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BC Open Textbooks is an initiative started by the province of British Columbia in Canada. It is open textbooks adapted and created by BC faculty. It's difficult to tell which texts are complete and ready for use as Tony Bates incomplete text that I created another post about appears on the same page with complete texts (eg Chemistry, Biology Geography.) All the texts can be modified through Creative Commons licensing. This project has been creating concern for publishers who stand to loose business in BC and other provinces if the texts get adopted outside of BC. Initially, the project was focused on creating "a collection of open textbooks aligned with the top 40 highest-enrolled subject areas in the province. A second phase was announced in the spring of 2014 to add 20 textbooks targeting trades and skills training." Initially they looked for existing Creative Commons books they could adapt and they adapted 8 textbooks. From inception to fall 2014, 2244 students have used their open texts for a savings of $353,000 or $157 per student. The aim is to reach 200,000 students annually so they are at .6% and save each $900-$1500/year, still quite a way to go. Wondering how much this project is costing taxpayers, I googled and found this article http://www.ousa.ca/2013/04/24/textbooks/ which claims $600k-$1m/year. So the government has spent $1.2 - $2 million to save students $350k over the past two years. Still a long way to go to break even. In summary, 65 texts published, 45 adoptions, 2244 student users, for a savings of $353k to date. If this was a traditional textbook publishing company, they'd soon be out of business if they weren't already.

Thank for sharing, I believe that the conclusions that this article leaves us are not surprising, although yes very interesting. "Recently, the Babson Survey Research Group and Pearson conducted a survey of nearly 8,000 faculty members in higher education to find out more about how faculty are using social media. While we often post infographics showing trends or results from specific studies here at Edudemic, I found the results of this survey particularly interesting - perhaps because they were so different from what I expected." Julia Echeverria

You are so, so lucky. Here in South Africa, we are regressing, not even looking at online textbooks, but trying to reduce textbooks to only one per subject. The textbook crisis: http://mg.co.za/article/2013-08-23-00-south-africas-hidden-textbook-crisis and the regressive "solution" http://mg.co.za/article/2014-10-10-single-textbook-option-slammed. It is very frustrating for me, knowing all the possibilities, but not having any agency to get through to the authorities here.Llibraries are also failing horribly in advocating for the solutions that ARE available.

The essay "The Human Presence in Digital Artefacts" by Alan Galey from "Text and Genre in Reconstruction", an open book on the effects of digitalization on ideas, behaviours, products and institutions (http://stephanieschlitz.com/dh/Text%26Genre-McCarty_vol_2.pdf). Would be of interest to those curious about publishing, literature, digital texts, etc.

Highly recommended to those interested in hypertextuality and the transformation of reading practices in the digital age.

There are two versions (at least) of this text. One earlier version is a first draft of sorts "A BOOK CROWDSOURCED IN ONE WEEK MAY 21-28, 2010" http://hackingtheacademy.org/ The url supplied above (http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?cc=dh;c=dh;idno=12172434.0001.001;rgn=full%20text;view=toc;xc=1;g=dculture) gives you access to the slicker version. Both can be read online. The text professes to a hacker ethos: "1 The world is full of fascinating problems waiting to be solved. 2 No problem should ever have to be solved twice. 3 Boredom and drudgery are evil. 4 Freedom is good. 5 Attitude is no substitute for competence." One of the opening chapters encourages academics to "get out of the business." "Burn the boats/books" focuses on the need to move away from "librocentrism." Something I hadn't thought of: "A PDF document is not a web-based document. It is a print-based document distributed on the web." This is to make the point that online materials should be interactive, which a pdf is not. The focus is hacking scholarship, teaching, and institutions. Seems worth dipping into here and there .

On my navigation searching for initiatives to see how Open Knowledge are making the difference on the Latin America society I found this... nowadays unfortunately on South America (and in other places as well) open knowledge initiative are not divulgated. Universities seem to be not interested about promoting these initiatives and few people know about them. I was amazed reading the text from Francisco J. García-Peñalvo (Open Knowledge. Challenges and Facts) and seeing that a lot of Universities on Europe and North America are promoting and working with open and free access to texts and online courses. It's incredible how people have the possibility of learning in a world that each day is more competitive. I really hope that this great news about Brazil helps more and more people to understand the impact and the changings on the educational process.

"The Norwegian Electronic Health Library - information in English The Norwegian Electronic Health Library (Helsebiblioteket.no) is a publicly funded online knowledge service for healthcare professionals and students in Norway. 02/01/2014 | Hans Petter Fosseng Prof. Magne Nylenna MD is editor-in-chief for the Norwegian Electronic Health Library (Helsebiblioteket.no). Photo: Hans Petter Fosseng The Norwegian Electronic Health Library is accessed online through the website www.helsebiblioteket.no. The website provides free access to point-of-care tools, guidelines, systematic reviews, scientific journals, and a wide variety of other full-text resources for health-care professionals and students."

"The Norwegian Electronic Health Library - information in English The Norwegian Electronic Health Library (Helsebiblioteket.no) is a publicly funded online knowledge service for healthcare professionals and students in Norway. 02/01/2014 | Hans Petter Fosseng Prof. Magne Nylenna MD is editor-in-chief for the Norwegian Electronic Health Library (Helsebiblioteket.no). Photo: Hans Petter Fosseng The Norwegian Electronic Health Library is accessed online through the website www.helsebiblioteket.no. The website provides free access to point-of-care tools, guidelines, systematic reviews, scientific journals, and a wide variety of other full-text resources for health-care professionals and students."

