I’m just still wondering how you see k12 fitting into your vision for open textbooks and I’d love to work toward making this a reality in the Canyons district:

http://drapestakes.blogspot.com/2009/05/open-textbooks-in-k-12.html

This would torpedo the whole project.

The ‘reputable publisher’ would support only its own proposals (or those of affiliates), automatically eliminating most of the competition, and in turn, forcing the cost of the proposals significantly up.

Letters of support should more properly come from experts in the field, associations active in the field, or learning resource developers, etc., and not merely publishers. Indeed, for my own part, it is a letter from a publisher that I would (among those just listed) least trust.

Also, “A marketing plan for the textbook, including prices for all planned formats of the book (excluding the web version which will of course be free, but including paperback, hardback, audio, etc.) and a target number of student adoptions in the first two years after publication” needs thought.

- you don’t want the textbook producers to deliberately undermine the free web version (eg., by making the server so slow its impossible to download, by using obsolete content formats, etc etc)

- you don’t want to create a situation where the poorest or most disadvantaged pay the costs – having print and audio versions for a fee means that people without computers and people who are blind must pay for their copies, while richer fully sighted people can get it for free.