Jim has been contracted to do one for Modern British Fiction but it will also serve for introductory and survey courses in literature. Jim is known amongst his Huxley scholars as being the "great detective" for finding previously unpublished materials by Huxley and he is applying his detection skills to finding wonderful resources (and there are amazing resources out there!) for this open text in addition to doing all the other usual textbook support like introductory materials, notes, study questions, essay topics, etc.
It's great that B.C. is taking the lead in Canada on this and not surprisingly David Porter is the Director of BC Campus and is probably behind the whole idea. David Porter was a pioneer in the whole Internet thing (not called the Internet then) and he and Geri Sinclair from SFU got me intrigued by this whole thing in the late 80's so full circle in a way.
A bit more information on open texts:
What is an open textbook?
An open textbook is a textbook licensed under an open copyright license, and made available online to be freely used by students, teachers and members of the public. They are available for free as online versions, and as low-cost printed versions, should students opt for these.
What makes open textbooks different from a traditional textbook?
Traditionally-published textbooks are produced under closed copyright, meaning they cannot be shared, re-used or re-purposed. They are usually costly (hundreds of dollars each) with new editions published frequently, making texts only a year or two old out of date. Even if they are published digitally at half the cost, they are still expensive and come with digital rights management that means they only appear for a short period of time (4-6 months) on a student’s e-reader. The Student Public Interest Research Group in the U.S. has more information.
The open licensing of open textbooks allows for collaborations on and improvements to textbooks from contributors around the world (knowledge knows no boundaries). In contrast to traditional textbooks, with open licenses, faculty are free to adapt any portion of a textbook without requiring students to purchase an entire book only to use a small portion.
