Roy Schestowitz wrote:
> Intro to Statistics course costs vs. open source / creative commons / remix
> education
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
> | Here is the research on open source/free resources for statistics. It
> | turns out that all the material and tools we will go over in my Intro
> | to Stats course this fall (2006) is available for free, as opposed to
> | the apx. $180 for SAS license and new textbook, or even $150 for SAS
> | license and used textbook. Even considering that the textbook could be
> | sold back for half-price, the cost to a student is still $105.
Textbook publishers nowadays do everything in their power to make sure
that old textbooks are not usable---bringing out new editions
incompatible with old ones and marketing them to faculty. The general
techniques should sound familiar---as with Microsoft, drug companies,
etc. The truth is that the new textbooks are often inferior to the old
ones, especially the classics. In fact, if you compare to the
classics, you see that there has been a gradual dumbing down.
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