The Textbook for My Course is FREE

Well, I finally finished teaching my summer course and, for the the next few weeks will have some time off from my part-time teaching job. However, right after Labor Day I will begin teaching my two Fall economics classes – Introduction to Microeconomics and Introduction to Macroeconomics. These are self-paced courses with the content available on the web and the students working on their own with access to me in person on Monday evenings and anytime via email and voice mail (they can contact me at any time but I have 24 – 48 hours to get back to them via email).

This semester the textbook for the course will be available for free on line.

No, I have not copied and uploaded the textbook for my students. Instead, the book by Macalester College economics professor Timothy Taylor and which he just completed writing about a month ago, is being published by little start-up Internet publisher called Freeload Press, and paid for by advertisers. In exchange for running student targeted, full page ads scattered throughout the text (there seem to be 2 – 3 per chapter and, to me at least, are less obtrusive than the full page ads in magazines). Those that wish can also order a traditional printed copy, without the ads, from the publisher for about $40 or less (which is cheap compared to traditional textbooks where even used editions can cost $100 or more at college bookstores.

The company has a growing catalog (with most of them in areas like Computers and Accounting both of which seem to encourage book writing) of books which anyone, not just students, can download for free. For more information click on this link to read the article I published about the company and downloading books from it for my students on my No Free Lunch blog.

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