- #1
djh101
- 160
- 5
Hello, Physics Forums. I've been working on a sort of open textbook website since the beginning of this year and am almost finished. I have certainly enjoyed building it, but it has come to the point where I would like to hear a little bit about what other people think. So, as science-minded people, what do you think of my site? I would greatly appreciate some constructive criticism, suggestions, etc. Useful? Not useful? Redundant?
Preamble:
Through the course of my undergraduate career, I became somewhat annoyed at the high textbook costs. This could often be circumvented by buying old editions but attempts were often thwarted by rearranged homework problems and Mastering Chemistry. I admire open source projects quite a bit and, thus, decided to begin my own project revolving around public content creation.
Concept:
Preamble:
Through the course of my undergraduate career, I became somewhat annoyed at the high textbook costs. This could often be circumvented by buying old editions but attempts were often thwarted by rearranged homework problems and Mastering Chemistry. I admire open source projects quite a bit and, thus, decided to begin my own project revolving around public content creation.
Concept:
- Users create pages marked up by XML. Pages are given a category (e.g. Physics), subcategory (Electromagnetism), and topic (Electrostatics) and can be rated by other users.
- Site revolves around revenue sharing. Authors can choose to input their AdSense ID so that they will receive revenue from the 1-2 ads displayed on their pages. Authors can also input their Flattr ID to receive donations or turn off ads entirely on their pages.
- Pages can be compiled into books organized into chapters. Only authors can edit pages, but any public pages can be compiled into a book.
- Once everything is working and functional, I'd like to add lots of textbook-esque features (text highlighting, a glossary, etc.).
- Authors retain all copyrights to their work.