Re: [school-discuss] Open Content and open source for developping countries

[Paolo Pumilia <xpol@interfree.it>]

From Julien Tane, Fri Sep 13, at 22:29:
 .>A pool of qualified authors could give rise to a sort of board of 
 .>supervisors to produce and maintain an updated, printable manual of 
 .>any matter.
 .The question of open content for school is I think the need of an 
 .authority on what is acceptable or not,
 .either on the pedagogical level or on the ethical one.
 .

Agree; first step should be looking for such authority, possibly available 
freely to that project, as part of its institutional aims. 


 .>
 .>I would start by getting in touch with some people authoritative with 
 .>respect to the most common matters relevant in schools. 
 .>Maybe a publishing house could back the project (they would have the
 .>right to sell the fine printed version of the manuals, with add ons)
 .I am not at all sure that the plus-value fine grained is enough for 
 .publishing houses to want to participate.
 .But, I have never been good at understanding market principles.
 .

In my (humble) opinion, an international publishing house would be able 
to market such handbook in the usual way in the so-called rich countries,
since a complete, color covered book with clear coloured pictures is much
more attractive than the print out of a common pc printer, with no binding.
Moreover, the publishing house could have the right to add something more 
to the on line version. 

Yet the content should be basically the same. 

Advertising that part of the money will support the on line version would 
be a further incentive to buy the book. 

-- 
Paolo Pumilia