THINKaha and College Open Textbooks: Support OER Friendly publishers!
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Wayne Mackintosh
Sep 14, 2010, 9:42:23 PM9/14/10
to WikiEducator, wikieducator-teacher...@googlegroups.com, heyw...@googlegroups.com, OERF Thought Leaders Forum, MLE Reference Group
Hi Everyone,
Today is reason to celebrate and commend OER friendly publishers! The OER Foundation commends THINKaha and the Community College Open Textbook Collaborative for doing the right thing.
Yesterday I was sad because of an oversight where my contribution to a great text was not licensed under a free cultural works approved license. Today I am happy! Mitch Levy, CEO of Happy About and THINKaha publishers scheduled a Skype conference with me yesterday evening to discuss a fix to this licensing oversight. I'm happy to report that the team at THINKaha worked through the night and posted a copyright notification amendment that the forward of the text is licensed under a CC-BY-SA license.
Moreover, Happy About and ThINKaha publishers have released a CC-BY-SA electronic version of the text available on WikiEducator, which is now licensed under a free cultural works approved license :-).
I strongly recommend that you consider purchasing a hard copy of Open Textbook Tweet: Driving Awareness and Adoption of Open Textbooks. This is an important juncture in our history of OER. Collectively we should support the foresight of an innovative publisher and the Community College Textbook Collaborative in seeing the potential of the open web and OER publishing.
If you are looking for an OER friendly publisher -- I suggest you contact the Happy About team.
Thoughts on how can publishers earn a living in the (F)OER world?
Many publishers moving into OER markets protect their products and markets by restricting other publishers from selling the same text by applying the non-commercial restriction. This is a traditional and old-style business model which does not recognise the potential and opportunities of the open web and free (libre) content licensing. Publishers typically make an upfront investment and they recoup their investment through the sales of the text. By limiting other publishers from distributing and publishing the same text, the publisher who has taken the risk with upfront investment has greater control of the selling price and distribution rights to the text.
The Free (Libre) and Open Resources for Education (FORE) movement advocates against the non-commercial restriction, because we believe in the essential freedoms and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights with regards to the right of individuals to earn a living. A publisher in Uganda should have the freedom to publish and distribute FORE and not be restricted from doing so because a publisher, for instance in the USA, has applied a non-commercial restriction on the text. OER should not be the reason for restricting anyone from earning a living.
So how do we overcome the business dilemma for publishers in managing the risks associated with the upfront investment for a new OER text in an uncertain market? The solution requires us to tweak the business model by removing the need (and risk) for upfront investment by the publisher.
The majority of educators working in the formal education sector are effectively paid by taxpayer dollars. There are a number of education institutions, governments and non-profits which are shifting intellectual policies to adopt free cultural works approved licences (for instance Otago Polytechnic, New Zealand, the Wikiwijs, Dutch Ministry of Education, Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges, BCcampus, Canada, NZGOAL, New Zealand etc.). As the OER movement grows, this represents a huge development resource for authoring and creating FORE. Educators can develop and release materials under free cultural works approved licenses. Non-profit communities like WikiEducator, the Community College Open Textbook Collaborative, OCWC, Connexions etc can help co-ordinate and determine development priorities. Innovative wiki ==> print technologies and platforms like Connexions have the capabilities to produce customised open textbooks based on a model of mass-customisation (as opposed to mass standardisation).
So for example, a school or tertiary education institution may compile their own unique study guide or open text book from texts in WIkiEducator using the book collection editor. They can choose their own cover and add their institutional logo (derivative works are permitted). At this point users may request prices and quotes from a range of publishers who print FORE textbooks online in the wiki. Industry-scale printing technology means that publishers will be able to print and bind textbooks at costs which would typically be lower than the cost of printing this locally on your desktop printer. Publishers will incorporate a small commission (eg 10%) into their pricing which is paid back to the non-profit communities from which the texts are sourced as an "honesty box" contribution. The non-profit communities use the honesty box contributions to pay authors to develope FORE addressing gaps in the curriculum. In this model, publishers only need to commit cost once they have a confirmed order.
This is potentially a win-win model and evolving OER ecosystem: students get cheaper texts, publishers can still make a profit, and authors can get paid for their work. All using licenses that meet the free cultural works definition. Augmenting existing publishing models to incorporate these approaches in parallel with the traditional publishing model will improve efficiency, and widen access to education materials around the world.
The OER Foundation is working with progressive and forward looking publishers like Happy About and Pedia Press who have seen the OER futures which have already happened!
--
Wayne Mackintosh, Ph.D.
Director OER Foundation
Director, International Centre for Open Education,
Otago Polytechnic, New Zealand.
Founder and elected Community Council Member, Wikieducator
Mobile +64 21 2436 380
Skype: WGMNZ1
Twitter: OERFoundation, Mackiwg
Today is reason to celebrate and commend OER friendly publishers! The OER Foundation commends THINKaha and the Community College Open Textbook Collaborative for doing the right thing.
