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Virginia Begins Open-Source Physics Textbook

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the wiki-physics-are-much-easier-than-textbook-physics dept.

eldavojohn writes "The Commonwealth of Virginia has issued a request for contributions to an open source physics textbook (or 'flexbook' they termed it). They are partnering with CK-12 to make this educational textbook under the Creative Commons by Attribution Share-Alike license."

3 of 226 comments (clear)

  1. OSS Textbooks kick serious... by Creepy+Crawler · · Score: 5, Informative

    Ass, but www.textbooktorrents.com saved me a bunch of money.

    Why pay for rev.2 and rev.3 when you bought rev.1 and are getting reamed by changed question numbers?

    I saved my friends about 2k$ this semester from what I found there.

    --
  2. It's been done. by td · · Score: 5, Informative

    In the late 1960s, I was taught high-school physics from the PSSC (Physical Science Study Committee) Physics textbook. The curriculum and textbook were put together by an NSF-convened panel. All the curriculum materials (textbook, supplementary readings, teacher's guides, experimental equipment) were made freely available. I still have two copies of the textbook produced by different publishers and with different covers but identical inside.

    Although it was demonstrably superior to other physics curricula, the PSSC program was ultimately a failure because publishers, who couldn't make much money selling the PSSC textbook due to competition, eventually dropped the book and pushed hard to get their proprietary, therefore more heavily marked-up, textbooks adopted by school boards.

    --
    -Tom Duff
  3. Re:Light and Matter by JustinOpinion · · Score: 5, Informative

    Indeed. They should take advantage of the open-source textbooks that already exist... either by simply selecting one for their purposes, or putting together the best pieces from various sources into a coherent textbook that serves their purposes. Here are the open-source textbook (or related information) sites I'm aware of:

    Pointers to Textbooks and Content:
    http://textbookrevolution.org/
    http://www.opentextbook.org/
    http://www.theassayer.org/
    http://spiff.rit.edu/classes/
    http://globaltext.terry.uga.edu/
    http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Main_Page
    http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Books

    Some available lecture notes:
    http://ocw.mit.edu/index.html
    http://www.phys.uu.nl/~thooft/theorist.html#languages
    http://spiff.rit.edu/classes/