From Open Knowledge Foundation

Open Textbook Virtual Meeting, 27th October 2008

Agenda

• Allen Majorovic: usage of open source textbooks - which schools are using open source textbooks, which have decided to pass on open textbook usage, what could be changed to make open source textbooks more attractive.
• Project updates
• Archiving/mirroring textbook source

Transcript

(Time in GMT)

#!irc

18:00:06 <jwyg>	hi KeriMorgret
18:00:22 <jwyg>	:-)
18:00:23 <allenm>	hello KeriMorgret
18:00:35 <KeriMorgret>	Hello everyone.
18:00:51 <jwyg>	just for transcript, could others quickly state their name/affiliation?
18:01:02 <jwyg>	jwyg = Jonathan Gray, Open Knowledge Foundation
18:01:14 <KeriMorgret>	Keri Morgret, OER Coordinator, ISKME/OER Commons. I work with Amee Godwin, who cannot attend today.
18:01:59 <allenm>	allenm - allen majorovic interested in the idea and the phenomenon of open source textbooks and no affiliation.
18:02:47 <jwyg>	great! :-)
18:02:53 <allenm>	is there an agenda?
18:03:17 <jwyg>	is everyone ok with giving it a few minutes to see if others come?
18:03:23 <KeriMorgret>	Fine with me.
18:03:57 <allenm>	sure
18:04:04 <jwyg>	allenm - i guess we can do agenda quickly if/when others turn up, depending on what people would find it useful to talk about :-)
18:06:17 <allenm>	nominating an agenda item, I'm interested in actual use of open source textbooks, if anyone's trying to determine usage and other, related questions.
18:06:46 <jwyg>	absolutely
18:06:50 <jwyg>	that sounds like a great idea..
18:07:06 *	heiko_pp (d956a7cd@webchat.mibbit.com) has joined #okfn
18:07:12 <jwyg>	hey heiko_pp
18:07:43 <allenm>	hi heiko_pp
18:07:58 <jwyg>	heiko_pp: for transcript, could you quickly state your full name/affiliation?
18:08:01 <heiko_pp>	hi, i am heiko from pediapress
18:08:07 <jwyg>	:-)
18:08:09 <jwyg>	great!
18:10:06 <jwyg>	alright.. i make it 18:10..
18:10:19 <jwyg>	it looks like its going to be a quiet meeting :-)
18:10:51 <jwyg>	is there anything in particular that people would be interested to discuss?
18:11:21 <allenm>	well....
18:11:52 <jwyg>	draft agenda at: http://okfn.org/wiki/opentextbooks/2
18:12:07 <jwyg>	allen: i've added your suggestion about actual usage
18:12:37 <jwyg>	does anyone know about where one might find statistics on open textbook usage specifically, or OER usage more generally?
18:13:24 <KeriMorgret>	I don't know about statistics, but here is a list of high schools and colleges using the Light and Matter physics open textbooks. http://www.lightandmatter.com/books.html
18:14:39 <heiko_pp>	I just wanted to announce the new export features available in wikibooks. mike lifeguard could do that also if he joins us.
18:14:43 <jwyg>	wow.. great keri!
18:15:02 <jwyg>	I didn't realise it was adopted so widely...
18:15:04 <heiko_pp>	jwyg: do you know this Hewlett Foundation Open Educational Resources Report
18:15:42 <heiko_pp>	http://www.oerderves.org/?p=23
18:15:47 <jwyg>	heiko_pp: it'd be great to hear about wikibooks export features
18:16:00 <KeriMorgret>	This month, California signed a bill allowing CA community colleges to integrate OER into its core curriculum http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/9903
18:16:06 <jwyg>	heiko_pp: i think i've seen the report, but haven't looked at it in detail yet..
18:17:01 <jwyg>	KeriMorgan: i saw! this is great news!
18:17:16 <jwyg>	*KeriMorgret
18:18:14 <KeriMorgret>	Foothill-De Anza Community College (again in CA) has an open textbook project, and is doing a study with a statistics textbook. http://www.fhda.edu/stories/storyReader$218 has information in general about the project, I don't have the link handy for the specific information on the statistics textbook.
18:20:07 <heiko_pp>	On Wikibooks users now can create books by compiling a collection of articles. Collections can be saved, shared, exported (PDF, OpenDocument Text) or ordered as printed books. http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Help:Collections