Yesterday I was sad because of an oversight where my contribution to a great text was not licensed under a free cultural works approved license. Today I am happy! Mitch Levy, CEO of Happy About and THINKaha publishers scheduled a Skype conference with me yesterday evening to discuss a fix to this licensing oversight. I'm happy to report that the team at THINKaha worked through the night and posted a copyright notification amendment that the forward of the text is licensed under a CC-BY-SA license.
Moreover, Happy About and ThINKaha publishers have released a CC-BY-SA electronic version of the text available on WikiEducator, which is now licensed under a free cultural works approved license :-).
I strongly recommend that you consider purchasing a hard copy of Open Textbook Tweet: Driving Awareness and Adoption of Open Textbooks. This is an important juncture in our history of OER. Collectively we should support the foresight of an innovative publisher and the Community College Textbook Collaborative in seeing the potential of the open web and OER publishing.
If you are looking for an OER friendly publisher -- I suggest you contact the Happy About team.
Thoughts on how can publishers earn a living in the (F)OER world?
Many publishers moving into OER markets protect their products and markets by restricting other publishers from selling the same text by applying the non-commercial restriction. This is a traditional and old-style business model which does not recognise the potential and opportunities of the open web and free (libre) content licensing. Publishers typically make an upfront investment and they recoup their investment through the sales of the text. By limiting other publishers from distributing and publishing the same text, the publisher who has taken the risk with upfront investment has greater control of the selling price and distribution rights to the text.
The Free (Libre) and Open Resources for Education (FORE) movement advocates against the non-commercial restriction, because we believe in the essential freedoms and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights with regards to the right of individuals to earn a living. A publisher in Uganda should have the freedom to publish and distribute FORE and not be restricted from doing so because a publisher, for instance in the USA, has applied a non-commercial restriction on the text. OER should not be the reason for restricting anyone from earning a living.
So how do we overcome the business dilemma for publishers in managing the risks associated with the upfront investment for a new OER text in an uncertain market? The solution requires us to tweak the business model by removing the need (and risk) for upfront investment by the publisher.
The majority of educators working in the formal education sector are effectively paid by taxpayer dollars. There are a number of education institutions, governments and non-profits which are shifting intellectual policies to adopt free cultural works approved licences (for instance Otago Polytechnic, New Zealand, the Wikiwijs, Dutch Ministry of Education, Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges, BCcampus, Canada, NZGOAL, New Zealand etc.). As the OER movement grows, this represents a huge development resource for authoring and creating FORE. Educators can develop and release materials under free cultural works approved licenses. Non-profit communities like WikiEducator, the Community College Open Textbook Collaborative, OCWC, Connexions etc can help co-ordinate and determine development priorities. Innovative wiki ==> print technologies and platforms like Connexions have the capabilities to produce customised open textbooks based on a model of mass-customisation (as opposed to mass standardisation).
So for example, a school or tertiary education institution may compile their own unique study guide or open text book from texts in WIkiEducator using the book collection editor. They can choose their own cover and add their institutional logo (derivative works are permitted). At this point users may request prices and quotes from a range of publishers who print FORE textbooks online in the wiki. Industry-scale printing technology means that publishers will be able to print and bind textbooks at costs which would typically be lower than the cost of printing this locally on your desktop printer. Publishers will incorporate a small commission (eg 10%) into their pricing which is paid back to the non-profit communities from which the texts are sourced as an "honesty box" contribution. The non-profit communities use the honesty box contributions to pay authors to develope FORE addressing gaps in the curriculum. In this model, publishers only need to commit cost once they have a confirmed order.
This is potentially a win-win model and evolving OER ecosystem: students get cheaper texts, publishers can still make a profit, and authors can get paid for their work. All using licenses that meet the free cultural works definition. Augmenting existing publishing models to incorporate these approaches in parallel with the traditional publishing model will improve efficiency, and widen access to education materials around the world.
The OER Foundation is working with progressive and forward looking publishers like Happy About and Pedia Press who have seen the OER futures which have already happened!
--
Wayne Mackintosh, Ph.D.
Director OER Foundation
Director, International Centre for Open Education,
Otago Polytechnic, New Zealand.
Founder and elected Community Council Member, Wikieducator
Mobile +64 21 2436 380
Skype: WGMNZ1
Twitter: OERFoundation, Mackiwg
Joyce.M...@esc.edu
Oct 4, 2010, 4:46:23 PM10/4/10
to oerf-thought-...@googlegroups.com
I am glad that your publisher came through for you, but I still have some concerns. My publisher has given me resources for completion of my text that my institution (the State University of New York/Empire State College) would not have been able to give me including a project director, tutoring on my writing style, photography and layout help etc. I am sure my text will be of much higher quality than I could ever have done alone...I am reasonably sure other people are in a similar position so while I deeply appreciate your emphasis on free/libre educational resources especially for the developing world, I feel torn about the publishers because at least in my experience, Pearson/Allyn and Bacon (one of the biggest) has been so very helpful. Cheers from a confused, Joyce McKnight
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From: Wayne Mackintosh
Sent by: oerf-thought-...@googlegroups.com
Date: 09/14/2010 09:42PM
Subject: [OERF- Thought leaders] THINKaha and College Open Textbooks: Support OER Friendly publishers!
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