Open Source Textbooks

From TeacherWiki

Open Source Textbooks

ASSISTments is a great resource for those that want to write open source textbooks. We encourage others to use platforms like CK12 for the actually book, but when it comes time for putting in practice problems, you should link to ASSISTments problems sets. ASSISTments can add a great deal of value to an open source textbook, as teachers can put up their questions, and students get immediate feedback, while teachers get instant reports.

Licensing

WPI does not want to own your book. You maintain your own copyright, but you are giving WPI the right to distribute it to others. If you want to sell your book, then WPI is probably not the right choice for distribution. We are a free non-profit center based at a university committed to providing ASSISTments for free to one million students. The Gates Foundation’s support will help to reach this goal.

ASSISTments supports proprietary textbooks but so far, not in cooperation with the big publishers. Read more here. We let teachers solve the math problems, type in an answer, and then write hints for those questions. We tell teachers not to type in the text of the questions as that would violate the textbook publisher’s copyright. This means the student still has to own the book.

But authors of open source textbooks can, of course, decide to type in their own questions. If you want help in moving a large number of questions into ASSISTments talk to Professor Heffernan at nth@wpi.edu.

Want to learn more?

If you are an open source textbook author and want to learn more, visit the Home page. Professor Neil Heffernan, the creator of ASSISTments, is happy to talk to authors and explain the value proposition of using ASSISTments.