18:21:12 <heiko_pp>	See http://en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Collection/load_collection/&colltitle=User:Eloquence/Collections/Blended_Learning for an example
18:21:32 <jwyg>	KeriMorgret: it'd be great to hear any stats on textbook adoption from 'the front line' as it were! :-)
18:22:48 <heiko_pp>	This is based on an open source extension which works with all Mediawikis, see: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Collection
18:23:50 <jwyg>	heiko_pp: this looks great!
18:24:10 <jwyg>	heiko_pp: when was it launched?
18:24:48 <heiko_pp>	last friday :)
18:25:35 <heiko_pp>	but an early prototype was tested on wikieducator.org 10 month ago.
18:25:37 <jwyg>	heiko_pp: it looks great.. so basically its easy to modify, export and print books via pediapress?
18:25:50 <jwyg>	great news..
18:26:17 <heiko_pp>	right. compilation, modification, export, etc is done in the MediaWiki
18:26:22 <allenm>	I should have been a bit more precise. My interest is in determining usage of open source textbooks in the K-12 setting. I believe that public education is finally starting to undergo the sorts of profound changes that'll be necessary to wrench it out of the hands of political process. Open source textbooks may be an important factor in fostering the sort of school independence that'll push educational considerations above political considerations on the prio
18:26:22 <allenm>	rity list that governs the operation of a school. That's kind of a lot for IRC so I'll stop.
18:26:38 <heiko_pp>	PediaPress renders a PDF suitable for print and handles the rest
18:28:16 <KeriMorgret>	@allenm I will ask Amee Godwin if she knows of any information about usage. My early link to the lightandmatter.com page is the closest I know -- if you want individual reports, you could contact the high schools that have adopted those textbooks.
18:28:44 <jwyg>	heiko_pp: great news..
18:29:06 <jwyg>	allenm: also worth posting to relevant mailing lists..
18:29:25 <allenm>	thanks. I've grabbed all the URLs you posted and will go through them.
18:29:45 <jwyg>	allenm: agree that this would be an interesting/important thing to look at, but i'm afraid i can't think of much off the top of my head :-)
18:29:50 <KeriMorgret>	@allenm Is there a specific country in which you are interested? The Free High School Science Textbooks (FHHST) project out of South Africa is quite interesting, and ISKME has done a case study on that.
18:31:11 <allenm>	my interest is US-centric because of familiarity but I'd like to explore what schools in other countries are doing, find useful, object too
18:31:58 <KeriMorgret>	This is for the community college level, but the Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources (CCOER) has a "Campus Promo Kit" to promote OER on community college campuses. http://cccoer.wordpress.com/campus-kit/
18:32:23 <KeriMorgret>	This isn't textbook specific, but could be a useful resource for those wanting to promote OER.
18:32:28 <jwyg>	interesting..
18:33:21 <jwyg>	i think this is definitely something worth looking into in future...
18:33:49 <jwyg>	could be worth posting on wikibooks list and http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/freetextbooks
18:34:24 <jwyg>	another thing i was wondering about: are other groups archiving/mirroring existing open textbook material?
18:34:34 <jwyg>	i understand that wikibooks are doing this a bit?
18:35:29 <heiko_pp>	wikibooks is committed to the GFDL licence. so not all content fits, but yes they are very open to content
18:37:18 <jwyg>	ahh.. ok.. i hadn't clocked this.. does that mean that they don't have anything thats, e.g. BY or BY-SA?
