"What's the key to a more innovative curriculum? Modular content, according to Boundless CEO Ariel Diaz. "It's thinking about content on an atomic level, an individual concept, an individual image, an individual key term." By breaking up content into modules, instructors can "take it apart and have it fit their curriculum much better," he said. To facilitate the customization of content, Boundless' instructor platform includes a content management system that controls versions on a par with GitHub, the collaborative tool for building and managing code."

"We’re committed to not only providing universal access to this content, but also building a collaborative, powerful community to create more content. That’s why I’m proud to share that we’ve brought on one of community education’s biggest advocates as a new Boundless advisor: SJ Klein, a veteran Wikipedian."

"The Boundless platform allows educators to edit and customize material to suit their course needs. After all, educators are the ones who choose course materials. And research shows they often make those decisions without cost in mind. 'We want educators to feel comfortable using Boundless because they’re the ones who set the agenda,' says Boundless creator Ariel Diaz. 'They’re the ones who can help students drive down their costs.'"

"A site called Boundless is hoping to upend both books and teaching with a sort of open-sourced approach toward teaching materials. Boundless packages freely available information from public sources like Wikipedia or research papers and offers them as “alternative” textbooks... Boundless also hopes to be a teaching platform. Educators can get texts free, along with course material like quizzes, and then teach directly from these cheaper sources — a kind of disruption from the top down."

"[W]hile many [tablet] models' razor-sharp screens and diminutive size make them well suited for student life, these gifted gadgets still need help to reach their full potential. Apps like Boundless, Chegg, Inkling and Kno, for example, may be able to pack an entire library of digitized textbooks into a slender touch-screen slab."

"Boundless hasn’t let up, and today the company launched another new way for entrepreneurial educators and thought leaders to engage students in a more modern way. The company’s newest software opens up its content creation platform for authors to create textbooks that can be accessed through Boundless, which has been used by more than 3 million students and educators."

"Boundless... is now allowing educators to publish their open educational resource (OER) textbooks via its authoring platform. The company said it is working with a dozen authors to add their OER textbooks to the library, including books on music theory, computer science and microeconomics."

"Boundless CEO Ariel Diaz discusses his business model and creating online textbooks and learning tools. He speaks on Market Makers."

"This is exactly the kind of thing the Affordable College Textbook Act wants to see more of."

"Hoping to scale back the cost of textbooks at school? Boundless, an app for iPhones and iPads, is described by its creators as “cloud-powered education.” For $20, users will get a facsimile that maps open-source content that matches an assigned textbook."

"Textbook publishing has long been seen as an impenetrable business, with five major players controlling most of the nearly $14 billion industry. But in recent years, the shift to digital and open-access content has led to a proliferation of free and low-cost alternatives... Ariel Diaz, CEO of cloud-based customized textbook platform Boundless, says the industry isn’t changing fast enough, mostly because the price point for digital textbooks is still too high."

"Boston-based Boundless has been striving to break down barriers in education by making affordable textbooks available to the masses. And a new partnership announced Thursday with mobile and Web-based teaching platform Top Hat will bring the startup one step closer to achieving just that."

"Help may be on the way. A range of new digital entrants are offering textbooks at much cheaper prices, or even for free. In the research note, Morgan Stanley analysts point to Boundless Resources, Flat World Knowledge, OpenStax and Bookboon as notable, would-be disruptors in college textbooks."

"The educator community can create content on the Boundless platform, and Boundless's editorial team actively 'approves/makes sure that content is valid.' The Boundless site refers to it as an 'open call for collaboration,' doing for textbooks what Wikipedia did for encyclopedias."

"As one of the viable insurgents to the education establishment, Boundless has a secret weapon that the collaboratively edited online encyclopedia [Wikipedia] lacks — academic experts to supply and edit its content, making sure that the standards of quality are acceptable for higher education. Boundless, however, is not looking to take on Wikipedia. The company actually has its sights set on a different target: the multi-billion dollar college textbook industry."

