I know many of you will have seen this on other lists already, but it's pretty exciting news. -- phoebe
----- Forwarded Message ----- California universities to produce 50 open-source textbooks
via Ars Technica by Timothy B. Lee on 9/28/12
California Governor Jerry Brown gave his pen a workout yesterday. In addition to signing legislation prohibiting social network snooping by employers and colleges, he also has also signed off on a proposal for the state to fund 50 open source digital textbooks. He signed two bills, one to create the the textbooks and the other to establish a California Digital Open Source Library to host them, at a meeting with students in Sacramento.
According to a legislative summary, the textbook bill would "require the California Open Education Resources Council to determine a list of 50 lower division courses in the public postsecondary segments for which high-quality, affordable, digital open source textbooks and related materials would be developed or acquired." The council is to solicit bids to produce these textbooks in 2013. The bill makes clear that the council has the option to use "existing high-quality digital open source textbooks and related materials" if those materials fit the requirements.
The law specifies that the textbooks must be placed under a Creative Commons license, allowing professors at universities outside of California to use the textbooks in their own classrooms. The textbooks must be encoded in XML, or "other appropriate successor format," to facilitate re-use of the materials. ....
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/09/california-universities-to-produc...
On 28 September 2012 20:17, phoebe ayers phoebe.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
The law specifies that the textbooks must be placed under a Creative Commons license, allowing professors at universities outside of California to use the textbooks in their own classrooms. The textbooks must be encoded in XML, or "other appropriate successor format," to facilitate re-use of the materials.
The text reads:
=== 1) The textbooks and other materials are placed under a creative commons attribution license that allows others to use, distribute, and create derivative works based upon the digital material while still allowing the authors or creators to receive credit for their efforts. ===
Will someone try to weasel that to CC-by-nc rather than just CC-by? I see CC-by-sa would also fall under it.
- d.
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org