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Global Text Project – Wiki Textbooks
Grooves writes, "A new initiative spearheaded by a University of Georgia professor aims to produce a library of 1,000 wiki textbooks by tapping the collaborative power of wiki. Inspiration for the project came from a computer science course that wrote its own textbook on XML when no suitable commercial offerings were available. From the article: 'The Global Text Project will work a bit differently from most wikis. Each chapter of each book will be overseen by an academic with knowledge of that field. Although the site will allow anyone to make changes, these will not become "official" until an editor signs off on them.' Textbooks free as in speech, and beer? Sign me up."
I am looing forward to this. While MIT's attempts to open up thier classes on the internet seemed novel, it was not the resource I was hoping it would be. I was hoping it would be a good reference place when I needed to remember something from my college days as all my textbooks from college are buried in storage. This shows promise but I will reserve my judgement for it's usefullness for now.
quis custodiet ipsos custodes
Will this work with the One Laptop Per Child program (OLPC)? I thought I had heard that the OLPC planned to use wiki technology for books as one of its goals. A major need of that program is free, open, but accurate and factual content, not just technology.
Connexions - online textbook repository. All XML-ized.
0 518403675&q=http%3A%2F%2Fcnx.org%2F
http://cnx.org/
And the Google Techtalk:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=685228709
i would hate to see how they determine what's "notable."
the wikipedia encyclopedia is ok for science topics but for all the cultural/historical entries, it's like the worst of MySpace combined with the most boring blogs. half the admins there pound anyone who disagrees with them into the ground by using the "rules" and the senior staff arbitarily make secret decisions w/o any oversight. so i don't trust wikianything any more.
speak the wikitruth! http://www.wikitruth.info/
Wiki based educational books on just about everything.
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Main_Page
Deleted
While the idea is interesting, the project is still in its early stages (only 3 books are available, 2 are incomplete).
Wikibooks has progressed farther, but as TFA notes, this one operates on slightly stricter policies that might be useful for academic books.
I can explain it for you, but I can't understand it for you.
Why not join forces with Wikibooks or Wikiversity? Though as long as GlobalText is licensed in GFDL (they don't seem to say anywhere on their site?), then the projects will help each other out anyway.
The project will create open content electronic textbooks that will be freely available from a Web site. Distribution will also be possible via paper, CD, or DVD. Our goal initially is to focus on content development and Web distribution, and we will work with relevant authorities to facilitate dissemination by other means when bandwidth is unavailable or inadequate.
The major difference between this project and wikibooks is the licensing. The Global Text Project looks like all the content will be given away free but the project is at the mercy of the project leaders. At least with wikibooks I know the content is safe as it is all under the GNU Free Documentation License or compatiable license (such as public domain).
How would you know? You're clearly not old enough to drink it.
More precisely, I believe he has demonstrated that he's also not old enough to attend frat parties :)
Beer is free if I ain't payin'.
As a part time tech prof, I believe this to be a worthwhile endeavor. My early reservation, however, is regarding the editorial framework. If each chapter has a different editor, it may be difficult to develop a common voice for the entire WikiText. Also, single editors (vs. an editorial review team with a chief editor) would limit the editorial perspective, increasing the liklihood that the materials would convey the editor's personal biases to a greater degree (it's inevitable for any work, but most in the academic world are not reviewed by a single set of eyes). This latter concern would be somewhat mitigated by the Wiki format, since regular revisions may be suggested, but that leads me to one final concern...
Unless the WikiTexts are printed for use, or updated on a limited schedule, there is the possibility that students may study different versions, making assessment (based on assigned reading) more difficult. [I would hope the content would not change to such a degree as to invalidate previous versions, but it is a possibility.]
I will watch expectantly (and hopefully contribute) as this develops...
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
Class, wait a momnet, as i revert your textbooks to the previous edit...
Have you read my journal today?
My first impression of the wiki-textbook on XML was not not that great - it seemed to be closer to lecture notes, than to a textbook.
Loxodonta Africana: A Natural History.
The problem with this project is the requirement of total academic oversight to do even minor edits. It's gonna make a lot of work. It would be nice to have a method to have externally selected expert administrators to supervise the editing process.
the more they over-think the plumbing the easier it is to stop up the pipe
I'd like to be the one to doodle futuristic cars in all the margins.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
I would hope that this wiki would have tools to let a teacher "lock-in" a version of the text for use during the term. It would be frustrating to discover that midway through the term that the wiki changed material in some chapter -- adding material the teacher had not plan to cover or removing material that they had. I could even see some teachers preferring to retain a particular version of the text for a couple of years if they had invested heavily in teaching plans that were specific to that version.
