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Another Perspective on Authoring an Open Textbook

Another Perspective on Authoring an Open Textbook. David Lippman Pierce College Ft Steilacoom. Why did I write an open textbook?. Terminal math course for liberal arts majors and professional-technical degrees Book was over $100 New editions every 3 years Is a topics course, nicely modular

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Another Perspective on Authoring an Open Textbook

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  1. Another Perspective on Authoring an Open Textbook David Lippman Pierce College Ft Steilacoom

  2. Why did I write an open textbook? • Terminal math course for liberal arts majors and professional-technical degrees • Book was over $100 • New editions every 3 years • Is a topics course, nicely modular • Had been toying with idea for a while David Lippman - WA SBCTC Webinar

  3. Guided by looking at open texts • Lots of “books” read like lecture notes or were brief summaries. Wanted something that felt complete. • Efforts to make books super-open have led to aesthetically bland books. Opted for an editable word processing format. • If using the book will require work (like format conversion), only true evangelizers will use it. • Math is particularly challenging. David Lippman - WA SBCTC Webinar

  4. Development: Beginning • Spring: Started writing a couple chapters • Got offered for some grant money • Wrote enough chapters for my online class • Summer: Applied for and received some more grant money to write more chapters, and pay others to write a few chapters David Lippman - WA SBCTC Webinar

  5. Development: Student Editors • Summer: Used my preliminary draft with my online class • Put up an extra credit “Typos forum”: one point per typo found. Served as errata list, and turned a negative into a positive David Lippman - WA SBCTC Webinar

  6. Development: Current • Fall: Added chapters finished in the summer • Posted book on college website • Printed copy available on Lulu.com ($10) • Announced to Community College Open Textbook Project • They cross-listed it all over the place David Lippman - WA SBCTC Webinar

  7. Bookstore Fun • Bookstore didn’t want to order from print-on-demand because they couldn’t return product • Ended up going with print services loose sheet copies for Fall • Found some money to buy a class set for library checkout • Still haven’t figured out a long-term solution. David Lippman - WA SBCTC Webinar

  8. Thoughts on Openness • To make adoptable products, can’t sacrifice usability for openness. • It is essential to provide an easily editable format to ensure easy remixing. • Online remixing platforms are slick and cool, but don’t always transition formats well yet. • It is essential that open textbooks be useable in a printed format. • Non-commercial license make printing and distribution horribly difficult. That’s bad. David Lippman - WA SBCTC Webinar

  9. Thoughts on Collaboration • Remember not everyone is going to instantly share your passion • Nice to have a primary editor to edit contributions for consistency • Ensure license compatibility before drawing in content from other sources David Lippman - WA SBCTC Webinar

  10. Thoughts on Versioning • Unlike publisher books, users are never forced into new editions • Nice to distinguish major changes and changes affecting page or exercise numbers from typo corrections David Lippman - WA SBCTC Webinar

  11. Thoughts on License Selection • Non-commercial licenses: Make printing too complicated. Avoid them. • No-derivatives license: Not really open. • Two schools of thought: • CC-BY: Most permissive license, so some consider the “most open”. Advocated by Connexions, Gates, Hewlett, etc. • CC-BY-SA/GNU-FDL: These licenses require remixes to be released under the same license. Propagates openness. David Lippman - WA SBCTC Webinar

  12. Thoughts on License Selection My choice: CC-BY-SA “Sharealike” • Familiar from my background in open source software with the GNU GPL • Ensures improvements are open • Should be sufficient to curb undesired commercial use • Compatible with Wikipedia content David Lippman - WA SBCTC Webinar

  13. Conclusion • Exciting journey • Came together pretty quickly • I will be saving my students about $10,000 this year alone • If you write a book, think carefully about license and format • dlippman@pierce.ctc.edu • http://www.pierce.ctc.edu/dlippman David Lippman - WA SBCTC Webinar

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