A Print on Demand service is launched by the partners behind the FTA. For many people a printed book is still desired to facilitate the learning process. The service is based on cost prices for the printing, handling and distribution and is first made available for people who register for courses in the FTA.

Quality of the books

You can see the quality of the contents here, so here we comment on the physical aspects of the books. Books are printed on white paper A4 (Red Label brand, 80 g/m2), with a front and back cover page of cardboard A4 (Top Color brand, 300 g/m2), a glued back and black binding strip.

Ordering and delivery

In the registration form, one can choose the option to receive the books in print for an additional cost of 18 Euro per course book. That's the current cost price including the printing, handling and shipment. The authoring and publication of the book is not included in that price. If you would like to contribute financially to future versions or new books, your donation is very welcome!

The first priority is to ship the books to learners who register for courses in the coming trimester (starting at September 6th). All registrations completed by August 15th can ask for this service when registering. If you registered before this service was available, and would like to make use of it, please contact us so we can process your request manually. The books will be printed and shipped in the second half of August. Depending on your location you should have the ordered books at home before the courses start.

If you order books for courses in 2011 which have not yet been published, your order will be withheld until shipment is possible. In any case, no course will start before the corresponding course book has been published.

The FTA partnership hopes this service strengthens the FTA educational experience. For those of you self-learners, who don't subscribe to the FTA courses but are still interested in printed copies of coursebooks: you can either print the books yourself or wait until we have our processes in place to handle individual book orders. You could of course also try to use commercial PoD services such as Lulu.com.

This service is kindly provided in collaboration between the Open University Nederland's Print & Distribution Centre and the Free Knowledge Institute.

Comments or feedback: discuss in the FTA Community Portal.