18:37:24 <KeriMorgret>	I just remembered an interesting thing regarding K12 textbooks. The Indonesian government is buying rights to K12 textbooks to bring down the prices of textbooks. I haven't looked at it in a few months, so I'm not sure if any of it is open, but it is interesting. http://reganmian.net/blog/2008/02/08/indonesian-government-wants-to-buy-text-book-copyrights/
18:37:42 <jwyg>	that is interesting keri..
18:38:15 <heiko_pp>	no GFDL only: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks:Copyrights
18:40:47 <jwyg>	KeriMorgret: I'd love to see if anyone ever found out whether they were planning on using open license or dedicating to PD!
18:41:05 <jwyg>	heiko_pp: thats really interesting, I hadn't actually clocked that...
18:41:51 <jwyg>	one thing that we're really keen to do at OKF is to keep a versioned repository of open textbooks...
18:41:59 <jwyg>	especially LaTeX and other source
18:42:00 <jwyg>	http://www.opentextbook.org/repository/
18:42:03 <KeriMorgret>	Wikipedia has a special selection for schools. I don't believe there are textbooks, but still interesting. http://schools-wikipedia.org/
18:42:21 <heiko_pp>	http://www.wikieducator.org/ also collects OER coverd by CC-SA
18:42:54 <heiko_pp>	OKF?
18:43:05 <jwyg>	KeriMorgret: yeah i saw that.. really interesting..
18:43:07 <KeriMorgret>	OER Commons points to 131 free textbooks, though not all are open. http://www.oercommons.org/courses/material_types/textbooks
18:43:16 <jwyg>	heiko_pp: Open Knowledge Foundation...
18:43:24 *	rgrp (~rgrp@cpc3-cmbg6-0-0-cust206.cmbg.cable.ntl.com) has joined #okfn
18:43:30 <jwyg>	hey rgrp :-)
18:44:08 <jwyg>	KeriMorgret: I've noticed.. there are quite a few registries of textbook material now..
18:44:30 <jwyg>	it would be great if we could all put textbooks into a repository, which could be easily mirrored..
18:44:35 <heiko_pp>	ups :)
18:44:37 <rgrp>	hi
18:44:38 <jwyg>	hosted in different places, etc.
18:45:07 <KeriMorgret>	@jwyg One thing that might be an issue about mirroring is the updating of the mirrored copies when there are changes to the original material.
18:45:45 <jwyg>	true.. i guess one thing we're hoping to work towards is where authors commit changes to repository..
18:46:03 <jwyg>	and to used versioned storage: as with our subversion repository..
18:46:04 <jwyg>	http://www.opentextbook.org/repository/
18:46:32 <jwyg>	KeriMorgret: would any of you guys be interested in working together on this?
18:46:44 <rgrp>	just to ask: is there a list of all *open* textbook repositories
18:47:10 <jwyg>	http://okfn.org/wiki/opentextbooks/lists
18:47:21 <jwyg>	for registries..
18:47:27 <jwyg>	(i.e. lists..)
18:47:31 <KeriMorgret>	@jwyg I'll ask Amee Godwin and have her get back to you.
18:47:38 <heiko_pp>	hm, i doubt that this will work out. different authors might prefer different tools/sites to create their content. 
18:47:41 <jwyg>	KeriMorgret: that would be great..
18:48:05 <jwyg>	heiko_pp: we envision it would work best with textbook authors that use, e.g. LaTeX...
18:48:29 <jwyg>	rgrp: is SVN also useful to track changes in, e.g. pdf?
18:49:18 <rgrp>	jwyg: thanks @looks
18:49:35 <heiko_pp>	SVN can track versions of PDFs but won´t be able to highlight the changes. 
18:49:38 <rgrp>	jwyg: no, nothing will elt you track changes in pdfs ...
18:49:53 <jwyg>	ok.. so basically best for source...
18:49:56 <rgrp>	you really don't want to be storing pdfs in svn unless you have to
18:49:56 <jwyg>	or for text :-)
18:50:00 <rgrp>	you'd always want the source
18:50:01 <jwyg>	ok.. i see..
18:50:05 <heiko_pp>	structured text
18:50:15 <rgrp>	you can always do it if you really to but ...
18:50:27 <jwyg>	well it would be great to join  up with other people in this area to get a SVN repo with as much LaTeX we could track down..
18:50:28 <rgrp>	(how useful are PDFs anyway once you want update)
18:51:23 <jwyg>	rgrp: true..