"Other platforms, like the Boston-based company Boundless, also offer customizable, intro-level textbooks in more than 20 subjects. When Boundless launched in 2010, students made up its biggest group of early adopters, CEO Ariel Diaz said. Teachers were soon to follow, prompting the company to start offering a "premium package" for $19.99 that includes flashcards, slides for building presentations, homework and classroom management tools."

"Now, the company’s piloting customizable versions of its textbooks that professors can easily tweak to create particular reading assignments or add quizzes. With no print revenue stream to worry about or rely upon, it can easier for Boundless to innovate than a larger publisher, [CEO Ariel Diaz] says."

"According to new survey data, digital learning content is rapidly gaining momentum. Boundless, a creator of online textbooks, suggests that college students are tired of overpaying for print resources that, in many respects, don't stack up to interactive, cloud-based digital content"

"Post-lawsuit, this alternative to established players is ready once again to push ahead in its goal of dismantling the textbook industry as we know it."

"Could it happen in Boston? Could a local startup attract the kind of blockbuster deal that Facebook has made for the texting application firm WhatsApp? ... Boundless Learning, headquartered near South Station, is an educational technology firm that creates alternatives to expensive textbooks. It said half its website’s traffic is international. Like WhatsApp, this traffic comes primarily from developing nations such as Pakistan, Kenya, Bangladesh, and Nigeria."

"Boundless has settled with publishers Cengage, Macmillan and Pearson after the companies sued for violating their copyright, the company announced on Wednesday. The parties reached a confidential settlement that means Boundless can 'continue doing what we set out to do on a high level throughout the world of education,' CEO Ariel Diaz said."

"A Boston online textbook startup, Boundless, has settled a major copyright infringement lawsuit brought by three of the biggest educational publishers in the business."

"Boundless launched with a mission to provide free and online alternatives to expensive college textbooks. Within a matter of months, the founders were served with a lawsuit citing a violation of the Copyright Act from three major textbook publishers, Pearson Education, Cengage Learning, and Macmillan Higher Education. The suit was initially filed in March of 2012, and in May (about a month after Boundless raised $8 million in financing), the companies entered into a mediation phase. Today, a settlement has been reached, which will set a precedent for digital publishing and serve as a warning to future education technology startups."

"Boston online textbook startup Boundless said Wednesday it has reached a settlement with three educational publishers over a lawsuit filed by the publishers in March 2012...Founded in 2011, Boundless' goal from the start has been to disrupt the textbook incumbents, while making studying more interactive and college a bit easier to afford. "

"Three big textbook publishers and Boundless, a digital-textbook start-up company, have reached a confidential settlement of a lawsuit that the three publishers filed last year...Ariel Diaz, the Boundless founder and chief executive, said in a blog post on Wednesday that the company 'now has a clear path for building and marketing its OER-driven textbook alternatives without treading upon the plaintiffs’ rights, and it is confident that it is in compliance and will not have further legal issues with the plaintiff publishers.'"

"The lawsuit between textbook startup Boundless and three major textbook publishers has at last been settled...With the dust settling on this industry drama, the startup will be able to shift attention back to its disruptive products. That being said, the suit hasn't been slowing them down. The company recently unveiled a customizable teaching platform to allow teachers to customize and curate their classes' textbook content."

"The Boundless Teaching Platform, which rolls out today, is a free tool for educators who want to use the Boston-based startup’s textbooks in their curricula. The platform allows teachers to customize Boundless content to their syllabi and view statistics on how students are engaging with course materials. It also includes teaching materials such as lecture slides and quizzes."

"It’s 2013. Ebooks have been around since 1971. Yet tens of millions of students in kindergarten through college are still hauling around piles of heavy, quickly outdated paper textbooks that cost anywhere from $30-$200 per subject, per student. Open educational resources provide a free digital alternative to traditional books. Boundless, a startup that’s two and a half years old, offers students an easier way to find and access these materials. Boundless has organized free digital resources aligned to popular textbooks in 21 common subjects... Two million students use the platform each month, at the high school and college level."

