Boundless: start up offering free textbooks online

Garikai Dzoma Avatar
Boundless

BoundlessWhen I was a college student every semester was a small matter of two heads of cattle in terms of fees cost. These were the days when campus accommodation was no longer available so there was transport costs to add to that. Small wonder therefore that most of my time was spent scouring the internet (at snail pace) for notes since I could not afford any of the textbooks recommended in the curricula. Most of the books in the library either had half their pages missing or were hopelessly outdated.This is precisely what the startup Boundless and their free textbooks are trying to solve.

My college days – that was 2008 – are long gone and whilst everything has changed, textbooks remain a major cost for both students and teachers. A Macroeconomics textbook by McConnell Brue will easily set you back a neat $250, and Principles of Economics by Lipsey and Chystall will cost a whopping $720! Sometimes you cannot even find the required textbook in our local bookstores. This is especially true for some International textbooks. Innov8, one of the leading bookstores for example, has a surprisingly lean collection of International textbooks. If you are a Sciences and Commercials student you are likely to be left out in the cold.

Like it is with all overpriced international products, Zimbabweans have reacted with pirate acts. Photocopies of most popular major books, neatly bound in color copies of their original covers, are sold on every street corner for a fraction of the cost. Even if we are to ignore the criminality of the whole act, you are very much unlikely to find a Biochemistry or an Anatomy textbook at any of these places.

Ariel Diaz went through the pain of buying overpriced college textbooks and in 2011 he decided to form the startup Boundless Learning which offers free textbooks on a variety of subjects, currently: Political Science, Art History, Finance, Management, Sociology, Biology, Microbiology, Communications, History, Marketing, Chemistry, Algebra, Economics, Psychology, Physiology, Accounting, Business and Writing. Textbooks are offered under the Creative Commons license which allows copies of the books to be made.

The whole idea is not really new. Various startups and companies have tried and mostly failed to provide free textbooks. For the most part this had something to do with the cartel nature of college textbook publishing industry. Most books are published by the professors and teaching assistants themselves, usually these are the same people who determine the curricula, no wonder then most of their (or their colleagues’) textbooks make it onto the required reading list. The second problem is that most Open and/or Free textbooks often fall short of the required standards with most having a clunky and ill thought layouts.

Boundless addresses all these problems using a unique but controversial formula: Reverse Engineering the prescribed popular textbook. For example for the Economics 101 course, the most popular books are Macroeconomics by McConnel Brue and Principles of Economics by Lipsey and Chystal. Boundless takes these and uses material from sites like Wikipedia and all the other material availed under the Open Education Resources formed by governments and universities worldwide. The material is then used to paraphrase what is in the popular prescribed textbook and often the chapter layout of the said popular textbook is preserved. The result is a free drop in replacement of what would otherwise be a very expensive but essential textbook. In the example of economics textbook this results in savings in the region of $1,000.

To access the books all one needs to do is visit the Boundless site. Thesite allows you to sign up through either a traditional signup or using Facebook (a feature most local sites seems to lack.) Once signed in the student is asked to enter the name of his college and choose courses. For example Economics 101. One can then search for a textbook that is in their curriculum. The book is then used to find the appropriate Boundless replacement which can then be associated with that course.

The good

  • The site also contains other features like smart notes, flash cards, highlights and notes, quizzes and a feature that allows you to invite classmates.
  • Massive savings on textbook costs without sacrificing quality.
  • Free to produce as many copies of the books as you want without legal hassles.

The Bad

  • It appears at the moment the site does not allow pdf or epub downloads thus requiring an internet connection all the time. Comfort should be taken however in the fact that this is not a bandwidth hungry site.
  • A lot of publishers are challenging the legality of the whole textbook making process especially reverse engineering and preserving the chapter layout. Pending suites might prove to be the end of Boundless yet.

Depending on your morals Boundless might be the savior or the devil. I think they deserve a halo.

6 comments

  1. chanyane

    This is quite informative. My only gripe is your style Garikai. In these days of information overload,one has to steel one’s nerves to uncover the gem hidden in your stories. I have received the same advice from a number of reviewers of my work. I initially resist that advice, but overtime, I have come to appreciate it, Just see how some of your site authors simply get to the point. Besides that, good review of what could be a useful site. Like the pros and cons approach at the end. And how do they monetize this?

    1. tinm@n

      I agree too. He should condense his article into point form and striving to get to the point. I usually scan through articles and when I encounter some like these, I just glance at the title, the middle and the last paragraph. If there are references/links I visit those then guess what the rest of the article was about.

      _____

      Anyways, back to the topic. Its an interesting service. Difficulty for our Zim students is that our education is more inclined to the British style of education, so full benefit will be to those within the American system.

      I remember rejoicing when Americans donated science books to our school, I can say for certain, even the teachers struggled with them. They were then sent to the library for reference. For subjects like computing and programming, I think the foundational topics would be invaluable to Zimbos.

      1. tinm@n

        EDIT
        He should condense his article into point form and strive to get to the point.

        1. tinm@n

          lol. EDIT of EDIT
          He should condense his article into point form and strive to get to the point.

    2. Garikai

      Thanx 4 the advice. I will strive to do better next time. I ignored the monetization issue as this startup is still to figure that out. They however have received substantial capital injections from venture capitalist and it looks they are here to stay.

  2. McHeart

    Great innovation but I am afraid it will suffer the same fate as “file sharing sites”.

    “In March of 2012, three major textbook publishers, sued Boundless.”

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