Seeking a Middle Ground Between Publishers and OER - By Lindsay McKenzie, Inside Higher Ed

Top Hat strives to get professors to create their own textbooks and make them available free or for sale on its platform. Should traditional textbook publishers be concerned? By giving instructors the tools to easily create and sell their own content, Top Hat has created an intriguing new course content creation model -- one industry observers say they are watching closely. Like a typical commercial publisher, Top Hat helps authors sell textbooks and takes a cut of the revenue. But unlike a typical publisher, Top Hat is happy for instructors to give away their work free and enables the creation of open educational resources, freely accessible and openly licensed learning materials designed to help drive down students’ costs. Top Hat believes this hybrid content creation model offers faculty members a “best of both worlds” option that could shake up the commercial textbook market. https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/article/2018/08/15/courseware-platform-seeks-middle-ground-between-publishers-and