Why I decided to try open publishing

In an earlier post, I announced that I was going to write a textbook for open publishing and track my progress through a series of blog posts. In this one I examine my initial thinking. Deciding to go for open rather than commercial publishing was not an easy decision, and I am still open to changing my mind if I run into too many problems. But here are the pros and cons that influenced my decision ... Will open publishing be any better?  Well, we’ll see, but here are my main reasons  I have to walk the talk. The content of my book is about teaching in a digital age. Therefore the format needs to enable me to practice what I will be preaching. There is nothing as powerful as a good example, and the book itself needs to be an example of the benefits of digital teaching. So this means, yes, embedded urls, but much, much more (more on this in my vision for the book, which will be another post). I don’t think commercial publishers are anywhere near ready to support this kind of approach to book publishing (if so, please contact me with an offer in the 50% royalty range – just kidding);  proof of concept Open textbooks are in their infancy. Like many new media, most still reflect the format of the old medium, print publishing. Many open textbooks at the moment are just that: a (free) electronic version of a text designed for printing. What should an open textbook look like? What’s involved in radically redesigning an open textbook? This seems to me to be a very interesting and important research and development question to work on;  collaboration and crowdsourcing There are many people now teaching innovatively and in ways that exploit digital media. If I follow an open approach to writing and publishing, to what extent can I successfully draw on others to provide content, examples and feedback. Won’t it be a better book if I have many collaborators/contributors, rather than to try and do everything myself?  the world is changing I may be getting money now from commercial publishing – but for how much longer? My own view is that commercial academic print-based publishing will be dead within ten years. It’s an unsustainable business that has failed to adapt fast enough to changing technology. This is not to say there is a sustainable business model yet for open publishing either, but I will wager that one will be found more quickly than a rescue plan for commercial publishing;  knowledge should be free This is the most compelling reason for me. Can we find a sustainable way to produce original high quality content that can be made available free of charge? I have had great fortune not only to be educated in public schools and universities, but also to work in them. Just consider this project as a rather tiny attempt at giving back."