"The Affordable College Textbook Act, introduced by Durbin and Franken this month, aims to lower book costs by promoting the use of open-source textbooks. Open books, as defined by the bill, are texts that are 'licensed under an open license and made freely available online to the public.' ... Boundless, an open educational-resources start-up, offers digital textbooks along with an app complete with flash cards and quizzes."

"Ariel Diaz [CEO of Boundless] spoke recently at TEDxCambridge on inverting the curriculum. The notion of inverting the curriculum says instead of weighing students down with minute details up front, educators can show them the beauty of the big picture to get them excited about learning. "

"Ariel Diaz [CEO of Boundless] came on PandoWeekly to talk to me about how life goes on for Boundless despite the legal challenge, how he thinks the education system is teaching students all wrong, and why Boston isn’t such a bad place for a consumer-facing startup like his, despite its reputation as an enterprise town. "

"Students are going back to school and shelling out over $1,000 each year on textbooks... Many of them use them for just a few months and then have to sell them back at a fraction of the cost...Boundless Books founder Ariel Diaz on how college students can reduce the costs for textbooks."

"As internet resources and digital alternatives become more plentiful, it is increasingly easy to save thousands of dollars on your educational journey. One option is Boundless, a free service that provides something "better" than your assigned textbook. For baseline classes, e.g. basic economics, calculus, or biology, these e-textbooks aggregate all the basic information repeated in all typical textbooks for these intro-level classes. They are launching a premium option where you pay for instant recall quizzes for an entire subject. "

"For $19.99, you get unlimited online access (no expiration) to a textbook alternative in more than 20 academic subject areas from the Boundless website, and you can access the material on any smartphone or tablet, including iPads, iPhones and all Android devices."

"The company says the textbooks are as good as ones you may buy from a college bookstore, and the app even lets you search for a textbook you need... For those looking to save cash or for help with the fundamentals, however, Boundless gets an A."

"Boundless CEO Ariel Diaz visits Digits to explain how his company moved colleges textbooks online and can potentially save students hundreds of dollars."

"The average, estimated, full-time undergraduate budget – including books and supplies, transportation and dorm expenses – totals $3,291... For intro classes, use the website Boundless."

"Much like a tutor walks her pupil through material, stopping along the way to prod him for recall or remind him of older lessons, Boundless measures when a student is likely to forget something and serves up a timely flashcard or quiz. "

"The [Boundless Textbooks] app also provides helpful user tools, including highlighting and note-taking abilities, a search system and quizzes with flashcards."

"The idea, says Boundless CEO Ariel Diaz, is to create a “personal tutor built into the product” that helps explain the content, customize it, motivate students, give them deadlines, and assess their progress."

"Boundless has content for a wide range of college subjects, most of it for popular entry-level courses where traditionally-assigned textbooks would have spanned multiple editions already...Cross-check any books you’ve been assigned and Boundless will return comparable matches."

"College textbook prices are soaring at an alarming rate, increasing faster than tuition, medical services, and even new homes. Boundless launched iOS application and a premium offering today, continuing its efforts to making educational content more accessible for college students."

"Boundless is coupling [its textbooks] with new study tools like built-in quizzes and flashcards, that CEO and co-founder Ariel Diaz says can lock in information, and change dynamically based on how students are doing. That means if you're totally bombing a series of flashcards, you can go back and reread -- or if you're breezing through, it will shorten the quiz altogether."

"CEO Ariel Diaz says, 'Boundless-branded textbooks are free across our 20 plus subjects. They're free on our website, in our mobile apps, and in other platforms. And on top of that, we offer two things on a premium basis: one are premium study tools... and we also offer students the ability to customize Boundless to their assigned textbook.'"

"Diaz said he sees that other supplier of free information — the internet — as Boundless’ main competition, noting that 70% of students have at some point skipped buying a textbook because they could work around the material using Google or their library’s reserve collection. As a recent grad who definitely didn’t buy any books in her last semester, I’ll be curious to see if students are proactive enough to take Boundless up on that $19.99 learning enhancement offer."

