{"id":3124,"date":"2015-04-18T21:08:20","date_gmt":"2015-04-19T05:08:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/?p=3124"},"modified":"2025-08-18T12:57:37","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T19:57:37","slug":"maybe-free-is-bad-something-else-not-to-talk-about","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/2015\/04\/maybe-free-is-bad-something-else-not-to-talk-about\/","title":{"rendered":"Maybe free is bad – something else not to talk about"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have just spent the last few weeks doing as I meant to do for the last year – creating a book of Wikipedia text and my own edited primary source documents to create a free textbook for my students in Western Civ I.<\/p>\n

Now that I\u2019ve finished, and it\u2019s all ready for my summer classes (both as a pdf they can download and print, and chapters inside my online class), I can go back and catch up on my reading about online teaching.<\/p>\n

One of the things I\u2019m supposed to be reading about is OEI, the California Online Education Initiative<\/a> being run by a number of wonderful people. What they\u2019re creating, however, will undermine artisan course design and bring in rubrics that already have several good online teachers in tears<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As part of this project, there are courses being offered by faculty at several institutions. A number of faculty have volunteered to have their classes be models for the new system (I declined when I saw the rubric). The word \u201cmodel\u201d has now been thrown around the administration as meaning they are great classes.<\/p>\n

Some may be. Some of the most lauded, however, are taught with prepackaged course cartridges and full technology from a major publisher. I went and looked at that publisher\u2019s offering for one \u201cmodel\u201d class, their costly package to students, and found what I expected – the cartridge is essentially teaching the class.<\/p>\n

While it\u2019s sickening that this kind of thing is the new \u201cmodel\u201d course for the future (I’ve ranted about that elsewhere), I was looking at the price. $177 new, with rentals varying from $80-133.<\/p>\n

\"cc
cc Rudi Riet<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In all classes except one, now, I\u2019ve given<\/em> all the materials to my students. They don\u2019t need to buy anything. My classes have students who go in and out, don\u2019t do all their work, fail because they don\u2019t follow instructions. In the \u201cmodel\u201d canned course, student success rates are high, as is retention. Extremely high. Only 10% seem to leave the class. Grades are high too. In History classes overall, it isn\u2019t unusual to have 20% drop the class. We have always thought this is because our History classes are more demanding than what is being offered in other disciplines.<\/p>\n

But there may be another aspect. If one pays $177, perhaps one is more dedicated to the class? Or could it be that the canned class makes it easier for students to pass without much stress (i.e. thinking) so they tend to stay? Or could the canned class be better? for whom? for learning? or just to make everything easier for everyone, student and instructor alike?<\/p>\n

But wait! I know of another discipline (again, not mine) with high student success and retention also, where their online numbers equal their on-site numbers, but the classes are not canned, and in fact are outstanding artisan classes. The book? $95 new, $52-72 for rental.<\/p>\n

My conclusion? I should not be creating free materials – it may be devaluing the classes I\u2019m teaching. I know it\u2019s not the quality of the materials – not only do I edit them all myself, but I have reviewed dozens of textbooks (see my name in many of them) and most are not very good. It\u2019s the perception<\/em> of the quality of the materials.<\/p>\n

I had a student comment on an evaluation that he didn\u2019t want to read the article I had linked from Wikipedia, because it made him feel like he wasn\u2019t in a college class – if he wanted to read Wikipedia, he didn\u2019t need to be paying college tuition. (Of course, he isn\u2019t paying much tuition – the state has him covered – but that\u2019s another post.) The quality of the article wasn\u2019t the point – it was Wikipedia, so it must be useless.<\/p>\n

If I\u2019m right, the point that has gotten lost in the anger at high textbook prices, the insistence that community college remain open access, and the administrative concern about retention, is that students may want<\/em> to pay high prices for textbooks. It may keep them dedicated to the class, even when they have to borrow money to buy them. I don\u2019t think anyone really wants to talk about that possibility.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have just spent the last few weeks doing as I meant to do for the last year – creating a book of Wikipedia text and my own edited primary source documents to create a free textbook for my students in Western Civ I. Now that I\u2019ve finished, and it\u2019s all ready for my summer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[10,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-online-teaching","category-open-education"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3124"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3124\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9885,"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3124\/revisions\/9885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}