The Future of Textbooks - Review

In the Electronic Journal of Sociology 2007, Ryan Cragun's article, The Future of Textbooks? Discusses exactly what the title suggests. Textbooks as he describes are, "a necessary evil" (1), that are required for subjects, but are painfully expensive. Textbooks are basically ways to make a subject matter into the simplest form, while covering as much content as possible in his opinion. Though not always preferred the textbooks are especially needed in introductory classes where students who take the class usually have no background knowledge on the subject. It doesn't help that these subjects are usually perquisites or classes where the required textbooks will have no value to the student, especially since the resell rate will be not even be near the fifty percent rate of the original purchase price.

Craguns theory provides a alternative way to address the textbook problem, a free collaborative textbook website. Which would be similar to wikies-websites that allow visitors to modify the content of the pages they are viewing, example would be Wikipedia. The reason behind the actual idea is mainly the cost of the textbooks. Of course there was the reason of adding it to his career resume, though he was quick to realize that it would not be considered a publication.

As for explaining the process, Cragun describes how the wikibooks would be much like other wiki websites where other experts on the matter of the subject would contribute to the site. Using a great example in which he talks about how while writing his own sociology book he realizes that though he has knowledge on the matters of the subject, his personal interest and expertise made the chapter on religion larger. Whereas other experts in sociology would be able to contribute to the field on interest without having one matter outweigh the other, like race or ethnicity, in which he small knowledge. Having his wikibook regularly updated much like the editions of an textbook, keeping information up to date.

He originally developed the idea when he started to make notes for his upcoming sociology class, and received a call from Prentice Hall to inform him about the 9th edition of Macaronis Sociology textbook was to be released. He decided to hold off on writing his notes, so that way he could make them according to the newer text. However he was stunned when he realized that the text had next to nothing changed, expect for a few chapters that has been switched. This resulted in him writing his own textbook, which he "published" on wikibooks. Letting his class use the book online for free, and not having any other additional textbook purchase requirements After the end of the semester when he surveyed his students, his reaction was mostly the same, they loved it. So now his only struggle is to get the idea caught and going.

Cragun, Ryan T. "Future of Textbooks?" Electronic Journal of Sociology (2007): 1-14. 20 Apr. 2008 .