18:51:50 <jwyg>	is there anything you could use to build and grab PDFs from source in a repo?
18:52:37 <jwyg>	heiko_pp: wikibooks goes from wiki to PDF/ODT, right?
18:53:13 <heiko_pp>	yes wikitext -> DOM-tree -> PDF/ODT/DocBook
18:53:45 <jwyg>	and does it import anything from LaTeX to wikitext?
18:53:58 <heiko_pp>	the Linux Documentation Project is doing something similar for years: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_Documentation_Project
18:55:38 <heiko_pp>	LaTex to wikitext won´t work too good but there is a project: http://qwiki.stanford.edu/wiki/Converting_LaTex_To_Wiki
18:56:02 <jwyg>	interesting..
18:57:04 <jwyg>	in any case, as it looks like work on listing open textbooks is converging (with MERLOT, Textbook revolution, open textbook, etc..) the next logical step is to work together on mirroring textbook material..
18:57:39 <jwyg>	i guess the advantage of this for end-users is being able to grab lots of relevant material all at once..
18:58:40 <jwyg>	heiko_pp: i'll have to have a closer look at what TLDP do..
18:58:50 <jwyg>	alright..
18:59:00 <jwyg>	is there anything else that anyone is keen to discuss?
19:00:27 <rgrp>	auto building from latex ain't hard
19:00:38 <rgrp>	conversion from other things to pdf is not necessarily that bad either
19:00:47 <rgrp>	but may require a bit bespoke scripting ...
19:01:19 <jwyg>	great! so i guess working together on archiving would make a lot of sense...
19:01:36 <jwyg>	i'll blog about this on OTB, and ping others about it...
19:02:20 <KeriMorgret>	Will a transcript of this be posted somewhere? Or is there a way to export the conversation from the mibbit.com website?
19:02:56 <jwyg>	yep it will be up on.. http://okfn.org/wiki/opentextbooks/2
19:03:04 <KeriMorgret>	Thanks!
19:03:27 <jwyg>	ok.. so i'll make sure and ping others further in advance next time..
19:03:48 <jwyg>	also i'm going to propose we move the meeting to a wednesday evening, instead of a monday..
19:04:07 <jwyg>	making next meeting on 26th november...
19:04:21 <heiko_pp>	I don´t care as long as I get a reminder :)
19:04:31 <KeriMorgret>	I'm thinking the time change might have been a problem, too. The US doesn't change time until this weekend, while the British Summer Time ended earlier.
19:04:32 <jwyg>	great...
19:04:47 <jwyg>	i know.. i think there was a mix up about this..
19:05:45 <jwyg>	ok.. i better shoot..
19:05:55 <KeriMorgret>	jwyg That's the day before Thanksgiving for the US, some of the people on the East Coast may leave early that day, or people may have the entire day off. How many US people generally are part of this conversation?
19:06:11 <jwyg>	hmm good point..
19:06:25 <jwyg>	KeriMorgret: last time quite a few.. perhaps the majority..
19:06:46 <KeriMorgret>	The day before Thanksgiving is usually the busiest travel day of the year here.
19:06:47 <jwyg>	perhaps we can try for 22nd november?
19:07:03 <jwyg>	my guess is we'll skip december..
19:07:05 <KeriMorgret>	The 22nd is a Saturday.
19:07:24 <jwyg>	yep: sorry, meant 19th..
19:07:44 <KeriMorgret>	I think that would work better for the US people.
19:07:55 <jwyg>	ok.. great..
19:08:13 <jwyg>	is this alright with everyone else, if they're interested in popping in?
19:08:30 <heiko_pp>	yep!
19:08:33 <jwyg>	great!
19:08:40 <KeriMorgret>	Works for me.
19:08:43 <jwyg>	great..
19:09:07 <jwyg>	as i said, i'll prod people further in advance next time!
19:10:50 <rgrp>	np with me
19:11:15 <jwyg>	great! hope to see some of you next time! its good to keep in touch with people about this!
19:11:19 <jwyg>	rgrp: speak soon...
19:12:43 *	KeriMorgret has quit (Quit: http://www.mibbit.com ajax IRC Client)
19:18:55 <heiko_pp>	i am off for dinner now, but feel free to contact me (heiko at pediapress dot com) on any questions regarding MediaWiki exports or PDF in general.  
19:19:32 *	heiko_pp has quit (Quit: http://www.mibbit.com ajax IRC Client)