OStatic

We've covered Flat World Knowledge and its effort to provide low cost, open source textbooks to college students before. In the U.S., textbooks are an $8 billion market, and students often take the brunt of the costs. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has pushed aggressively for a move to open source textbooks to help with the state's budget crisis, but previous attempts to make open source textbooks popular haven't gone far for several reasons, including failure to include appropriate content.

Now, though, there are some signs that Flat World Knowledge's effort is paying off. Wired reports that more than 40,000 college students at more than 400 colleges will use digital, DRM-free textbooks from the company as the school year starts in a matter of days, and that's up from 1,000 in 30 colleges in the Spring.?

Part of the high cost of attending a college or university is due to the exorbitant fees for textbooks. It's an $8 billion dollar market and schools often pass on the high cost of textbook purchases to their students. Once a school selects course books, it's up to professors to mold their curriculum accordingly, rather than offer reading material that suits their teaching style and course content.

In an effort to make curriculum content more accessible to both students and teachers, New York-based startup Flat World Knowledge is going after the textbook industry by offering expertly-written books that educational institutions are free to modify to meet their needs.