'Bookless' textbook study launched at Foothill

Abstract: A group of educators will meet at Foothill College this week to begin studying how to encourage widespread adoption of free online textbooks.

Funded by a $530,000 grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources hopes to ease the burden on students who routinely pay $150 for clunky, hard-bound books, according to Judy Baker, dean of Foothill Global Access, an online-learning program.

The majority of grant money will go to the consortium's new Open Textbook Project, a collaboration with other schools and educational groups already using Web-based books to study the long-term feasibility of switching to online books, she said.