[Novalug] OT: Free textbooks

Gavin Baker grbaker@ufl.edu
Tue Aug 28 21:40:02 EDT 2007


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On vacation, I missed this thread from last week, but wanted to weigh in
with a quick FYI.

There are a number of initiatives to produce free (libre) textbooks.
Some are produced by a single author; others are developed
collaboratively (as in Wikimedia's Wikibooks project[1]). A few are
complete and ready-to-use; many are in varying stages of development.

There is not complete consensus over what rights are required for "free"
textbooks (unlike e.g. the well agreed-upon definitions of free software
provided by FSF's "four freedoms"[2] or the Open Source Definition[3]),
but generally unrestricted use, modification, and redistribution must be
allowed, with some disagreement over whether commercial use must be
allowed. Usually this is accomplished via a Creative Commons license[4].

Here are some initiatives to promote free textbooks, which include some
links to some available free textbooks:

http://wikieducator.org/Free_Textbooks
http://icommons.org/nodes/free-textbooks
http://blog.opentextbook.org/
http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/freetextbooks

Free textbooks are a goal of the movement to promote open educational
resources (OERs):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_educational_resources

Coincidentally, here in Virginia, the state legislature's Joint
Commission on Technology and Science has formed an advisory committee to
study OERs:

http://jcots.state.va.us/2007%20Content/openeducation.htm
http://jcotsopeneducation.blogspot.com/

Links:
[1] http://en.wikibooks.org/
[2] http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
[3] http://opensource.org/docs/osd
[4] http://www.creativecommons.org/
- --
Gavin Baker
http://www.gavinbaker.com/
grbaker@ufl.edu
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