Global Text or the Global Text Project (GTP) is an emerging organisation dedicated to the assembly of
free information materialFree content, or free information, is any kind of functional work, artwork, or other creative content that meets the definition of a free cultural work...
and its dissemination to the
developing worldA developing country, also known as a less-developed country, is a nation with a low level of material well-being. Since no single definition of the term developing country is recognized internationally, the levels of development may vary widely within so-called developing countries...
under a
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licenseCreative Commons is a non-profit organization headquartered in Mountain View, California, United States devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has released several copyright-licenses known as Creative Commons...
. Global Text is currently in a
proof-of-concept phaseA proof of concept or a proof of principle is a realization of a certain method or idea to demonstrate its feasibility, or a demonstration in principle, whose purpose is to verify that some concept or theory that has the potential of being used...
with the preparation two electronic textbooks:
Business Fundamentals and
Information SystemsInformation Systems is an academic/professional discipline bridging the business field and the well-defined computer science field that is evolving toward a new scientific area of study...
. After a successful first phase, a
non-profit foundationNonprofit organization is neither a legal nor technical definition but generally refers to an organization that uses surplus revenues to achieve its goals, rather than distributing them as profit or dividends...
or similar organization is planned to be established to govern and manage the Global Text Project.
Aims
The Global Text Project sees information and education as crucial for development. At the same time textbooks are unaffordable to most people in developing regions of the world. For example, a Biology textbook priced at USD 108 in the U.S. sells for USD 51 in Africa. The U.S. GNI per capita is USD 41,400. In Uganda, for example, it is USD 250. Here, Global Text is attempting to improve access and distribution with its free textbooks.
Concept
Global Text aims to provide a free
textbookA textbook or coursebook is a manual of instruction in any branch of study. Textbooks are produced according to the demands of educational institutions...
libraryIn a traditional sense, a library is a large collection of books, and can refer to the place in which the collection is housed. Today, the term can refer to any collection, including digital sources, resources, and services...
encompassing all topics commonly encountered in the first years of university undergraduate education. Material is contributed by unpaid volunteers, although it is being considered whether to set up paid scholarships to encourage submission of material. Textbook projects are supervised by
universityA university is an institution of higher education and research, which grants academic degrees in a variety of subjects. A university is an organisation that provides both undergraduate education and postgraduate education...
teachersTeachers may refer to:* Teachers, people who provide schooling for pupils and students* Teachers , one of the five Ascension Gift Ministries* Teachers , a British sitcom* Teachers Teachers may refer to:* Teachers, people who provide schooling for pupils and students* Teachers (ministry), one of the...
/professors from the relevant fields to ensure information quality. Experts are encouraged to contribute chapters or sections which are joined to produce a complete textbook. Students are also involved in content creation as well as in copyediting, preparation of diagrams, and software-related tasks.
A semi-automatic
translationTranslation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. Whereas interpreting undoubtedly antedates writing, translation began only after the appearance of written literature; there exist partial translations of the Sumerian Epic of...
project, using software provided by
Sajan, is under way to convert English textbooks into common world languages.
Organization
The Global Text Project was set up jointly by the
Terry College of BusinessThe C. Herman and Mary Virginia Terry College of Business is the business school at the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia. The Terry College is the flagship business school in the state of Georgia and one of 16 schools and colleges at the oldest state-chartered public university in the...
of the
University of GeorgiaThe University of Georgia is a public research university located in Athens, Georgia, United States. Founded in 1785, it is the oldest and largest of the state's institutions of higher learning and is one of multiple schools to claim the title of the oldest public university in the United States...
and the
Daniels College of BusinessThe Daniels College of Business is one of twelve graduate programs at the University of Denver. Founded in 1908, the Daniels College of Business is the eighth oldest business school in the United States...
of the
University of DenverThe University of Denver is currently ranked 82nd among all public and private "National Universities" by U.S. News & World Report in the 2012 rankings....
. The project is currently managed by the Center for Information Systems Leadership of the Terry College of Business, University of Georgia.
In addition to these two institutions, the core team includes Richard Watson also of the University of Georgia, Don McCubbrey of the
University of DenverThe University of Denver is currently ranked 82nd among all public and private "National Universities" by U.S. News & World Report in the 2012 rankings....
, Wayne Huang from the
Ohio UniversityOhio University is a public university located in the Midwestern United States in Athens, Ohio, situated on an campus...
, Franz Lehner from the
University of PassauThe University of Passau is a public research university located in Passau, Lower Bavaria, Germany. Founded in 1978, it is the youngest university in Bavaria and has therefore the most modern campus in the state...
in
GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, Andres Sepulveda from the
Universidad de ConcepciónThe University of Concepción , also known for its acronym UdeC, is one of the most prestigious universities in Chile. It is the third oldest university in the country, and it is part of the Council of Rectors. It was the first University founded in the South of Chile, and the first to become a...
in
ChileChile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
, and Negwa Badra from the
Ain Shams UniversityAin Shams University is an institute of higher education located in Cairo, Egypt. Founded in 1950, the university provides education at the undergraduate, graduate and post-graduate levels.-History:...
in
EgyptEgypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
.
