Harnessing Technology to make education free

Our content is 85% complete

The Open Textbook Challenge

The Saylor Foundation is excited to announce the winners of Wave I of the Open Textbook Challenge!

Each of these textbooks is now available under a CC-BY license, and the authors are receiving a $20,000 award for each accepted textbook.

 

Wave II Submission Information

The second wave of submissions for the Open Textbook Challenge is now open. To ensure professors around the globe have ample time to prepare high quality submissions, we are extending the second wave until May 31, 2012.

Did you know that, according to the College Board, the average college student at a four-year public school spends over $1,000 for textbooks each year?  This means that in just America alone, the total cost for course materials is in the billions of dollars.  These high costs are greatly impacting students’ access to education, with 7 of 10 students reporting they’ve not purchased a textbook simply because of its cost.

We need to provide a cost-free alternative, and we need your help doing so.  If you know about a textbook that might be eligible for inclusion in one of The Saylor Foundation’s free, online college-level courses, let us know!  We are offering potentially millions of dollars in bounties and awards for referrals and submissions that meet our criteria.

 

Bounties and Awards

Do you own the rights to a textbook that you are willing to share with our project?  We will offer you a $20,000 award if you submit your textbook to us and it is accepted for use in our course materials.  For a list of eligible courses please click here.

Prior to acceptance, your text will be presented to a team of peer reviewers who will need to confirm that your text meets the criteria outlined below.  Please note that you will be required to license, or re-license, your text under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC-BY) license if it is accepted for use in our courseware.  (For more information on open licensing, please visit the Creative Commons website.)  We will not be accepting texts previously licensed under CC-BY, CC-BY-SA, CC-BY-NC, or CC-BY-NC-SA licenses (i.e., texts that exist under CC-BY, CC-BY-SA, CC-BY-NC, or CC-BY-NC-SA licenses prior to submission to the Open Textbook Challenge). If you are an author wishing to update an existing textbook under one of these licenses to cover one of our courses, we request that you contact us separately so that we can consider coming to an agreement outside of the Open Textbook Challenge process.

In order to be eligible for our extended second wave of funding, please submit your textbook by May 31, 2012.  Accepted texts from the second wave will be announced on this website on September 30, 2012.  Prior and subsequent waves of funding are outlined below, in the “Disbursement of Awards” section.

Can you refer us to an individual who owns the rights to a textbook and is willing to share his or her content with us?  We will offer you a $250 referral bounty if you post this Challenge on your Facebook wall or in your Twitter Feed and someone submits a textbook that we accept for use in one of our courses using your referral link.  Click here to generate your own referral link! If you forgot your referral link, you can recover it here. Feel free to email otc[at]saylor[dot]org with any questions.

 

Click Here to Submit Your Textbook 

 

Criteria for Submission

  • Please read through this list to ensure that your submission is eligible for consideration.
    1. 1. The submitted textbook must cover the topics presented in at least one course in the Saylor curricula from this list of eligible courses.  Prior to submission, please re-check the course eligibility list to ensure the relevant course is still available.
    2. 2. The submitted texts must include content that covers 100% of the subject matter for a specific Saylor.org course.  The texts may include additional materials.  If the submitted text covers the majority (rather than the entirety) of the course’s topics, the submitter may send a “text supplement” that addresses the remaining topics.  This supplement may be original content or may be a compilation of openly licensed materials that bear a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC-BY) license.  Preference will be given to texts that are relevant to more than one course or that can more fully align with a course’s listed topics.  You will need to indicate which course(s) your text covers.  To demonstrate the submitted text’s alignment with a Saylor course, the submitter must also include a course mapping form to indicate how the submitted text covers the materials in the relevant course(s).  The course mapping forms for all eligible courses can be found here and are also linked on the submission form.  *Note that if a submitted text includes any remixed, openly licensed content, this content must be properly attributed to the source text as per the stipulations of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC-BY) license.
    3. 3. The submitted textbook must be a comprehensive work geared towards an undergraduate audience and a specific field of study.  Course notes, course packs, lecture notes, dissertations, and anthologies will not be accepted for this challenge.
    4. 4. Note that each submitted text will be subject to a plagiarism check to ensure that the text is an original work and that it does not infringe the copyright of any third party.
    5. 5. As indicated on the submission form, you must include the sources utilized in creating the text and a list of references who can speak to your qualifications to write a text on the relevant subject.
    6. 6. The textbook must be submitted in an editable digital format (.doc, .docx, .pdf, .odt).  Scanned textbooks are not eligible.
    7. 7. The individual or individuals that retain(s) copyright to the submitted text must sign The Saylor Foundation’s Open Textbook Challenge Submission Agreement.  This agreement confirms that the textbook submitter is the legal copyright holder to the text and states that if the Foundation accepts the submitted text for use in its courseware, the text will be relicensed under Creative Commons license (CC-BY), in perpetuity.  For more information on Creative Commons licensing, visit the Creative Commons website.
    8. 8. The submitted text must be fully edited.  No rough drafts/partial drafts will be accepted.

Criteria for Selection

Submitted texts will be subject to several rounds of review, including a Basic Screening, a Cursory Review by a Lead Peer Reviewer, and a full Peer Review, prior to text acceptance.  Please read the descriptions below for more information on each of these processes.

