Virginia is creating an open source physics textbook
This is great stuff! I would love to see this begin a new trend in the dissemination of knowledge. Kudos to the Commonwealth of Virginia. Click the link in the first sentence above for the whole article.
Secretary of Technology Aneesh Chopra and Secretary of Education Tom Morris today announced the release of a Request for Collaboration (RFC) to career and technical centers, school divisions, and institutions of higher education calling for assistance in the development and publication of an open source physics “Flexbook” for Virginia.
The Virginia Physics “Flexbook” project is a collaborative effort of the Secretaries of Education and Technology and the Department of Education that seeks to elevate the quality of physics instruction across the Commonwealth. Participating educators will create and compile supplemental materials relating to 21st century physics in an open–source format that can be used to strengthen existing physics content.
I hate the mis-use of the term “open source”. Does the planned textbook use code? Does it have source code? No? Then use the words Creative Commons, or something more descriptive. Open Source(TM) isn’t a trademark for nothing.
Someone is going to have to defend them from the inevitable onslaught this precedent is going to attract from the professional textbook publishers.
From experience with the industry, I can tell you the textbook industry is not an honest or ethical industry.
Sorry to bring this negativity to this but it’s important to be aware.
@Jadd: I see your point, but it’s a bit nit-picky. The author of the article was attempting to draw a correlation between the open source community atmosphere of collaboration in the writing process, not merely describing the Creative Commons licensing.
@Jonathan: I agree. I published my first book using a CC license and have had a hard time finding an agent or publisher willing to work with me on it or new projects. I can’t prove a connection, but I sometimes wonder.
I poked around their site a while, and unfortunately it seems like they require a really indepth registration process for potential contributors. We’re not talking about name and email here, but submitting a letter and references and stuff. I had trouble viewing the existing books on their site, much less finding the current physics book and figuring out how to add a paragraph.
Why they couldn’t just ask people to contribute to something like wikibooks and then add some fancyness to it at the end is beyond me. It would’ve set the bar much lower for volunteer contributors.