The California Open Source Textbook Project (COSTP) was founded in 2000 by Sanford Forte, a former college textbook publishing executive. COSTP was a not-for-profit, collaborative, public/private undertaking originally created to address the high cost, content range, and consistent shortages of

K-12 K-1 is a professional kickboxing promotion established in 1993 by karateka Kazuyoshi Ishii. Originally under the ownership of the Fighting and Entertainment Group (FEG), K-1 was considered to be the largest Kickboxing organization in the world. ...

textbook A textbook is a book containing a comprehensive compilation of content in a branch of study with the intention of explaining it. Textbooks are produced to meet the needs of educators, usually at educational institutions, but also of learners ( ...

s in

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

. COSTP's mandate later expanded to include undergraduate and graduate university instructional materials, covering the entire K-20 range.

The plan

COSTP's main goals were as follows: *Leveraging free, already-existing, and widely available educational content in the

public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no Exclusive exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly Waiver, waived, or may be inapplicable. Because no one holds ...

*Better leveraging the substantial

curriculum In education, a curriculum (; : curriculums or curricula ) is the totality of student experiences that occur in an educational process. The term often refers specifically to a planned sequence of instruction, or to a view of the student's experi ...

-based intellectual capital of California's best K-12 teachers *Better leveraging the substantial intellectual capital of American college and university instructors to enable open-licensed content for their institutions. *Using innovative

copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive legal right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, ...

tools to secure new and dormant K-12 textbook content that would not otherwise be made available. *Substantially reducing the cost of textbooks for K-20 students and sponsoring institutions. *Complete elimination of the then-current US$400M+ line item for California's K-12 textbooks *Significant increase in the range of content afforded to California's K-12 textbooks *Permanent end to California's textbook shortages *Creation of fully portable content holdings

database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data or a type of data store based on the use of a database management system (DBMS), the software that interacts with end users, applications, and the database itself to capture and a ...

that scales with classroom technologies as they are introduced. The cost of textbooks had risen steadily over the years preceding COSTP's founding. Critics contended that

publishing Publishing is the activities of making information, literature, music, software, and other content, physical or digital, available to the public for sale or free of charge. Traditionally, the term publishing refers to the creation and distribu ...

companies artificially increased prices and essentially shut out competing efforts to liberate academic content from traditional copyright control. On COSTP's inception, the State of California was spending more than US$400M annually for K-12 textbooks, yet textbook shortages were not uncommon. Cost and access were becoming serious issues—projected to get worse as enrollments to K-12 institutions were projected to dramatically increase over the next decade. COSTP employed the advantages of open-sourced content and innovative

licensing A license (American English) or licence ( Commonwealth English) is an official permission or permit to do, use, or own something (as well as the document of that permission or permit). A license is granted by a party (licensor) to another par ...

tools in an effort to inspire significantly reduced K-12 textbook costs—with the hope of eventually turning K-12 curriculum and textbook construction from a

cost Cost is the value of money that has been used up to produce something or deliver a service, and hence is not available for use anymore. In business, the cost may be one of acquisition, in which case the amount of money expended to acquire it i ...

into a

revenue In accounting, revenue is the total amount of income generated by the sale of product (business), goods and services related to the primary operations of a business. Commercial revenue may also be referred to as sales or as turnover. Some compan ...

generator for the State of California. Open sourced, distributed content was intended to be made available

gratis Gratis may refer to: * Free (''gratis''), meaning without charge * Gratis, Ohio, a village in Preble County, US * Gratis Township, Preble County, Ohio, US * Gratis Internet, a US referral marketing company See also * Free (disambiguation) Free m ...

by deploying innovative copyright tools provided by organizations like

Creative Commons Creative Commons (CC) is an American non-profit organization and international network devoted to educational access and expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has release ...

, its partners, and other organizations. COSTP made important contributions to the many organizations that followed in its wake, as the "Open Educational Content" movement took hold over the next 10–15 years. It is important to note that COSTP's mandate was not to replace

printed Printing is a process for mass reproducing text and Printmaking, images using a master form or template. The earliest non-paper products involving printing include cylinder seals and objects such as the Cyrus Cylinder and the Cylinders of Nabon ...

textbooks, but simply make them less expensive to produce and distribute, thus creating many additional efficiencies in the K-12 academic content sector. COSTP eventually graduated into a consulting role for many new entries to the Open Educational Resource (OER) sector, assisting many institutions with business modeling and analysis of textbook and online education markets, worldwide.

References

{{Reflist

External links

California Open Source Textbook Project website is closed; here is a Wayback Machine snapshot
Education in California