I cooked up the idea for this legislation and brought it to Ira nearly three years ago. I worked closely with Ira last year, through numerous drafts -- when we failed to get an earlier version of 2261 out of the Senate -- and again this year. ...

This is the first legislation that puts the state of California squarely behind those of us who are working to create free, high-quality, vetted public domain — or "open" — educational resources for community college students, who stand to save literally hundreds of millions of dollars over the coming decade as a result.

The scholar David Wiley has observed that introducing Open Educational Resources into the public education system is the most significant development since the establishment of Land Grant colleges and universities in the mid 1800's.

What's also wonderful is the knowledge that, even in these difficult days when our system seems so very broken, an ordinary citizen like me can still offer up a useful idea and see it enacted into law.

Here's the first post I made on this topic.

In these dark budgetary times, it's a slim ray of light, but a significant one.