"As summer college classes start up around the country, many students will be spending big on textbooks and reading materials. Now a start-up out of Boston is looking to change that -- though not without controversy."

"Boston online textbook startup Boundless said Monday that Boston University and Northeastern University are both seeing a high degree of usage of its online materials for courses including accounting and psychology."

"In January, Boston-based Boundless announced the company’s free online textbooks and study tools had found their way into the hands of students at more than half of the country’s colleges. Today, Boundless has proven their popularity once again, revealing data behind students’ increasing interest in digital content."

"Why would a school pay $80 for a textbook that may quickly become irrelevant, when it could pay around $5 or less? A cadre of so-called open education publishers is slowly beginning to gain the trust of schools and university systems by posing that question. Using free, open-source education materials, firms like CK-12 and Boundless are building digital textbooks and learning materials...that students and teachers can use and edit as they wish."

"Our education system is broken, from lower-level public schools all the way up to higher learning. EdTech startups are coming at the numerous problems from every angle. Boundless, a startup out of Boston, is aiming to offer an open alternative to the college textbook."

"Boston startup Boundless, which is battling a lawsuit from three major textbook publishers over its free online college course materials, on Thursday asked a district court to rule that the case should deal with Boundless' current product — rather than its original beta product which is the focus of the suit."

"It’s been nearly a year since open textbook startup Boundless announced that it was being sued by three major textbook publishers, and today the company requested that the judge in the case make a declaratory ruling regarding the legality of its current product."

"Drawing from Open Educational Resources and a team of experts, Boundless offers an alternative to bulky and expensive textbooks that weigh most college students down on a daily basis. Thousands of students are responding well to the product, and Boundless raised $8 million last year to accelerate product development (aka the process of making physical textbooks obsolete)."

"A very unique way to get the time and attention of start-up leaders is to offer a suggestion for the company or present an interesting perspective of the business that they hadn’t thought of before. As Aaron White, CTO and co-founder of Boundless (a booming startup for free online textbooks) says, “Coffee is cheap. Ask to meet with me over coffee, and then provide value to me by offering some sort of valuable feedback on my product. I’ll gladly give you my time.”"

"Here’s an insanely detailed infographic to peruse. It’s the history of education and details the past, present, and future. While it’s merely an overview and not an encyclopedic recap of the entire history of education, it’s a fascinating start."

"The folks at Boundless who last brought us the EdTech Buzzwords Infographic are back with The History of Education. The graphic takes a look at how formal education began, changes along the way, current day and predictions for the next twenty years."

"When I first heard about Boundless, I thought, here is a company changing a messed up system by blowing it up, rather than working quietly within it."

"Despite the legal battle, [Boundless] has pushed on, adding more content, organizing content hackathons and releasing its content under Creative Commons."

"Since first emerging early last year, Boston-based startup Boundless has been on a mission to give students a free alternative to the financial and physical costs of bulky backpacks brimming with pricey hard-copy textbooks... Boundless continuously updates its content as theories change, additions are made, we discover intelligent life on Mars, etc., and, thanks to the magic of digital technology, it can seamlessly push these changes into its content without the high costs and without forcing students to buy another book."

"Boundless, the company that builds on existing open educational resources to provide free alternatives to traditionally costly college textbooks, has released 18 open textbooks under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA), the same license used by Wikipedia. Schools, students and the general public are free to share and remix these textbooks under this license."

"Heading the pack for OER is Boundless, a start-up company that uses open-source (free) information to rebuild textbooks for students. The digitized copies of the textbooks are then available for students to use on their tablets or laptops."

"College textbook prices have risen an alarming 812 percent since 1978, meaning: students need Boundless now more than ever. Considering the company’s free online textbooks and study tools have found their way into the hands of students at more than half of the country’s colleges, however, that realization has clearly sunk in."

