Intro to Statistics course costs vs. open source / creative commons / remix education
Aug 23rd, 2006 by jeffmcneill
Here is the research on open source/free resources for statistics. It turns out that all the material and tools we will go over in my Intro to Stats course this fall (2006) is available for free, as opposed to the apx. $180 for SAS license and new textbook, or even $150 for SAS license and used textbook. Even considering that the textbook could be sold back for half-price, the cost to a student is still $105.
The statistical package “R” (plus modules) is free/open source/gpl. Also, it is a full-blown programming language, akin to SAS, and there are OSX and Win binaries, so it is easily cross-platform. R-Web, which is actually 8-10 years old, is a web based interface to “R”:
The textbook for my EDEP 429 Introductory Statistics course is $123.95 new ($101.96 at Amazon) and ~$90 used. Instructors are almost never given the pricing information when ordering review copies, for the very reason that they would balk at such an enormous cost.
Open source/creative commons licensed online learning objects, course outlines, and open source books are now becoming available (Found by searching WikiBooks and WikiVersity sites, OpenCountent, and Connexions):
- Rice University Intro to Statistics
- Carnegie Mellon Intro to stats
- DeAnza College Elementary Status (using TI-83)
- MIT Applied Statistics
- MIT Stats for Applications
- Wikiversity Statistics course
- Wikibooks Statistics
More advanced or specialized courses:
- MIT Mathematical Stats
- MIT Statistical Learning Theory and Applications
- MIT Statistical Inference
- Johns Hopkins Statistical Reasoning in Public Health First Course and Second Course
Even better is the Consortium for the Advancement of Undergraduate Statistics Education (CAUSE) which has dozens of resources of all kinds for teaching statistics.
Now for the kicker: I estimate that about 400,000 students in the United States higher education take a first course in statistics each year. Basic statistics class consists of 0.8% of all credits earned (18th most attended course). Calculation (1.4M undergraduates * 100 credits * 0.008) / 3 credits = apx 400,000 statistics attendees per year. Plus, there are over 40,000 advanced stats students per year. (source)
Textbooks are a $6.5 billion industry in the U.S. And most of that is costs to bring the book to market (freight, bookstore, printing). Only 11.7 cents of the dollar goes to the author.
