Open vs closed (was Re: [TriLUG] sample chapters...)

[rasch at raschnet.com]

On Fri, Oct 24, 2003 at 05:57:34PM -0400, Mike Mueller <linux-support at earthlink.net> wrote:
> On Friday 24 October 2003 11:05, Michael Hrivnak wrote:
> > For example, MIT believes in "OpenCourseWare"
> >
> > http://ocw.mit.edu/index.html
> 
> That's powerful.  This is a Prentice Hall and Addison Wesley killer.  But 
> then again these publishers slightly modify problem sets in math books and 
> come out with a new edition.  What's the motive? To make cheating harder or 
> to goose sales?  If their motive is to goose sales by creating planned 
> inefficiencies then they are roadkill in the future.  How much has Calculus 
> changed recently?  Enough to warrant a new edition?

Yes and no, calculus hasn't changed much, but the teaching of calculus
continues to evolve.  For instance, both high-school and college
calculus have moved toward hybrid calculator/by-hand basic curricula in
the past 5-10 years.  Teaching, just like programming, is a creative
process that continues to evolve.  Look at a 20 year old calculus book
and you'll be glad that courses and curricula continue to evolve.  Less
time is spent on approximation techniques (like Newton's method), and
more time spent on other topics.

Truthfully, I'm far from defending Prentice Hall nor Addison Wesley for
the specific "tweaking" practices you describe above just to make sure
students by a new book rather than inheriting one from the previous
students.  In fact, I find that practice to be quite haughty and
anti-competitive.  I'm simply indicating that there is a need for
textbooks to evolve in spite of the maturity of the field (in this case,
calculus).

David
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