This is something that is inspired by Florence's post to foundation-l about her personal wishlist for 2008. I know that I'm severely late in posting a continuation of that idea, so I apologize if people are already past their new years resolution phases. This is a list of things that I would like to see Wikibookians focus on for the 2008 year. Of course, this is just a personal list, and I would love to hear what other people are interested in too. These don't appear in any particular order, so the top isn't necessarily the highest priority (it's just the first thing that fell out of my head).
1) Actively solicit book donations. This one might be a little bit controversial, because the goal of any wiki project (with Wikisource as a possible exception) is to generate new content, not just consolidate old content. However, book donations allow us to start with books of decent quality, and update/expand/improve them. This is especially useful for authors who have written free books a long time ago, and have not been able to maintain them themselves. Receiving book donations will help to improve our public image, and will help create the perception that we have plenty of ready-to-use high-quality books, not just a series of works in progress.
2) Look for "friends" and "partners". I know the foundation has a policy (or at least I seem to remember that it used to) against forming official partnerships, but that doesnt mean we can't find like-minded organizations and open pathways for communication and possibly collaboration. Some sites that immediately come to mind are libsuccess.org and textbookrevolution.org. It has been discussed before, but we should be aiming to get our best core books pre-loaded onto OLPC laptops. These are just a few of many possibly collaborations we could form. We can share GFDL-based content and contributors between many such "friends".
3) Quality. This was a big deal for Florence, and it should be a big deal for us too. I would like to break this down into three sub-components:
3a) Focused collaborations. We no longer have the COTM program for many reasons. However, we should try to encourage groups of contributors to focus attentions, even if on a weekly basis, on particular books. These groups could proof-read, fact-check, and simply improve books, especially in preparation for PDF creation or some other form of "publishing". Most Wikibookians are, as is my perception, authors and not editors. We don't have the large corps of copyeditors that WP has, and as a result our books do not benefit from the endless tweaks and improvements that their articles do. The idea of "Wikiprojects" have been dismissed in the past, but we need these or some other way to organize people and give them a sense of focus and purpose.
3b) Stable Versions. We've talked about this endlessly in the past, and I'm sure there is more talk still. If we want our core audience, school classrooms, to use our books, we need to provide them with versions which are immutable for the duration of a term, and which are known to be of a relatively high quality. Veropedia serves a purpose like this for Wikipedia articles, and maybe we need to either collaborate with the Veropedians, or create our own site with a similar purpose. Maybe, if we can sell the idea well enough, we could get the foundation to help out with a stable.en.wikibooks.org, where we could upload stabilized versions of books. Notice that the automatic PDF generation functions, and the "wiki-to-print" feature aren't going to solve this problem, because they don't guarantee that pages will remain immutable: a PDF generated today may be far different from a PDF generated tomorrow.
3c) Core subjects. A combination of several other points listed above, we need to seriously improve the quality of books on core topics. Devising even a list of such books (books that currently exist, or books which do not currently exist but which we need) would be an excellent start. Through collaboration, book donations, and various other methods, we need to increase the quality of books in core topics, produce stable versions from them, and find ways to put these books into a classroom.
4) Make inroads into the classroom. Class projects have been immensely successful for us, and have generated some of our best books. We should try hard to advertise wikibooks as being a suitable platform for these projects, and try to attract more groups to our site. Beyond students writing books, we also need students to read our books as well. With high-quality, stable versions of books, we will be in a position to "sell" them to the students and teachers who need them most. For large districts, being able to save even 50$ per child per year would be a financial miracle. Or, schools who have traditionally avoided costs by reusing old books year after year could be given the opportunity to upgrade their entire curricula for free. This would be an excellent collaboration opportunity for some of our sister projects, as as WV and WS as well.
5) Documentation and Usability: We need a better way to describe who we are and what we do. We need help pages or help books that are easily accessible, easy to navigate, and easy to read. In addition, we need to develop more tools to help automate the most important tasks. Let's face it: new users have a lot that they need to know before they can start their first book or project. People should be able to sit down and start writing a book, without having to (a) take the time to learn how to do all the necessary book-formatting by hand, or (b) make a large series of mistakes that need to be corrected later. Maybe we need to make a lot of complicated tools using Javascript. Maybe we need to hassle the devs to give us books-specific extensions, or maybe we need to write our own extensions. Maybe we need to get on the tool server and start setting up tools on there that people can use. Maybe we need a different solution entirely. The fact is that there's a barrier to entry on our site because the documentation is generally poor, and because the learning curve is much steeper then it is at wikipedia.
I really do believe that Wikibooks is in a great position right now. We've done a lot of work in the previous years, and we have a great project. That said, there are a few more hurdles that we need to pass before our full potential as a free textbook resource can be realized. I would like to see 2008 be the year that we really come into our own.
--Andrew Whitworth
Andrew Whitworth wrote:
- Look for "friends" and "partners". I know the foundation has a
policy (or at least I seem to remember that it used to) against forming official partnerships, but that doesnt mean we can't find like-minded organizations and open pathways for communication and possibly collaboration. Some sites that immediately come to mind are libsuccess.org and textbookrevolution.org. It has been discussed before, but we should be aiming to get our best core books pre-loaded onto OLPC laptops. These are just a few of many possibly collaborations we could form. We can share GFDL-based content and contributors between many such "friends".
We've dealt with Pearson Scott Foresman[1], a rather notable textbook producer, in the past, to the extent that they've donated a huge amount of no-longer-published illustrations[2]. We've also received letters or emails when they've reused illustrations from our projects.
I'd certainly consider them a friend.
