Providing college students with free textbooks is no easy task. That seems to be the major lesson from several efforts to produce e-books that are low-cost or free to help reduce students’ costs. Money pressures, slow adoption by professors, and quality concerns stand in the way as these projects hope to rival traditional publishing.The Chronicle.
Polish Prime Minister Office yesterday accepted “Digital School program” with “Digital Textbooks” component included. With 45 million PLN (approx. 15 million USD) funding it has been the biggest governmental Open Educational Resources initiative in Poland so far. The government has decided to fund creating full set of educational materials for grades 4-6 (9-11 year olds). All those resources will be available under CC BY license, which is fully free license according to the Definition of Free Cultural Works.