[okfn-discuss] opentextbook.org

Tue Feb 13 12:42:53 UTC 2007

Dear All,

Steve Coast (of OpenStreetMap) started up a site called opentextbook.org 
a couple of years ago. Due to all his activity on OpenStreetMap he 
hasn't much time to do stuff on the textbook site and he has now been 
kind enough to transfer the domain to the Open Knowledge Foundation.

I think it would be great to reinvigorate this project. As a starting 
point I'd suggest that we make otb into a simple listing site whose 
purpose is to point to existing **open** material. This has the 
advantage that it would be easy to setup and very easy for people to 
contribute to (all you'd want is people to post about open textbooks 
they'd come across). In the medium term we could then look to creating a 
proper textbook package consisting of a selected textbook (or textbooks) 
on particular areas and perhaps archiving material that we find (e.g. 
I've currently got a econometrics textbook in latex someone was kind 
enough to send over).

What do people think and is there anyone who'd be interested in 
participating (for example by being finding and posting about open 
material)?

Regards,

Rufus