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Volunteer drive to create free textbooks

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 09:27

In response to an overwhelming need expressed by South African Life Sciences educators, Siyavula – a Shuttleworth Foundation seeded project - is collaborating with interested educators to create a free and open Life Sciences textbook, for use in 2012 and beyond.

This will take place over the weekend of the 14 – 16 October 2011. The need for this collaboration arises as the Life Sciences curriculum is revised for 2012.

In order to make the process of adaptation easier for everyone, Siyavula felt it was time to address the need for a comprehensive Life Sciences textbook that covers the new ncurriculum.

This textbook will be freely available for all educators and learners across the country to use, and will be accessible online, in PDF for printing, and EPUB format, and via mobile phone.

Siyavula will ensure that all persons involved will be appropriately acknowledged in the Life Sciences textbook, as well as provide an online annotation platform where the text can be commented on, to ensure its constant evolution and adaptation to everyone's needs.

What makes this textbook different is that it will be created in collaboration with dedicated Life Sciences educators and post-graduate university students, facilitated by Siyavula over the course of a long weekend.

This will be made possible through educators contributing their own teaching resources, which they are happy to share under a Creative Commons open copyright licence. Mindset Learn, the local educational broadcaster, is also participating by openly contributing revision material and a selection of their video lessons.

These videos, along with simulations, presentations and assessment items will be linked into the book to make it easier for learners and educators to find additional support.

But this is not the first time that Siyavula has embarked on such a project. Siyavula's 'Physical Sciences for Grades 10, 11 and 12' and 'Mathematics for Grades 10, 11 and 12' series of textbooks were collaboratively authored by a community of volunteer educators, academics and professionals. To view our textbooks please follow this link Siyavula. These books are also available via your mobile phone, which can be read by pointing your phone's browser at: m.siyavula.cnx.org.

Like the proposed Life Sciences textbook, these textbooks are also available under an open copyright licence, which allows others to legally distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon the work, with learners and educators actively encouraged to download, copy, share, adapt and edit (even translate!) the content legally and freely.