Open vs Commercial Textbook Comparison

Open vs Commercial Textbook Comparison

Dimension    Open textbook

Title                           Guide to Ancient Aegean Art

Publisher                    Smarthistory

Supplier                    Open Textbook Library UMN.edu 

Cost                          Free

Duration of access    Unlimited

Quality                     Harvard Ph.D candidate main author, but good

Advantages                Free, quickly accessed by all students

Disadvantages           Difficult to find academic reviews

Dimension    Commercial textbook (Rental or Purchase)

Title                          Introduction to Aegean Art,  by Philip P. Betancourt

Publisher                   Institute for Aegean Prehistory Press

Supplier                   Chegg.com

Cost                          Rental $USD 24 for 4 months or $36 direct purchase

Duration of access    16 weeks

Quality                     Outstanding, author is world authority, 35+ years in field

Advantages               Authoritative work, definitive scholarly research on topic

Disadvantages           There is a fee, the work is Copyrighted, limited printing or access to buy

Attribution-ShareAlike
CC BY-SA