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

David Lippman - WA SBCTC Webinar Nov 18, 2009 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 Nov 18, 2009 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 Nov 18, 2009 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 Nov 18, 2009 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 Nov 18, 2009 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 Nov 18, 2009 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 Nov 18, 2009 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 Nov 18, 2009 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 Nov 18, 2009 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 Nov 18, 2009 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 Nov 18, 2009 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 Nov 18, 2009 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