"The collector of open-source materials, all students need to do is tell Boundless which text and edition has been assigned by their professor. From there, the team assembles content from the Open Educational Resources (OER) community, and delivers a textbook that covers the same exact material and allows students to access it for free, tying in several other interactive components, such as videos, highlighting and instant search."

"A new site, Boundless.com, has been launched to help curate the large database of [Open Educational Resources] items now available online to students, learners and educators."

"In the face of increasing competition from the “open educational resources” movement, the traditional college textbook model will likely suffer the same fate as the traditional encyclopedia when it was challenged by Wikipedia."

"The college textbook industry …[is] using digital content as a way to charge more money... Now a startup called Boundless.com is trying to change that. There’s so much open content out there now that sorting through it all can be daunting. Boundless curates OER and organizes it in a way that mirrors popular textbooks... You can simply head to Boundless and get free content that covers that same ideas and concepts, optimized for your tablet or e-reader. For students stocking up on textbooks for their spring 2013 classes, that sounds pretty appealing."

"Boston start-up Boundless’s efforts to drag the old-fashioned textbook into the open-source era — patching together digital course content using available open-license materials — has been met with glowing reviews from investors, who put $9.7 million behind the idea, and students, who like the price (free)."

"The company has today rolled out more usefulness in the form of more beyond-the-textbook features."

"Unlike publishers, who market their books to professors, Diaz's company is aiming directly at students."

"For Boundless and other open-content publishing platforms, the hackathons are way to accelerate the creation of content. And, they provide students and teachers with free (or low-cost) instructional material that reflects a potentially broader range of voices from top subject-matter experts."

"The team at Boundless, the digital textbook startup, is opening up their office to physics professors, researchers, graduate students and the like this weekend with one goal in mind: to create a free, open physics book."

"Hopefully, companies like Boundless will be the pioneers in the eventual disruption of the current textbook system. Making educational materials completely open and free to all students should be a reality."

"Boundless aims directly at students themselves, promising them the highest-quality open-access content in the best possible technology platform."

"What’s also interesting about Boundless is its progress in the rapidly moving field of ed-tech. Its new site looks cleaner and easier to read and navigate... at least to this reporter’s eye."

"I’m bullish on Boundless because they’re building a product that’s designed to incrementally change education, and yet they hold a potentially transformative vision for educational content."

"[Boundless] believes that an oligopoly of textbook publishers has been driving up costs for years (as the four top publishers currently control the lion’s share of the market) and so it set out to change that."

"Lucky for all of us, the co-founder of Boundless clued me into a fabulous new infographic they just launched. Dubbed the EdTech Cheat Sheet, I think it’s one of the most useful infographics out there today."

"When was the last time you were at an edtech conference and heard fragmented conversations laced with the latest education lingo and acronyms? We understand how confusing it can be, which is why we’ve decided to share this great Edtech Cheat Sheet by Boundless."

"A little litigation isn’t slowing down Boundless, as it today announced that it has closed an $8 million Series A round, led by Venrock. The sizable chunk of pre-launch funding adds to the $1.7 million seed round Boundless raised last year from Nextview, Founder Collective, Kepha, and SV Angel."

"Boundless co-founder and CEO Ariel Diaz says [...]“We’re focusing on students,” who want more modular, interactive, and social ways of digesting information. “The future of educational content is not a textbook. It’s not even going to look like an e-book."

"As college tuition costs increase, the cost of buying a semester’s worth of textbooks poses an added burden to university students. One Boston-based ed tech startup [Boundless] is tackling this space with a vision to create a learning platform that is both useful and relevant to university students around the world."

"If there’s any industry willing to quash innovation and progress to save its stodgy existence, it’s book publishing. [...] But [Boundless] is free, and it seems like a totally viable alternative to many expensive textbooks."

"Open-education resources have been hailed as a trove of freely available information that can be used to build textbooks at virtually no cost."

"All three members of Boundless have made names for themselves as young entrepreneurs in Boston already. The initial team assembled is certainly promising, the swagger is genuine, and the space is absolutely huge."