Remix and Mash-up Course Textbooks

The idea of remixing textbooks and mashing up various sources has been around for a while. Most of the companies offering these services sound great, but just didn’t catch on in a big way. But that may change – Pearson announced today that they will be jumping into the textbook remix/mash-up arena with Project Blue Sky.

You can read the details about this project also in this article at The Chronicle. Gooru Learning is also a part of this partnership.

Of course, instructors have been doing mash-ups with photocopying machines forever, with many of them switching over to scanners and PDFs once they take their courses digital. My prediction is that the price point on these “mash-up” textbooks will be the make-or-break of this project. Students have already grown tired of over-priced digital textbooks.

Another issue to consider is what else can be mixed into the content. What about interactive activities? Videos? If you are going to put these on a mobile device, will you be able to insert blog posts and other websites into the content? Will the authors of these websites be compensated for their inclusion?

I am also curious to see if there will be some kind of bulk rate for entire schools. Most schools purchase access to journals and other electronic research materials… why not just buy access to textbooks also? Then you can mix in journal articles with the chapters from the text book you want, and the students don’t have to pay extra for textbooks on top of fees. Or maybe they just have a low, flat textbook fee each semester? If they focus Project Blue Sky on individual instructors, it will basically just become as convoluted as our current textbook system is – just a bit easier on the back. But focus it on entire Universities – you might have a massive, customizable tool right at your fingertips.

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