A new web site called "Teach Astronomy" (http://www.teachastronomy.com) has been created to serve astronomy instructors and their students, amateur astronomers, and members of the public interested in astronomy. The content includes an online textbook of 400,000 words and 1200 images, 40, 000 articles from "Wikipedia," over…

In this article, the author shares his experience when he converted his linear algebra course notes into an open-source textbook. This textbook began, in large measure, as a demonstration project to answer the following questions: (1) Could an individual, simply as a content expert, use computers and networks for the creation and distribution of a…

This paper looks at the process of collaboratively creating and disseminating information resources, such as journals, books, papers, and multimedia resources in higher education. This process has been facilitated and encouraged by two relatively new movements, open-source and, especially, open access. The most definitive expression of the…

The Interstate New Teachers Assessment and Support Consortium (INTASC) was created to provide instructional support to new teachers and raise the level of learning in U. S. classrooms. To reach this goal, INTASC created 10 standards. This article reviews each INTASC standard and aligns each with a classroom activity that can be used to help meet…

Faced with the challenge of keeping up with the rapidly changing field of information systems, author and teacher John Gallaugher opted to write an open source textbook with a new online company, Flat World Knowledge (FWK). Gallaugher's open source textbook, "Information Systems: A Manager's Guide to Harnessing Technology", has an expected…

This paper offers seven things one should know about open textbook publishing. These seven facts are: (1) The open educational resources model, including textbooks, has emerged as a response to rising text prices, a need for greater access to high-quality learning materials, the proliferation of e-reader devices, and a trend in publishing toward…

Discusses the lack of appropriate textbooks for African library and information professional training and suggests the need for team authorship, publishing incentives, support by professional associations, the involvement of retired professionals in marketing and distribution, and the involvement of the governments. (Contains 16 references.) (LRW)