Can The Open Source Model Work For Textbooks? 18
Paul Maud'Dib asks: "My mother is both a teacher at a local college as well as a writer for a major textbook publisher. She has spent the last four years writing, reviewing, rewriting, sending out for reviews, rewriting again, shifting focus, and then a little more rewriting. Unfortunately, she was paired with a cowriter that had good ideas but lacked the ambition to fulfill her part of the project, leaving my mother to write practically the entire book herself. These kinds of problems--review, rewriting, collaboration--as well as the general purpose of such a book (not to make money, but for education) seem to fit quite well into the OSS development model. Not to mention the $500+ most college students would save given such a model. Yet very few, if any, real textbooks have been developed and published in such a manner. What barriers, if any, prevent such publishing and what should be done to stimulate the OSS model in textbook publishing?"
Re:Textbooks (Score:1)
model and the traditional publishing model is restrictions on distribution.
>First, ebooks still have huge usability problems.
Ok, one embodiment isn't so hot. Removing barriers on reprinting would let the works be distrbuted at cost.
>Second, if a book is open source, what is to keep >someone from taking a book filled with
>useful, accurate information and adding in their >own take on the subject and using that for class?
How do you deal with this problem on the Internet, you go to a trusted source. Do you get your kernel from Linus or evil.com? Thankfully, the academic peer review process has this function.
>Third, I would argue that the information is >available.
Kinko's got sued in a landmark case for printing batches of articles that appeared in class syllabi. The result, higher prices to the student, more profit to the publisher via a license to the copy shop or an academic db.
Re:free online textbooks (Score:1)
Since the author retains copyright aren't they free to offer the work under multiple licenses? If they release a work under the GPL you can make whatever additions you want on that text but they can also license it to a publisher under a non open license. Practically, the publisher would be interested in "closing" any future modifications to the work since an unrestricted version exists. So they would use you to get publicity until they can "cash in" and fork. Perhaps I'm not clear on why or what the GPL prevents.
free online textbooks (Score:1)
I am currently working on starting a non-profit company to electronically publish free textbooks. So, I followed this question with great interest.
I've decided that a pure open source strategy is not appropriate for textbook publishing. I think that one of the best motivations for getting authors to allow their work to be published online is that it can help draw attention to them as an author. So, in one sense authors would be using my project to get free publicity. I think that this is ok, as long as the project is also using the author. The idea is that an author will publish with my project in the hopes that a publishing house will pick up the book. We want the authors to have this ability to "sell out" but we also want the rights to keep publishing the authors work and even keep updating and modifying it. The viral nature of the GPL makes using this as a motivation impossible.
If anyone is interested in this project, free online textbook publishing, please email me at krish@jmaginary.org [mailto]. Right now, I trying to drum up as much interest in the project I can.
-krish
Textbooks (Score:1)
First, ebooks still have huge usability problems. Anyone having to deal with advanced classes shouldn't have to worry about fighting the book in addition to the content. Being able to highlight an write notes in the book is very important. Plus, classes that allow open book but not open note exams would have trouble with this sort of thing. Besides, the panic factor of a student discovering that the batteries of their ebook ran out at 2am the night before a test is very bad. I'm sure a lot of people on Slashdot are familiar with that experience with a calculator.
Second, if a book is open source, what is to keep someone from taking a book filled with useful, accurate information and adding in their own take on the subject and using that for class? Such as deciding that evolution is not correct and should be replaced with creationism? Part of the value of text books is that the publishing process can weed out useless or inaccurate stuff, and reviews can be made of those that are out there. So you can find out if the book is crap or not. That would be more difficult with an open source book.
Third, I would argue that the information is available. Open source (as I understand it) applies to the copyright/left of the project. Publishing is a big thing in the academic world. People do it for the prestige, and the addition to their resume. I'm not sure how well a collaborative project for publishing would go over.
I would suggest a better open source education project would be more of a project book or lesson plan. Walk though problems or labs or stories with aids and the like. Something a student could use as an aid for a class or a teacher could use as a basis for the classroom. If I had some extra interactive guides for my classes, some of the classes would have be a much better experience. And having a number of teachers for friends, I know they are always looking for ideas to make class more interesting.
Classrooms Need Opensource (Score:1)
missing the point. (Score:1)
To learn of course. But why not improve on it? Books are not interactive (ok Some are), but software can be very interactive. Wouldn't it have been sweet if we could have learned math through a one on one approach instead of just reading a book. If I can't do complicated Integration, software could easily find my weak areas and give me a quick review session. Maybe even a few hints along the way.
I think a wiser choice would not be to open source text books, but to open source "Web Content" Perhaps a variation of Slashdot's "Slash" code with an interactive aspect of learning. Content contributors could easily log in to add a question here and there. Maybe even have the ability for bad questions to be moderated down. I wish I could program well enough to start working on this "virtual slash" code, but if somebody else created it, I'd be more than willing to contribute a few tidbits of my existing knowledge.
Just my $.02
its been done, or has it? (Score:1)
"Philip and Alex's Guide to Web Publishing"
http://www.arsdigita.com/books/panda/
is available online in its entirity.
Books can be made available for download off the internet and published in dead tree format too, but when it comes to the online editing and review that seems merely a development of the same theme.
--
I thought i was wrong once, but i was mistaken.
