OpenMind Offers Customizable, Online Course Materials at a 70% Savings
CARY, N.C--(COLLEGIATE PRESSWIRE)--Sep 4, 2001--This semester, students on campuses around the globe will be experiencing a new alternative to traditional college textbook publishing. These students won’t be waiting in lines at the student bookstore to purchase their textbooks. They are going to OpenMind Publishing Group via www.ompg.com to purchase course materials that have been customized for their class by their professor. These custom texts are available as an online downloadable (with alternative print and CD-ROM versions) at a cost of about one-third the price of the average textbook.
OpenMind Publishing Group is driven by a core philosophy - that professors, not publishers, should control the content of their classroom. OpenMind takes full advantage of the Internet in order to give professors maximum flexibility in creating and delivering content for their courses.
“I believe I speak for all of my peers when I say that we were looking forward to the day when textbook publishing catches up with all of the new alternatives to publishing including multi-media CD-ROMs and the Internet, ” said Dr. Martin Starr, Management Professor with the Crummer Graduate School of Business at Rollins College in Winter Park, Fl. “Sure there are companies that offer books online, but OpenMind is the only one that provides a two-way interaction allowing us - the professors - to dictate what we teach our students.”
OpenMind Publishing Group is now making its first major push to replace traditional textbook publishing with a personalized, online process. More than 100 professors stemming from 70+ colleges and universities from all over the globe have signed on to use an OpenMind CourseBook for the fall semester. This translates into upwards of 7,000 students purchasing an OpenMind product.
How does OpenMind’s model work? OpenMind provides professors a starting point by offering an extensive collection of high-quality textbooks and learning objects. These texts can be used as is or can be customized by the professor down to the sentence level using OpenMind’s easy-to-use technology platform. The custom texts are then delivered to students via www.ompg.com, OpenMind’s website, for about one-third the price of an average textbook. Using the online text, students can easily add their own notes, review their instructor`s notes and highlight sections. Custom texts are also available in CD-ROM or print for a nominal increase in cost.
“The higher education publishing market is ready for change,” said Paul Elliot, CEO of OpenMind Publishing Group. “After years of working in the traditional publishing industry, I was tired of hearing professors complain that the textbooks were dry, generic and so expensive that more than a quarter of their students refused to make the purchase. They would ask what else we had up our sleeves. Did we have any exciting new multimedia materials that would help bring new life to their courses? But the truth was that I simply couldn`t give them what they wanted using the resources available in the traditional textbook publishing industry. I am proud to say that OpenMind can.”
About OpenMind Publishing Group
OpenMind Publishing Group, headquartered in Cary NC, provides high-quality content and advanced multimedia learning tools to professors and students in the higher education marketplace. Its technology platform and services help professors and students create and customize these materials to suit their individual needs.
Using a collaborative publishing process that allows instructors to access and contribute to a large base of content, OpenMind helps professors build a unique CourseBook that is customized to their particular needs. This learning tool is then delivered to their students via the Internet with alternate print and CD-ROM versions available. Using their professors` unique CourseBooks as a base, students will be able to choose from a variety of multimedia learning tools that allows them to “micro-customize” the text to fit their individual learning styles. The final product is the most dynamic, highest-quality content resource available, delivered at a price that is less than one-third of a traditional textbook. For more information on OpenMind Publishing Group and/or to see a demonstration please visit www.ompg.com or call 919-678-1597.
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