As announced on Kairosnews by Editor David Blakesley, Parlor Press in conjuuction with Glassbead Books has published Looking for a Fight: Is There a Republican War on Science? under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License. Go Dave! I think this may be the first CC licensed book put out by anyone in my field. Note that you can download the PDF version now for free or help support a progressive press like Parlor by buying a print copy.

Placeholder for publishing a version of my dissertation manuscript.

if:book points out a couple of problems with the Wikibooks project. Specifically,

• that the text seems uninspired/could be better written
• how to deal with plagiairsm

Perhaps the problem is not in the concept, but in the process. The solution seems obvious to me. In The Success of Open Source, Stephen Weber explains that “the essence of open source is not the software. It is the process by which software is created” (56). If we look to successful open source projects, we see the importance of peer review as part of the workflow of text/code production. Some community leaders act as final gatekeepers who review contributions following a community evaluation process and make the final call on whether the contribution is added to the project. In order to increase quality, open source textbook projects may likely need to create a similar approval process.

In my field--Computers and Writing, a subdiscipline of Rhetoric and Composition--there is much concern and scholarship about the digital divide and how limited access to computer technology will continue to wide the gap between the have and have not's. I don't disagree with that at all, but I am concerned about the fact that there is almost no concern about the digitial "knowledge divide" created by lack of access to information, a result of protectionist IP policies, practices, and legislation. Thus it was great to hear that speakers at Santa Clara University pointed out that access to computer technology may be of less importance than access to knowledge:

Speakers at the event, attended by about 200, talked about the importance of creating a ``digital commons'' -- a public, online space for knowledge that would help alleviate social and economic problems in poor countries, as well as inequities between the developed and developing worlds.

I would add that this digital knowledge divide is not just a problem for developing countries. Access to culture is locked up behind DRM and pay-for/pay-per use services: i.e., community colleges and private 4-year schools who cannot afford access to the expensive academic journal databases.

So I hope Computers and Writing will soon realize that lack of attention to OA and IP issues is not achieving their goals for promoting literacy. It's only through attention to both computer technology and knowledge access that we can increase opportunities for everyone. It's time to "pay attention."

As part of this year's Professional Writing Pedagogy and Technology Showcase at Purdue, Suzanne Black and I used OpenOffice to prepare a PowerPoint style presentation giving an overview of OSDDP. A Flash version is available online.

One of the reason that my personal weblog has been begging for attention during the last few months is that I've been working on a new project here at Purdue, the Open Source Development and Documentation Project (OSDDP). From the most recent press release:

West Lafayette, IN -- October 13th, 2004 -- The Professional Writing Program at Purdue University has implemented an evolution in service learning called the Open Source Development and Documentation Project (OSDDP). As members of a community formed to integrate learning with the open source development model, students, teachers, and clients are working together to develop documentation of and related to open source. Through their involvement in the project, students are gaining valuable experience in collaboration much needed for professional development while building business and technical communication skills

OSDDP is currently designated as a pilot program and is being used in almost a dozen business and technical writing courses offered through the English Department at the university. “[OSDDP] is initiating a new major course project involving service learning and community engagement, which Purdue is very interested in and that we see as critical to learning to write in the 21st century workplace,” explains Dr. David Blakesley, Director of Professional Writing at Purdue University.