Sunday, September 25, 2016

Open Logic Project

It's not quite a math book, but Richard Zach in the Dept of Philosophy at the University of Calgary wrote to let me know of the Open Logic Project.  The project is a collection of open educational resources (OER) aimed at teaching advanced logic courses typically found in philosophy curricula.

I looked over the web site and they appear to be adhering to the spirit of OER.  The materials, including a pair of logic textbooks, have source available and are hosted on GitHub.

Of course, one of the major challenges of OER adoption is simply awareness.  Please share this with your colleagues in the philosophy department.

Sunday, September 18, 2016

Planet Money Podcast Looks at the Economics of Textbook Prices

The NPR Planet Money podcast spent a bit of time on the problem of textbook prices in the US.  I know that many folks here are concerned about textbook prices.  This piece, "Why Textbook Prices Keep Climbing", provides a pretty nuanced explanation of the problem.  As with many things, a big part of the problem is that instructors don't know the costs of the texts that they require and rarely select texts with pricing as a factor.