The traditional textbook is a familiar and useful tool that has served well for centuries. Here, we discuss OpenIntro Statistics, a new textbook that seeks to retain the long-standing points of excellence among traditional textbooks, while overcoming what is potentially the most important traditional limitation: exclusivity. OpenIntro Statistics is a completely open-source textbook, which can be downloaded for free and edited by anybody. Its content meets the highest established standards, and is is written, edited, and reviewed by faculty from leading universities. In this paper, we provide support for the assertion that OpenIntro Statistics retains as many of the advantages of a traditional textbook as possible, while empowering the largest possible audience to own and edit introductory content in statistics. We also discuss how the open-source textbook model differs from other technologically enabled alternatives to the traditional textbook, and consider trends in the textbook over the coming years.
The CAUSE Research Group is supported in part by a member initiative grant from the American Statistical Association’s Section on Statistics and Data Science Education