The Global Text Project received funding from the Jacobs Foundation, Switzerland, to initiate the project.
Contribution and communication
Voluntary contribution of material by experts is the basis of the Global Text Project. Collaboration of authors is facilitated by the use of the ECM
O3spacesO3Spaces is a document management system developed by O3Spaces B.V.. It is built by a team of software engineers based in the Netherlands using OpenOffice.org, StarOffice, and ODF-centric applications as enterprise office and collaboration solutions. The product is written in Java, and based on the...
and the online,
open sourceThe term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
content managementContent management, or CM, is the set of processes and technologies that support the collection, managing, and publishing of information in any form or medium. In recent times this information is typically referred to as content or, to be precise, digital content...
platform
DrupalDrupal is a free and open-source content management system and content management framework written in PHP and distributed under the GNU General Public License. It is used as a back-end system for at least 1.5% of all websites worldwide ranging from personal blogs to corporate, political, and...
. Authors can also contribute text documents directly as OpenOffice or
Microsoft WordMicrosoft Word is a word processor designed by Microsoft. It was first released in 1983 under the name Multi-Tool Word for Xenix systems. Subsequent versions were later written for several other platforms including IBM PCs running DOS , the Apple Macintosh , the AT&T Unix PC , Atari ST , SCO UNIX,...
to be integrated by Global Text helpers. The project employs
XMLExtensible Markup Language is a set of rules for encoding documents in machine-readable form. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C, and several other related specifications, all gratis open standards....
technology to port content. A
bibliographyBibliography , as a practice, is the academic study of books as physical, cultural objects; in this sense, it is also known as bibliology...
system and an
illustrationAn illustration is a displayed visualization form presented as a drawing, painting, photograph or other work of art that is created to elucidate or dictate sensual information by providing a visual representation graphically.- Early history :The earliest forms of illustration were prehistoric...
pipeline are still in development. Communication between organisers and contributors is aided by the use of
Google GroupsGoogle Groups is a service from Google Inc. that supports discussion groups, including many Usenet newsgroups, based on common interests. The service was started in 1995 as Deja News, and was transitioned to Google Groups after a February 2001 buyout....
.
Global Text and Wikibooks
The aim of free information and the distributed structure of Global Text and
WikibooksWikibooks is a Wiki hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation for the creation of free content textbooks and annotated texts that anyone can edit....
are similar. Nevertheless, the organisers of Global Text opted for supervision of each textbook project by a known expert in the field to boost academic credibility. This may have been motivated by the pilot textbook in Information Systems not being used widely by courses after its creation.
Free information exchange between the two related projects is complicated by the different licenses attached to the content. All Wikimedia projects including
WikibooksWikibooks is a Wiki hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation for the creation of free content textbooks and annotated texts that anyone can edit....
currently use the
GNU Free Documentation LicenseThe GNU Free Documentation License is a copyleft license for free documentation, designed by the Free Software Foundation for the GNU Project. It is similar to the GNU General Public License, giving readers the rights to copy, redistribute, and modify a work and requires all copies and...
(GFDL), while Global Text uses the
Creative CommonsCreative Commons is a non-profit organization headquartered in Mountain View, California, United States devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has released several copyright-licenses known as Creative Commons...
by Attribution . For useful educational material on Wikibooks to be reviewed and distributed by Global Text, all Wikibooks authors would have to agree to a change of license, which is impossible in practise. A harmonisation of the two licenses would facilitate free information flow.
See also
- Open source curriculum
An open source curriculum is an online instructional resource that can be freely used, distributed and modified. OSC is based on the open source practice of creating products or software that opens up access to source materials or codes...
- Wikibooks
Wikibooks is a Wiki hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation for the creation of free content textbooks and annotated texts that anyone can edit....
, TextbookA textbook or coursebook is a manual of instruction in any branch of study. Textbooks are produced according to the demands of educational institutions...
- Education
Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...
, Free educationFree education refers to education that is funded through taxation, or charitable organizations rather than tuition fees. Although primary school and other comprehensive or compulsory education is free in many countries, for example, all education is mostly free including...
, Education in AfricaEducation in Africa began as a tool to prepare the local youth to take their place in their respective societies and not necessarily for life outside of Africa. In some areas, the pre-European colonialism schooling system consisted of groups of older people teaching aspects and rituals that would...
, History of educationThe history of education its part of the past and present teaching and learning. Each generation, since the beginning of human existence, has sought to pass on cultural and social values, traditions, morality, religion and skills to the next generation. The passing on of culture is also known as...
- Developing country
A developing country, also known as a less-developed country, is a nation with a low level of material well-being. Since no single definition of the term developing country is recognized internationally, the levels of development may vary widely within so-called developing countries...
External links