DynamicBooks to Renew Sponsorship of Open Doors Group-College Open Textbooks

Oct. 3, 2012 - PRLog -- New York, San Jose—Oct. 3, 2012 DynamicBooks (http://www.dynamicbooks.com/) and the Open Doors Group (ODG)-College Open Textbooks (COT) Collaborative announce that ODG-COT Collaborative member DynamicBooks has renewed its sponsorship of the open textbook adopter community with a generous sponsorship for a second year. The focus of both Dynamic Books and ODG-COT is to lower cost of education by providing customized, personalized open textbooks to the classroom.  Last year DynamicBooks sponsored the open textbook adoptions panel that helped address issues for next generation open textbooks that achieve high quality through adopter cooperation. DynamicBooks has always been a supporter of Open Education Resources (OER) and shows its support by putting real-time, custom publishing into the hands of instructors using a platform that supports remixing of textbooks. “DynamicBooks strongly believes in lowering the cost of education and making customizable, quality learning materials available to all students at reasonable prices. By sponsoring COT, we are fostering growth in one of the rapidly expanding programs to achieve these goals”, said Nicholas Smith, President of DynamicBooks.

The sponsorship will also help COT expand its initiatives in a number of ways by providing easy and affordable access for students to open textbook and also helps maintain connections with its adopter communities. DynamicBooks gains ties to a resourceful community of interested instructors. These instructors are leading the way in innovation and using new resources to address student needs. Mitchell Levy, co-director of COT said, "I cannot emphasize enough about the benefits of other companies coming forward to sponsor COT. The collaborative efforts pay off in a huge way whereby it is not only the collaborators who profit from it, but it is also a huge gain for the users who are made aware of the most affordable, state-of-the-art tools in utilizing OER”.

This sponsorship has helped COT in a number of ways including funding a summer intern and sending Senior Manager Marie Highby to the Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) conference at Virginia Military Institute and Senior Manager Charles Key to the Open Ed conference in Vancouver. The sponsorship also makes possible the purchase of bound open textbooks for the authors and project managers who created the books and thought leaders who are promoting the books.

The collaboration between DynamicBooks and COT helps both communities bring customized and personalized textbooks to the classroom. Reiterating the value of using open textbooks, Mr. Smith said, “DynamicBooks provides an opportunity for instructors to truly customize materials to their course, including textbook and media content. Instructors really control the cost of the textbook based on what content they include for their students. Using DynamicBooks, the COT community can adapt open content to better suit their own needs and the needs of their students”. Reflecting on the usability of an open textbook versus a hard copy, he added, “And for a very nominal fee, the DynamicBooks platform allows students to get personalized access to content where they will be able to add notes, highlight passages or phrases, bookmark pages, search content, and even share their notes and highlights with friends”. Nicholas Smith will be presenting DynamicBooks at the Sloan-C International Conference on Online Learning in Florida from October 10-12, 2012 where he will be demonstrating DynamicBooks and its ability to combine and customize both open and commercial textbook content.  


About Dynamic Books: DynamicBooks was launched by Macmillan Publishers Ltd. of London one of the world’s largest and best known English-language publishers. It has offices in over seventy countries on six continents. Founded in 1843, the company has a rich literary history, with strong educational and scholarly imprints. Today, Macmillan's publishers in the college and academic market include the well-known, respected Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishing Group; Bedford/St. Martin's; Hayden-McNeil; Palgrave Macmillan; W.H. Freeman; and Worth Publishers. DynamicBooks continues a tradition of excellence with the first completely interactive textbook site, designed to deliver high-quality content at affordable prices for students. A rapidly growing number of instructors and institutions are adopting DynamicBooks titles, and our unique online presentation of course material creates new opportunities for authors to bring their work to market quickly while incorporating rich content and interactive capabilities to enhance learning. DynamicBooks is leading the way to where textbooks are going next.
http://www.dynamicbooks.com/

About ODG and COT: Open Doors Group (ODG) is an informal association of several educational, non-profit, for-profit, and government institutions and some individuals. Its purpose is to prepare students for the future by promoting, producing, and distributing open educational resources; supporting students and educators in adopting and using open educational resources; expanding access to education for all learners researching and evaluating the impact of open educational resources. College Open Textbooks (COT) is one of several programs of the Open Doors Group and is managed in conjunction with the Silicon Valley Education Foundation. The mission of COT is to drive awareness, adoptions, and affordability of open textbooks.
http://www.collegeopentextbooks.org