The ultimate tool would let teachers mix and match chapters -- picking different versions from different years to suit their tastes.
The point is that once a wiki transitions from casual/random access (e.g. wikipedia) to one of methodical use, then the user needs more say in versions or some way to retain their favored version.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
Anyways, I hope this provides some good content for loading up on the "one laptop per child" project.
I think that this could produce textbooks that have content not directly influenced by governments, religions, and corporations. There is likely to be some level of resistance in certain places depending on the subject, but the overall result should be positive.
Non sequitur: Your facts are uncoordinated.
From the article: 'The Global Text Project will work a bit differently from most wikis. Each chapter of each book will be overseen by an academic with knowledge of that field.
This is excellent.
Free knowledge written by experts. Sweet.
Tubby or not tubby. Fat is the question
1) Do homework without reading textbook 2) Change wiki 3) Hand in 'correct' homework 4) ??? 5) Profit
how would you reference the texts? Would the editors have finalized 'editions' that go into an uneditable archive mode, and only the 'latest' editions are wiki-able?
Yes. Wikibooks makes PDFs for "completed" texts.
That would at least be managable from a referencing point of view, but would detract a bit of the credibility from the 'work in progress' copies.
If only dead tree publishers had that kind of credibility for text books. The rate of minor and meaningless changes to create new "editions" is outrageous. I'm looking forward to wikibooks being an island of stability in the academic publishing world.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
But what about starting the work on Wikibooks, and then after there's enough material, make an "academic version" where the academics go over the whole text, correct any mistakes there may be, and (besides adding those improvements on Wikibooks) publish that separately (which they of course are allowed to do under the GFDL). The separate version would have the advantage of stability, and you could be sure that academics have approved all of it. I think this way you would get the best of both worlds.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Reuters
"Broken hands" and "fired teachers" comments are joke comments made to disrupt useful conversation about the real failings of paper texts and the academic publishers. While some greed heads at my University might have a cow at the thought of anyone giving away their precious "intellectual property", the vast majority of professors remember that part of their mission is education. Collaborative, electronic textbooks are sure to overtake traditional publications in the same way free software has overtaken non free. In the end, wiki texts are just a more efficient way to do the job.
I like you class notes. Have you seen or thought about using them as the basis for a wikibook?
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Something like an encyclopedia can tolerate a certain uneveness among multiple authors because individual essays stand alone and are not that long. A course-book needs more coherence provided by an small number number of authors and an overseeing architect.
Although it doesn't have textbooks, the Public Library of Science (PLOS) has refereed journals available. It would be great if they could add textbooks for the sciences, also.
see http://www.plos.org/
--Rob
Towards the Singularity.
I can't tell if you're an elephant enthusiast, or if you're making a very subtle reference to the story of the blind men and the elephant ...
... !
Ah, the joys of making random inferences late at night
I mean will the textbooks be printable?
It's about time that someone comes up with this idea. I am sick and tired of the price gouging that goes on in the textbook industry. There is no excuse for a math book to cost $100 new, $90 used.
Once, I took an accounting course. All the students were angry that the textbook cost nearly $200. So the publisher actually sent a representative to our class to explain to us why it's ok that the book costs so much. He said that unlike New York Times bestsellers, which are printed in quantities of millions and therefore enjoy reasonable prices due to economies of scale, college textbooks are printed in small quantities and therefore have to cover a larger chunk of the non-recurring expenses, such as the writing, layout, photography, and other design that goes into the book before it ever goes into print.
So this explanation sounds good and fine. But let me ask you something: How much has changed in basic accounting since 1950? Since 1900? Since 1850? The only difference today is that most accounting is done on a computer, whereas before, it was done on paper. However, the course is taught on paper, not on the computer, so that the student will learn how accounting works. Therefore, I claim that nothing has changed in accounting or the method used to teach it, at least since Pacioli lived.
In other words, I'm saying that this textbook should have been designed in 1975, and the same edition should continue printing to this day. There is no excuse for the book being in its 20th edition, which it was. Which leads me to this obvious conclusion: Textbook publishers change the pictures and layout every year or two for the sole purposes of price gouging and killing the used textbook market.
