Professor Starts E-Text Company to Electrify Textbook Field (Apr 16, 2012)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Kathleen Gallagher
April 16, 2012
M. Ryan Haley, a University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh economics professor, has started a company he hopes will undercut the academic textbook publishing industry and help college students save a lot of money.
CoreTxt Plus Inc. is distributing a free digital statistics textbook to UW-Oshkosh students.
"We bypassed the middleman, which is the people making all the money off our students," Haley said. "They're putting new editions out every few years now, and it's absurd. Statistics hasn't changed in 150 years."
Haley estimates the e-text has saved UW-Oshkosh students taking the economics and business statistics class $100,000 to $150,000 during the four semesters it has been used.
The textbook was written by Haley and three other professors under a grant from the U.S. Department of Education. It includes study questions written by business professors across the campus who will be teaching the students in future semesters. The book was reviewed by academics at other schools, the same way publishing houses review texts, Haley said. Continue Reading...
