A global network has been established to create free Wiki-based textbooks for university students in the developing world.
Professor Richard Watson, from the University of Georgia`s Terry College of Business, is leading a team producing free online textbooks. The Global Text Project aims to create more affordable educational reading material for developing nations.
"The traditional hardcopy textbook is an expensive option for students in developing regions," says Watson. He adds that a simple university biology textbook is worth around $51 in Uganda, for example, which is a substantial amount of money in a country where the average gross income per person is only $250 per annum.
Watson emphasises the importance of such a project considering there are around 66 million students in the developing world.
Watson and an international team of professors are using a modified version of the Wiki software that powers the Wikipedia Web site to produce around 1 000 electronic textbooks covering subjects typically taken in the first two years of university.
Two-way flow
Watson is encouraging a "two-way" flow of information in the project. "I am encouraging students in the developing regions to help in building a strong repository of information, endemic to their needs."
He is networking with an advisory board with members from the developing region, who are assisting in identifying needed books and their content. Members of the board are from universities in SA, Columbia, Egypt, Malaysia, Uganda and the UK, he notes.
Watson says, like most Wikis, there is an option for online readers to add and change the information, which is not the most appropriate in the case of a textbook. "Added information will be shown with a light blue background, while the original text will remain in black with a white background, so there is no chance of text vandalism appearing to be the real thing."
The software will be modified so only editors will be allowed to accept changes that any reader might suggest.
The project has had little funding as yet, but Watson hopes the first texts will be proof of concept, which will encourage support from corporate sponsors. "We hope to see each of the 1 000 texts sponsored by a corporate entity."
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