[seul-edu] [Fwd: Open textbooks]

[Doug Loss <dloss@suscom.net>]

I'm forwarding this message from Ben Crowell with his permission.  Ben is a
principal in the Free Books project, which is similar in many respects to the
Open Book Project and to the SEUL/edu documentation project.  I think that
any of us here who are interested in this topic should visit their site and
join and contribute to their work.  I think we'll probably be better off
doing this through them than by setting up a parallel project, so long as
their and our goals are substantially similar (which it looks to me that they
are).  Please visit their site and let us know your thoughts.

Ben Crowell wrote:

>         Thanks for the e-mail. OBP has quite a book catalog! Very
> impressive! Can you point me to info on how to subscribe to the
> mailing list? Also, is it OK if I repost your e-mail to the
> Free Books list? As far as division of labor, we're still kind
> of feeling our way on what should be done. Our main project
> right now is a free book on how to write free books, which
> is slowly making progress. The outline is here:
> http://freebooks.myip.org/bin/view/freebook-text/AFreeBookAboutFreeBooks,
> and we could use lots of input from people with real experience,
> especially on the collaboration and technology issues.
>
>                 Ben
>
>

[...]

> > Our documentation project (meant originally for
> >use with documents to make it easier for educators to use Linux and
> >associated programs in their teaching) is considering how it can be
> >useful for educational texts.  You can see the current discussion in
> >our email archives for October by visiting our website.
> >
> >One of the reasons we're talking about this is that we see a
> >pressing need for this.  From visiting your FreeBooks site I see
> >that you're working on similar ideas.  We should consider
> >collaborating on the development of mechanisms needed to further
> >this idea, I think.  If you'd look over our discussion and consider
> >joining our mailing list, I think we might be able to come to some
> >understanding of splitting tasks between the two (or more?) groups.
> >I'd be happy to pass the effort toward open content texts on to you
> >in it's entirety if our aims are in close agreement, which I think
> >they probably are.

--
Doug Loss                 God is a comedian playing
Data Network Coordinator  to an audience too afraid
Bloomsburg University     to laugh.
dloss@bloomu.edu                Voltaire