  • Basic Screening Process

    Once a text has been submitted to the Open Textbook Challenge, Foundation staff will conduct a basic screening to ensure that the document meets the criteria for submission and the minimum criteria for review.  More specifically, staff will confirm that:

    1. 1. All required materials have been submitted.
    2. 2. The text has been submitted in an editable format.
    3. 3. The text title matches up with the course(s) with which it purports to align.
    4. 4. The text is written in standard English.
    5. 5. The course mapping document bears no obvious problems or misalignments (e.g., the applicant has indicated that a chapter titled “History of the Gothic Novel” aligns with a unit titled “Modernist Poetry”).
    6. 6. The text bears no glaring issues in its presentation or format.
    7. 7. There are no apparent problems with copyright ownership.

    If the text successfully passes this basic screening, the text will be authorized for a Cursory Review by a Lead Peer Reviewer (LPR).

  • Cursory Review Process

    Once a text has passed the basic screening process, the  submitted text will be forwarded to a pre-selected LPR with subject matter expertise in the textbook’s listed topic.  The LPR will:

    1. 1. Confirm that the textbook aligns with the course that the applicant has proposed.
    2. 2. Confirm that the course mapping provided by the applicant is accurate.
    3. 3. Read a representative chapter/unit of the textbook and score the representative chapter according to 13 criteria.
    4. 4. Offer any other general comments/feedback on the quality of the text.
    5. 5. Conduct a reasonableness check by conducting a quick search on the ISBN (if available) and text title and reviewing the text’s provenance, as furnished in the application materials.

    If the LPR’s Cursory Review report recommends that the text is authorized for full review, the text will be forwarded to a peer review panel of 1-3 reviewers and will be subject to the peer review process outlined below.

  • Peer Review Process

    Once a text has been recommended for full review, Foundation staff will work closely with the LPR in order to:

    1. 1. Determine the number of peer reviewers needed to review the text and enlist a panel of peer reviewers;
    2. 2. Divide the submitted text into an appropriate breakdown of chapters/sections based on the number of peer reviewers and the length of text;
    3. 3. Assign each peer reviewer a different portion of the textbook based on his or her expertise.

    Once these factors have been determined, each peer reviewer will perform two important tasks.  He or she will score his or her assigned portion of the text according to the criteria outlined below AND review the applicant’s Course Mapping Form in order to determine whether the submitted text aligns with one or more Saylor Foundation courses.

  • Peer Review Criteria
    1. 1. Comprehensiveness – The submitted text must cover 100% of the topics in at least one course in the Saylor curricula.  Peer reviewers should use the applicant’s course mapping in order to determine whether a given chapter adequately covers the course’s progression of topics.  The text must also cover the listed topics with a sufficient degree of depth and granularity.
    2. 2. Content Accuracy and Currency – Content must be accurate, error-free, unbiased, and up-to-date.
    3. 3. Relevance/Longevity – Content should be up-to-date, but not in a way that will quickly make the text obsolete within a short period of time.  The text should be written and/or arranged in such a way that necessary updates will be relatively easy and straightforward to implement on a yearly basis.
    4. 4. Clarity – The text must be written in lucid, accessible prose, and should provide adequate context and glossing for any jargon/technical terminology used.
    5. 5. Readership Level – The text must be written in a manner that is appropriate for community college and college students.  The tone and presentation of topics should be accessible to students at a college level.
    6. 6. Consistency – The text must be internally consistent in terms of terminology and framework, and must also be consistent with the presentation of subjects in the Saylor course.  For example, does that text present a subject using different terms/keywords than does the course itself?  Does the text overlook or omit large aspects of the course’s presentation of an important topic?  Does the text maintain internal consistency, or does it use a variety of different keywords/terms to describe the same concept?
    7. 7. Modularity – The text must be easily and readily divisible into smaller reading sections that can be assigned at different points within the course (i.e., enormous blocks of text without subheadings should be avoided).  The text should not be overly self-referential, and should be easily reorganized and realigned with various subunits of a course without presenting much disruption to the reader.
    8. 8. Organization/Structure/Flow – The topics in the text must be presented in a logical, clear fashion consistent with or adaptable to the presentation of topics in the Saylor course.
    9. 9. Interface – The text must be free of significant interface issues, including navigation problems, distortion of images/charts, and any other display features that may distract or confuse the reader.
    10. 10. Content Errors – The text should not contain any major content errors.  Any discovered errors should be identified clearly by the reviewer.
    11. 11. Grammatical Errors – The text should contain few (if any) grammatical errors.
    12. 12. Cultural Relevance – The text should not be culturally insensitive or offensive in any way.  It should make use of examples that are inclusive of a variety of races, ethnicities, and backgrounds.
    13. 13. Assignments/Problem Sets/Exercises – Preference will be given to texts that include assignments, problem sets, and other exercises.

    Are you interested in peer reviewing submitted texts for the Saylor Foundation’s Open Textbook Challenge? Please click here to learn more about the position and to apply.

Disbursement of Awards

We accepted submissions and referrals for our inaugural wave of funding through November 1, 2011.  Accepted texts from Wave I are listed at the top of this page.

Texts for the extended second wave of funding must be submitted by May 31, 2012; second wave awards will be announced in September 30, 2012.  Texts for the third wave of funding must be submitted by September 30, 2012; third wave awards will be announced on January 31, 2013.