Baraniuk available to discuss TexPIRG report findings

David Ruth
713-348-6327
david@rice.edu

Jade Boyd
713-348-6778
jadeboyd@rice.edu

Free-textbook pioneer available to discuss TexPIRG report findings
Rice University’s Baraniuk available to discuss free online textbooks

HOUSTON — (Jan. 27, 2014) — Rice University digital textbook pioneer Richard Baraniuk is available for media interviews about the ways that “open-education resources,” including free textbooks, are changing higher education by increasing access and lowering costs.

Baraniuk, Rice’s Victor E. Cameron Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and founder of Rice’s free textbook publisher, OpenStax College, can comment on the findings of a student survey released today by the TexPIRG Education Fund regarding the impact that textbook prices have on college students. The TexPIRG report is available online here.

OpenStax College, which is funded by grants from major philanthropic foundations, produces high-quality textbooks that are published online free for all college students and instructors. OpenStax College’s catalog includes titles for introductory physics, sociology, statistics, anatomy and physiology, and both majors and nonmajors biology. In less than two years, educators teaching more than 55,000 students at more than 430 community colleges, four-year colleges and research universities have adopted the books and saved students more than $5.5 million.

In 1999, Baraniuk founded one of the world’s first “open-education” projects, Rice’s Connexions, which delivers free, remixable educational content to millions of users each month in more than 200 countries.

For his education projects, Baraniuk has received the Eta Kappa Nu C. Holmes MacDonald National Outstanding Teaching Award, the Tech Museum Laureate Award, the Internet Pioneer Award from the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School, the World Technology Network Education Award and the IEEE Signal Processing Society Education Award. He was selected in 2007 as one of Edutopia Magazine’s Daring Dozen Education Innovators.

To schedule an interview with Baraniuk, contact David Ruth, director of national media relations, at david@rice.edu or 713-348-6327.

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Related materials:

OpenStax in the news:

OpenStax releases 6th free textbook
Campus Technology
http://bit.ly/19tHnKK

Business models and funding models for open access e-books
Rice’s OpenStax initiative is mentioned in an article about business models for open-access publishing.
Ed Tech Times
http://bit.ly/1jqfOWB

The bill that could save college students $1,200 a year
The Atlantic
http://bit.ly/1dLp7QP

College textbooks are ridiculously expensive. Two senators are trying to change that.
Rice’s OpenStax program is mentioned as one alternative to the steady rise in college textbook costs.
The National Journal
http://bit.ly/IoJm9a

Affordable college ‘open textbooks’ for all
Rice University’s OpenStax College is mentioned in an article written by U.S. Rep. Ruben Hinojosa.
The Monitor (McAllen, Texas)
http://bit.ly/IngcWT

Did the college textbook bubble burst?
http://www.foxbusiness.com/personal-finance/2013/10/10/college-textbooks-next-bubble-to-burst/

To see a video produced last year about OpenStax, click here or on the image.

Follow Rice News and Media Relations on Twitter @RiceUNews.

Follow OpenStax on Twitter @OpenStaxCollege

Located on a 300-acre forested campus in Houston, Rice University is consistently ranked among the nation’s top 20 universities by U.S. News & World Report. Rice has highly respected schools of Architecture, Business, Continuing Studies, Engineering, Humanities, Music, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences and is home to the Baker Institute for Public Policy. With 3,708 undergraduates and 2,374 graduate students, Rice’s undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio is 6-to-1. Its residential college system builds close-knit communities and lifelong friendships, just one reason why Rice has been ranked No. 1 for best quality of life multiple times by the Princeton Review and No. 2 for “best value” among private universities by Kiplinger’s Personal Finance. To read “What they’re saying about Rice,” go to http://tinyurl.com/AboutRiceU.