Flat World Knowledge, the start-up company I am involved with, is officially out in the open now. We were featured on NPR’s Marketplace this evening. Program audio is also available.
Flat World Knowledge is a company dedicated to open textbooks. The videos on the website tell the story really well. I look forward to your feedback on what we’re doing!
UPDATE: Also see the Professors Gone Paperless article at Inside Higher Ed, and 1,000 Professors Sign Statement for Affordable Textbooks at Make Textbooks Affordable.
Hey David
Truly wicked! I’ll be following along closely!
Mark
I’ve written my own “textbooks” for both the classes I teach since 2005, and this idea is powerfully intriguing. It also reminds me of a presentation by Jason Cole early last year on authoring open content like open software: http://tinyurl.com/5v7zkf
Sweet! Considering that I have spend almost $2000 on books in the last year, this would be wonderful.
Congrats! Amazing! The world needs this! My only bitterness is not having a title as cool as Chief Openness Officer (although my title is pretty groovy).
Intriguing. I just emailed Jeff with a few questions on how I could become involved. I’ve always wanted to produce something like David Williams’ online text on qualitative inquiry, but it wouldn’t count on the tenure track.
Having a publisher willing to stand behind the project may solve that issue. Rather than stating in my dossier that I’m writing a free-online textbook, it would say I am writing a textbook for “Flat World Knowledge Publishing.
Congrats! I just watched all the videos and it looks like a great idea! Can’t wait until it officially gets off the ground!
Congratulations from far far far away… Valencia (Spain). Excellent idea. I’ve already posted it to my blog. I wonder if this is only for the US market/students/teachers…I think it’d be a total blast here in Spain (or in South America) too. Is there any way to test it? CONGRATS, again.