Community College Open Textbook Project
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Best way to get new open texts?
I have been reviewing the open math textbooks out there (thanks for compiling a great list), and have found that while there are several great ones out there, like Collaborative Stats and the Burzynski books, many open texts are not printable, either by design or by license. I don't think my students are ready for online-only texts. So that brings me to my point :)
How do we get quality, complete, printable open texts where they don't currently exist? Is the best solution to:
1) Convince authors who wrote published books to release them open instead? If so, how do we convince them to do that? Would they do it?
2) Seek out grant funding to provide money or release time for people to write new books?
3) Work with a company like FlatWorldKnowledge to get open texts out there? While some funding might be necessary to give authors time to write a book, perhaps FWK could reduce the end production cost by handling editing/layout stuff.
Is the CCOTP working on any of this? Are there existing projects working on it?
I ask partially because I am preparing a grant proposal focusing on some other math OER stuff, and was considering writing something in for expanding the open text offerings, but wasn't sure of the best way to approach it.
How do we get quality, complete, printable open texts where they don't currently exist? Is the best solution to:
1) Convince authors who wrote published books to release them open instead? If so, how do we convince them to do that? Would they do it?
2) Seek out grant funding to provide money or release time for people to write new books?
3) Work with a company like FlatWorldKnowledge to get open texts out there? While some funding might be necessary to give authors time to write a book, perhaps FWK could reduce the end production cost by handling editing/layout stuff.
Is the CCOTP working on any of this? Are there existing projects working on it?
I ask partially because I am preparing a grant proposal focusing on some other math OER stuff, and was considering writing something in for expanding the open text offerings, but wasn't sure of the best way to approach it.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Judy Baker on -
1) For one approach to encouraging textbook authors to open license their work, see Textbook Open Licensing Awareness Initiative.
2) Yes, grant funds may be available to support the develop open textbooks.
CCOTP is working on all of these issues.
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Permalink Reply by Richard Ganns on -
Hi -- while we are looking for complete open textbooks, maybe we could start collecting whatever modules we have already developed on our own. I have a number of exercise sets designed for in-class development activities in pre-calculus and calculus, for example (I will be putting them on my website). We could make a list of links to such materials as exist now ?
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Permalink Reply by Judy Baker on
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Please consider posting a link to your math exercise sets in MERLOT. Find out how by visiting their site at http://www.merlot.org/merlot/index.htm. As a MERLOT Member, (free) you can:
Contribute learning materials, Create a personal collection, Develop a personal profile, Share your online expertise, and get Receive peer recognition.
Some faculty are sharing their assessment and learning materials at a site called QeDoc. See their website at http://www.qedoc.org/en/index.php?title=Main_Page
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