"Not long ago producing multimedia digital content required expensive equipment and deep levels of technical expertise. Now anyone can create, publish, and share compelling works with nothing more complex than a web browser. Open licensed media is easy to find/re-use, and combing that with our own content and a set of free tools, means we have powerful ways to express ideas beyond text and bullet points. "

Back to face-to-face encounters: In an era where people flock to Facebook to find friends or communicate solely via text, a growing niche of entrepreneurs is building businesses that help people meet the old-fashioned way: in person. As digital connections have blossomed, so too has a sense of loneliness among some users.

En esta página se pueden encontrar libros en epub y kindle gratuitos cuando ya se consideran de dominio público, desde cuentos cortos hasta novelas y en idioma español, inglés, francés, alemán e italiano, por si estás aprendiendo algún idioma. This web page contains some public domain literature of different genre, the formarts are kindle and epub.

Thanks for your resource. I really want to search for little text to be included in a curator's text for an exposition... I may use this link for it. Best regards! Nelly.

A source of some open text books with a interesting back story that should act as a warning about open--they are all now ex-open text books. After 2012 the publisher decided to abandon the CC/open textbook model and shifted the licensing on all their books. However, you can not revoke a CC license retroactively, so copies of the books downloaded prior to the change are still CC. But if the publisher no longer provides access to them, they disappear from CC circulation and access--luckily in this case, some one saved the CC versions and makes them available on this website. thanks!

Seriously useful! Indeed!

Wow, this collection is extensive, and the content seems good too! I'm so glad that someone was motivated enough to make these available according to their original licenses -- but it feels a bit bittersweet as well they had to resort to guerilla tactics to keep them available. It does make me wonder -- why did the publishing company decide to start charging for their textbooks? Was the previous model unprofitable?

"This article argues for a model of university-level (graduate and undergraduate) publishing education that builds upon a vocational self-identification of incoming students, nurtures a community of practice and professional discourse, and in doing so generates and renews the very culture of publishing. In times of transition and disruption, this is a role uniquely suited to the university, where an environment of collaborative research, development, and innovation can be cultivated. "

Kevin: Muchas gracias por la referencia. Es interesante no solo el artículo que mencionas sino varios de los textos del número monográfico, http://tinyurl.com/nvoq8xq. Dear Kevin: Thank you very much for the info. Interestingly, not only the article but several of the texts of special issue.

Online book self-published by Stacey Pitsillides in 2012 about digital death, a fascinating aspect of digital identity. Covers questions like "What happens when a virtual friend die?". See her website for more of her publications on the topic: http://www.digitaldeath.eu/texts/ License: Copyright:Attribution Non-commercial (I made a literature review on digital death in 2012 for my master in information science and this author really captures the social aspects of digital life in my opinion)

LaTeX is a high-quality typesetting system; it includes features designed for the production of technical and scientific documentation. LaTeX is the de facto standard for the communication and publication of scientific documents. LaTeX is available as free software.

LaTex is a document preparation system programmed in free software. It is also a document markup language. It is a very useful tool to create scientific documents in many fields, but especially appropriate to write mathematical expresions. Among its advantages, it has different dictionaries for many languages, it can be adapted to any style class and gives a professional look to any document you write. In addition, manage of bibliography references is quite simple and flexible. Latex comprises a collection of TeX macros and program to process TeX documents and convert them in PDF documents, but also in HTML, PS, EPS, DVI, etc. The other main advantage is that LaTex document scan be opened with any text editor since they consist of plain text and do not contain hidden formatting codes or binary instructions.

Difícil para personas no versadas en informática, pero seguro muy útil cuando te haces con él :) Gracias por compartirlo. Saludos.

Just thought I'd share a Frequently Asked Question from the Library of Congress site. The answer highlights the antithesis of open access. One would think that the LOC would lead open access given that our tax dollars fund it and democracy requires an informed citizenry. What online databases and indexes does the Library make available to researchers on site? The Library subscribes to a large number of online subscription databases which offer indexes to journals, information on library holdings, and other resources in a wide range of subject areas. Workstations for searching these services are available in all of the Library's reading rooms. The Library also subscribes to a number of Internet-based databases and full-text journal services, which are searchable on any of the public Internet workstations in the Library's reading rooms. Patrons onsite using their personal laptops or other wireless-enabled devices to connect to the Library's wireless network are also able to access these services. The Library does not offer access to these services off-site, but they are widely available at public and academic libraries...."

The same situation with all "large number of online subscription databases of indexes and full-texts" only in the libraries in many countries and many libraries, not only LOC.

In this article, Barker believes that technology has somehow become harmful to communicate in person among teenagers. Teens prefer to write to each other such as pick up their phones to ping each other, communicating by texting though instant messaging and social networking sites like Facebook, Twtter rather than talking to each other in person. Thus this has given out a general that is technology has become a problem in communication since cell phone has become widely used in society. Therefore, within the development in cell phone technology, smartphone was invented, which a mobile phone is built on a mobile computing platform that not only a communication tool to make phone call or text message but also allows people to go on internet or play game for their pastime. Hence this with the development for technology, people spends more time on their smartphones rather than having interaction between people which has become an issue in our life. By reading this article, it leads my thought to online education. Being honest, I enjoy the in person discussion rather than online written discussion however digital platform has provided a convenient way for people to share their ideas. However this article did raised a good question, technology makes everything easier for people but does it somehow hurt the communication among people?

All German universities will be free of charge when term starts next week after fees were abandoned in Lower Saxony, the last of seven states to charge. "Tuition fees are socially unjust," said Dorothee Stapelfeldt, senator for science in Hamburg, which scrapped charges in 2012.

Could this also be 'open access'?

...to see the full text you need to subscribe ...ironically I hit pay wall again!