Open source text books (Score:1)
Re:free online textbooks (Score:1)
Not much incentive to do this (Score:2)
Yeah, I know not all of us do things for money, but if you do the things in the beginning that make money, you'll then have enough money to do all the public good/charity/open source stuff you want.
get rid of copyright for academic works? (Score:2)
Removing barriers to distribution makes perfect sense to me, academia is a publicly subsidized institution, as such its products should be available without restriction to the public. I think incorporating capitalism's incentive system in academia is dangerous. As you said, education should be the incentive, not money. Having money be the incentive causes researchers to not share their work with each other and undermines the credibility of the academic process. There was a good article in the Atlantic a while back about this, see here [theatlantic.com].
The biggest barrier that I can see is the cozy relationship between the publishers and the old boy academic network. They both can profit more under restricted distribution than open distribution. More public investment in academia would lessen the need for academics to turn to capitalism for incentive. There is some awareness of this issue afoot on campuses but there is no movement by academics that I am aware of.
Book copyleft - or copy middle:Principia Discordia (Score:2)
This didn't make it free, but it did make it legal to take it to Kinko's (once kinko's was invented) It has been through at least 5 publishers, most of whom seem to have added some material. But the $s work out like this: each publisher makes a small amount of money - the writers get nothing (except publicity...) You certainly COULD do this with a textbook - and I bet you could find someone to print it, since they wouldn't have to pay YOU royalties... but maybe you'd have to find a small publisher, or possibly you'd have to do it yourself (isn't that what "university press"s were all about?)
you already have the "source" to a book...
I think a more appropriate model might be traditional copyrighting and automatic non-exclusive licenses. Say you normally get $10/copy of a book as a royalty (I've no idea the realism here) instead refuse to sign an exclusivity agreement, and offer $5, or $2. Large publishers might walk away, but some probably won't... people DO publish dead people's works that aren't exclusive, so you might be able to convince them.
Then sell more than one license. Sell them online for a single copy. You can even inflate the single-copy license by calling the pub rate a volume discount.(IGNORE the fact that someone can print 50... you cannot reasonably prevent it - but sue if they SELL them without paying your license) This can work even if you don't have the original deal with any brick-and-mortar pub, but it'd work better if you start with at least one, so it exists in hard format.
Then give out electronic ones incl updates free to anyone who gives you a good critique - including refunding the fee of someone who paid for it. And advertise this fact up front.
I bet you'll have one of the best edited books ever - but I still bet you'll make less money.
- Arete
Re:Not much incentive to do this (Score:2)
You know, it seems we are reinventig the wheel a little (wheel being the free documentation license concept). Not that it is a bad thing.
What about we team up and put this ideas in a formal way? We might come up with something useful.
Re:Not much incentive to do this (Score:2)
Well, many people do just that for software, so why not books?
That said, I think the model for Free Books should be different. For instance, not everybody should be allowed to alter content at will (what if someone introduces a wrong formula, or a false historical event?) but copy should be free provided the work remains unadultered. Not that people can't contribute patches -- but they should pass the author's sieve.
Not Open Source, but kinda sorta maybe... (Score:2)
Bruce Eckel [eckelobjects.com], author of both Thinking in C++ and Thinking in Java (and probably a few more) has done something vaguely like this.
While writing them, he periodically posts his work-in-progress online. Anyone may download them for free. He originally posted in html and PDF, but now he posts in Word and html -- some volunteers create PDFs for him. The work is copyrighted.
However, users are encouraged to test his source code, or submit comments, corrections, ideas, etc. He incorporates these into his book. As the author, he maintains overall control of the book.
After publication, the book are available for free download (Word, html and PDF), and dead-tree versions are available for sale. You may freely distribute unmodified downloaded versions.
IMO, the books are pretty good, which makes me believe that this may be a workable model for textbook publishing. I don't know how well it will work for non-tech books, though.
On a cynical note, Bruce Eckel probably (disclaimer: this is totally unsubstantiated) makes his money from his seminars, and if more people have his book, more people will take his seminar, so distributing it for free makes for a good business move.
How would I turn them in for credit ... (Score:2)
Re:Not much incentive to do this (Score:2)
Worried that the historical text you download may have been altered by, say, Neo-Nazis? Certification marks from universities would give you as much assurance as you currently have with the textbook your kid brings home from school.
Tangibility is probably the first problem. (Score:3)
I expect that a similar problem would occur with textbooks. Since it would cost money to print them, I assume that your open source books would be online/downloadable in some sort of format. Where? Will a school be able to designate a single site where they can tell students "Ok, go here and download all your books?" or will all teachers have their own personal favorites, sending students all around the net looking? What happens to the student that runs Linux who needs to hit a site that only runs on Windows/IE in order to get a book? What will the standard be that determines which open source projects are acceptible classroom material? I would expect that in at least some instances books need to have some sort of certification or seal of approval before teachers bring them into the classroom.
Will you need DOC files for history, PDF for sociology and RB (Rocket eBook) for calculus? A recent slashdot article asked about the frightening prospect of having a standard (such as DOC) that could outlive the software that it's dependent upon, but if you gave teachers their way you're likely to find that DOC is what they'd prefer to use. Remember these are writers, not net geeks. (The time I tried to send in a magazine article in Wordperfect format because I'd written it on Linux, I got screamed at by my editor. It was a Linux article!)
And can you imagine the traffic jam when the vast majority of your freshman class all tries to print out all of their textbooks on the network printer simultaneously?