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September 18, 2018 – Future of Work

Grant Helps Fund OpenStax Publications, Which Will Bring Free Online Texts to Millions of Students

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Rice University-based publisher OpenStax, which produces peer-reviewed textbooks and makes them available to students online and free of charge, has announced it will publish six new textbooks for introductory business courses that currently are taught at most major U.S. colleges and universities. With these new publications, nearly all texts needed to earn an Associate of Arts degree in business will be available to students free of charge.

OpenStax founder and Rice University professor Richard Baraniuk said this series “will enable students to rely on having affordable materials beyond their initial introductory classes. We hope that the business series is the first of many degree sequences.”

Rice University estimates up to two million students will use these six textbooks annually. Publication of the new series began on Sept. 18 with Introduction to Business. Ultimately the series also will include Business EthicsPrinciples of ManagementEntrepreneurshipPrinciples of Accounting, and Organizational Behavior. OpenStax’s library of 30 free and openly licensed books already have been used by 6.2 million students. At least one of their books have been adopted by more than 16,200 instructors and 48 percent of degree-granting institutions in the United States.

The OpenStax mission is made possible by the philanthropic support of more than one dozen foundations, including the Charles Koch Foundation.

Read Rice University’s full statement.