And, yes, I know that we all know this already. That is why I support this effort 100%. Even if students will have to pay, say, $40 for a new textbook. That's less than half of normal textbook prices, and it would more than cover the cost of printing, plus yield profit for the project to operate and flourish, even hiring professionals in each field to write and check the books. Used books could be sold for $10 to $20. Quite reasonable if you ask me.
"A new initiative spearheaded by a University of Georgia professor aims to produce a library of 1,000 wiki textbooks by tapping the collaborative power of wiki. Inspiration for the project came from a computer science course that wrote its own textbook on XML"
A very cool idea in principle, but if the XML book they've done is typical, they should stop now. Just for grins, I opened to a subject I know quite well, which is XML and Schemas. There we find:
"Entities are basically the objects a Schema is created to represent. As stated before, they have attributes and relationships. We will now go much further into explaining exactly what they are and how to write code for them.
There are two types of Entities: simpleType and complexType. "
Well no. That's about as wrong as you can be. The term "entity" in XML has a rather precisely defined meaning and it has very little to do with simpleTypes or complexTypes. Entities are a really fundamental concept in XML. While it's no doubt tempting to someone who views the world in entity/relation terms to use "entity" in that sense (which I suspect is what the author had in mind), that's no excuse for writing textbooks that are wrong. Whoever wrote this section obviously didn't have a student's much less a textbook author's grasp of XML details.
As it stands, this example suggests that wikibooks are at risk of producing some strikingly inaccurate teaching materials, and that's very troubling. Looks like some much for serious fact checking will be needed if books like this are to to more good than harm. Too bad, because the idea of wikibooks does seem very appealing.
Perhaps these two efforts coloborate.
I think the collaborative textbook idea is excellent, but I think a strong effort should be made to create basic high school texts before tackling college and graduate level material. School budgets in this country are stretched very thin and every book they don't have to buy is money that can be used for other things. Also, we need to do something to save our kids' backs. Last week I witnessed my 14 year old nephew heading off to school with twenty pounds of books in his backpack. At the end of the day I helped load his stuff into the car and it was even heavier. Wouldn't it be great if he could have two sets of books so he didn't have to transport them back and forth? If a book is lost or destroyed, he can download and print a new copy. In addition to the hardcopies, he could copy all his books to a memory card or thumb drive and read material in the car using a PSP or other preferred device.
And we're talking about basic material here - not up-to-the-minute, cutting edge stuff. Algebra hasn't changed in a while, neither has high school chemistry or early American history. My son is 5 now. I hope by the time he is in high school he won't be asked to carry more weight than a fully equipped Marine.
DD
"Can I finish? Can I finish?
Why people insist on using GFDL? There are projects which are doing just fine with publishing the content under one of CC licenses (WikiTravel) or even putting the content into public domain (Hikipedia).
LukaszLukasz Anforowicz
Hikipedia - a free database of hi
Free collaborative wiki style textbooks for the third world would be great. There are also already a few free textbooks available available on the Internet such as these:
Perhaps we ultimately could end up with some textbooks done collaborative Wiki style and other free text books done in a different way. Either way I think free textbooks would be great especially for common slow changing subjects such algebra, calculus, English, history and such.
I was listening to a guy on TV who had just taken his daughter to college last week, and had to pay $150 to buy her a math textbook. I had no idea that text prices had gotten that high. He also said that the publishers keep bringing out new editions every 2-3 years (how much changes about calculus in that amount of time?) so that used-book sales don't destroy their profits. I don't know how it is at other universities, but the one I attended had a monopoly on text sales thru the on-campus store, so it profited handsomely from the sales of new books as well.
I'd love to see wiki texts blow a hole in this scheme, but the professors would have to get on board and use them instead of the commercial ones. How many of them would do that?
This is a brilliant concept in the making. Unfortunately, the bad may outweigh the good eventually. It seems to me that the idea is good, the execution = bad. This could take anywhere from a few years to a few decades. I do not specifically know how they plan on compiling all of it and making the way in which the material is presented fluid - even if there is an "editor" (who, by all means, must be a genius; or God) to oversee the end result.
Well, besides that, I think it will be interesting to see what happens.
If they can work out the licensing issues, they could start with the lecture notes from the MIT OpenCourseWare project. The MIT OCW lecture notes need detail but they are a good start. There is probably lecture notes from other colleges too.
If they wanted that they would have done so. The project owners know about Wikibooks - in fact there first book is hosted at Wikibooks. They just plainly don't want to or they belive there own project is better.
Martin