Article: Textbook free for all

Published online: 15 September 2006; | doi:10.1038/news060911-13

Textbook free for all
A new wiki-project has been started at the University of Georgia, which aims
to pool knowledge in free online texts. News@xxxxxxxxxx finds out how it
will work.
Helen Pearson

So, what's this Global Text Project about?

It's an effort to pool the knowledge of university professors and students
around the globe and produce 1,000 university textbooks using wiki
technology. The books will span undergraduate subjects from biology to
literature to computer science.

There are millions of university teachers around the world and tens of
millions of students, whose knowledge could be put to greater use, says
project instigator Rick Watson at the University of Georgia in Athens.
Countless essays and assignments are currently consigned to the waste bin.
"It's an untapped intellectual resource."

How can millions of people write a coherent book?

Well, it's not an entire free-for-all. Anyone will be able to contribute to
the new textbooks, true - but unlike wikipedia, the online, user-made
encyclopedia, only an editor will be able to approve contributions.
Otherwise the texts risk being wrong, long and hard to follow, with students
being able to fall back on the old "but it's in the text, sir" excuse for
wrong answers in their essays.

Do we really need more textbooks?

The particular goal of this project is to create free books for those
students in developing countries who cannot afford traditional textbooks,
which can cost $100 or more. Most current textbooks cannot be freely scanned
on to the web because they are protected by copyright. And in fast-moving
fields such as computer science, a printed textbook quickly falls out of
date.

Of course, any student can already glean a wealth of information on any
topic from the web. But as every student knows, you can drown in information
without a good text as a guide.

How did it start?

When Watson was asked to teach a course on a type of computer language
called XML. He found no decent textbooks - and so asked his 2004 class to
create one as part of their studies. Others encouraged him to expand the
idea and now, he says, "It's my weekend and evening job".

More than 100 people in 20 countries are now involved, including Uganda,
Ethiopia, India, Columbia and Indonesia. Some teachers in developing
countries have already suggested a particular need for textbooks in
agriculture, public health and wireless technology.

Has he got very far?

The project is still embryonic. The first book will be on information
systems (the use of computers to help business) because this is Watson's
field, and should be drafted this year. In the process, Watson hopes to
figure out the project details, such as what kind of changes will need to be
made to the wiki software to customize it for this use. Eventually, Watson
also plans to translate the books into different languages, including
Chinese and Arabic.

Isn't anyone else already doing this?

There are many other efforts to try and bring computers and information to
developing countries at low cost - including some by the brains behind
wikipedia. Wikibooks is a collection of openly accessible books that started
in July 2003, and a testing phase was launched for Wikiversity, an effort to
create free learning materials and activities, in August 2006. But Watson's
project differs from these in having an expert editor in charge of each
text.

And it's really entirely free?

At the moment, everyone is contributing for free. Ultimately, Watson hopes
to gain corporate sponsorship for the books; one idea is to approach the
world's biggest companies for endorsement. But to succeed, Watson says that
the project needs lots of people and enthusiasm on a grassroots level - the
same fervour that has fuelled the growth of wikipedia.

Source: Nature
http://www.nature.com/news/2006/060911/full/060911-13.html

Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek


.

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