Volunteering on time

A dilemma for the modern world is that the people who have critical knowledge and expertise have many demands on their time, and many of these same people want to help the less fortunate. Endeavors such as the Global Text Project face this fundamental problem.

Don and I have presented the idea for the Global Text Project to, I estimate, well over a thousand people, and we always receive a highly enthusiastic response. Many people want to help and agree to take on chapter writing and book editing.

We find, however, that our volunteers don't always deliver on time. Of course, this is nothing new for anyone who has been involved in academic book editing. Academics, like most people with a high level of expertise, are very busy and usually over committed. As one friend commented, "In the academic world, an opportunity of lifetime comes along every day," and we accept too many of these opportunities. The Global Text Project is the opportunity of a lifetime for students in the developing world. Free textbooks support education, which is a chance for a better life for many people.

If we can't get chapters written in a timely fashion, then it is difficult for the Global Text Project to meet its goal, in a reasonable time frame, of making textbooks freely available.

I would appreciate any ideas on how we can increase the timeliness with which chapters are completed. Are there incentives we can provide? Should we create different expectations? Should we monitor chapter editors more closely?

Your comments are most welcome.

Cheers

Rick

More on the Cost of Traditional Textbooks

"Make Textbooks Affordable" is one of several initiatives of The Student Public Interest Research Groups (PIRG). The Make Textbooks Affordable site contains a rich source of news, resources, and even possible solutions to the high cost of textbooks. Dave Rosenfeld is the campaign coordinator. Dave's analysis of a May 2007 report by the Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance, sponsored by US Department of Education, is worth a read. (The report's title is "Turn the Page - Making Textbooks More Affordable" and contains a total of 95 pages).

Quoting from the section of Dave's analysis most related to the Global text Project:

"There are many 21st Century Technologies that are dramatically less expensive and more flexible than traditionally licensed books. The report correctly identifies many of the alternatives to high-priced textbooks. It is our view that many of these options represent the single greatest path to real competition in the textbooks market, a view recently endorsed by the New York Times and examined in more depth in our recent report, Textbooks for the 21^st Century.

"We believe that in the Internet age, there’s little reason for the cost of a textbook to be so high. There are hundreds of thousands of professors able and willing to create learning content and the argument that royalties are needed is a myth; very few professors who publish ever see royalties; the incentive to publish is predominantly for reputation building, not financial enhancement.

"There are a few models for providing this content, we believe that the most viable have two key principles:

• The content is peer-reviewed or otherwise evaluated by faculty and housed on a university or faculty-sanctioned site. This is the model for Rice University Press, Connexions, California State University’s MERLOT program, and the Global Text Project.
• Second, that the content is Creative Commons licensed or equivalent. This is an alternative licensing system that content providers may use to allow their work to be more openly utilized by others with less restriction. This licensing program retains many of the most powerful publishing incentives (recognition and attribution among peers).

"This is not just about “online” vs. “paper” textbooks. The content that most of these repositories offer can be used in both digital and print only formats, depending on the proclivities of the faculty and students who use them. What is unique is that the offerings are much less expensive than traditional textbooks".

Please take a look when you have some time.

-Don