E-learn Weblog of Willem van Valkenburg

Last week University of Maryland announced that they are replacing all the textbook with no-costs online resources.

As of this fall, UMUC has moved away from publisher textbooks to no-cost digital resources embedded in courses, saving each UMUC undergraduate student hundreds of dollars a session—potentially thousands over the course of the degree.
By the fall of 2016, all of UMUC's graduate classes will be textbook-free, too. The collective savings is estimated to be in the millions for the more than 80,000 students taking classes at UMUC annually.

This is the kind of leadership we need to fight the power of the publishers and make university more affordable. At the Open Education Global Conference the Open Education Consortium already honoured the university with the President's Award.

Although the costs of textbooks in Europe are lower, it is expense to buy books for a year of university. It would like to see that we could do the same for our Bachelor education.