Cary Bass
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearson_Scott_Foresman [2] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Pearson_Scott_Foresman
On Fri, Feb 15, 2008 at 12:49 PM, Cary Bass cbass@wikimedia.org wrote:
We've dealt with Pearson Scott Foresman[1], a rather notable textbook producer, in the past, to the extent that they've donated a huge amount of no-longer-published illustrations[2]. We've also received letters or emails when they've reused illustrations from our projects.
I'd certainly consider them a friend.
Cary Bass
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearson_Scott_Foresman [2] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Pearson_Scott_Foresman
That's excellent news, and I'm pleased to learn about it. friendships like this could really stand to be advertised a little bit better, so that our users are aware of contributions like this.
--Andrew Whitworth
to someone who may concern: would you please remove me from the mailing list? thanks.
Fuyan
bestchinese88@gmail.com
On Fri, Feb 15, 2008 at 11:23 AM, Andrew Whitworth wknight8111@gmail.com wrote:
This is something that is inspired by Florence's post to foundation-l about her personal wishlist for 2008. I know that I'm severely late in posting a continuation of that idea, so I apologize if people are already past their new years resolution phases. This is a list of things that I would like to see Wikibookians focus on for the 2008 year. Of course, this is just a personal list, and I would love to hear what other people are interested in too. These don't appear in any particular order, so the top isn't necessarily the highest priority (it's just the first thing that fell out of my head).
- Actively solicit book donations. This one might be a little bit
controversial, because the goal of any wiki project (with Wikisource as a possible exception) is to generate new content, not just consolidate old content. However, book donations allow us to start with books of decent quality, and update/expand/improve them. This is especially useful for authors who have written free books a long time ago, and have not been able to maintain them themselves. Receiving book donations will help to improve our public image, and will help create the perception that we have plenty of ready-to-use high-quality books, not just a series of works in progress.
- Look for "friends" and "partners". I know the foundation has a
policy (or at least I seem to remember that it used to) against forming official partnerships, but that doesnt mean we can't find like-minded organizations and open pathways for communication and possibly collaboration. Some sites that immediately come to mind are libsuccess.org and textbookrevolution.org. It has been discussed before, but we should be aiming to get our best core books pre-loaded onto OLPC laptops. These are just a few of many possibly collaborations we could form. We can share GFDL-based content and contributors between many such "friends".
- Quality. This was a big deal for Florence, and it should be a big
deal for us too. I would like to break this down into three sub-components:
3a) Focused collaborations. We no longer have the COTM program for many reasons. However, we should try to encourage groups of contributors to focus attentions, even if on a weekly basis, on particular books. These groups could proof-read, fact-check, and simply improve books, especially in preparation for PDF creation or some other form of "publishing". Most Wikibookians are, as is my perception, authors and not editors. We don't have the large corps of copyeditors that WP has, and as a result our books do not benefit from the endless tweaks and improvements that their articles do. The idea of "Wikiprojects" have been dismissed in the past, but we need these or some other way to organize people and give them a sense of focus and purpose.
3b) Stable Versions. We've talked about this endlessly in the past, and I'm sure there is more talk still. If we want our core audience, school classrooms, to use our books, we need to provide them with versions which are immutable for the duration of a term, and which are known to be of a relatively high quality. Veropedia serves a purpose like this for Wikipedia articles, and maybe we need to either collaborate with the Veropedians, or create our own site with a similar purpose. Maybe, if we can sell the idea well enough, we could get the foundation to help out with a stable.en.wikibooks.org, where we could upload stabilized versions of books. Notice that the automatic PDF generation functions, and the "wiki-to-print" feature aren't going to solve this problem, because they don't guarantee that pages will remain immutable: a PDF generated today may be far different from a PDF generated tomorrow.
3c) Core subjects. A combination of several other points listed above, we need to seriously improve the quality of books on core topics. Devising even a list of such books (books that currently exist, or books which do not currently exist but which we need) would be an excellent start. Through collaboration, book donations, and various other methods, we need to increase the quality of books in core topics, produce stable versions from them, and find ways to put these books into a classroom.
- Make inroads into the classroom. Class projects have been immensely
successful for us, and have generated some of our best books. We should try hard to advertise wikibooks as being a suitable platform for these projects, and try to attract more groups to our site. Beyond students writing books, we also need students to read our books as well. With high-quality, stable versions of books, we will be in a position to "sell" them to the students and teachers who need them most. For large districts, being able to save even 50$ per child per year would be a financial miracle. Or, schools who have traditionally avoided costs by reusing old books year after year could be given the opportunity to upgrade their entire curricula for free. This would be an excellent collaboration opportunity for some of our sister projects, as as WV and WS as well.
- Documentation and Usability: We need a better way to describe who
we are and what we do. We need help pages or help books that are easily accessible, easy to navigate, and easy to read. In addition, we need to develop more tools to help automate the most important tasks. Let's face it: new users have a lot that they need to know before they can start their first book or project. People should be able to sit down and start writing a book, without having to (a) take the time to learn how to do all the necessary book-formatting by hand, or (b) make a large series of mistakes that need to be corrected later. Maybe we need to make a lot of complicated tools using Javascript. Maybe we need to hassle the devs to give us books-specific extensions, or maybe we need to write our own extensions. Maybe we need to get on the tool server and start setting up tools on there that people can use. Maybe we need a different solution entirely. The fact is that there's a barrier to entry on our site because the documentation is generally poor, and because the learning curve is much steeper then it is at wikipedia.
I really do believe that Wikibooks is in a great position right now. We've done a lot of work in the previous years, and we have a great project. That said, there are a few more hurdles that we need to pass before our full potential as a free textbook resource can be realized. I would like to see 2008 be the year that we really come into our own.
--Andrew Whitworth
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