Why are we creating this book?

• This book is Siyavula’s response to a call for help from Life Sciences educators for a comprehensive teaching resource for 2012.
• Despite textbooks being authored many learners don't have textbooks – Siyavula is providing a web-based authoring solution that guarantees that the book is automatically available in PDF for printing, ePub for ebook readers, on the web for browsers and on your mobile phone - see m.siyavula.cnx.org - which means that you are creating a resource that will be available to ALL South Africans.
• Every Life Sciences learner could own a copy of this textbook! It is possible for educators to print this book while remaining within their school’s printing budget. If printed in reasonable volumes (1000+) these books can be very cheap because they are royalty free. Our 350 page physical science book can be as cheap as R32 per book at 4000 units.
• There isn’t one book out there that comprehensively fulfils an educator’s needs. Educators still mainly teach from notes compiled and created from a variety of resources, which is a time consuming process. This book will help address this, and will be a great supplementary resource.
• This textbook will be available to everyone for free on the internet, which allows for the book to be continuously built upon, new resources and rich media added, errata submitted and new versions created – in line with Siyavula’s vision for education in South Africa.

 

 

How is it possible to write an entire textbook in one weekend?

• Siyavula is working with subject specialists to help create the appropriate curriculum aligned framework and style guides to ensure an efficient process on the weekend.
• As educators predominately work from a set of notes which they have created over the years, these notes will form the basis of the new textbook.
• Educators and post-graduate students will contribute their own Life Sciences resources that they are happy to openly share. One person may have more comprehensive notes for one section and less for another, but by pulling a large enough community together, we will have enough notes to form the first draft of a book.
• Educators and post-grad students will preselect which sections they would like to work on. Using their own notes, and those shared by the rest of the educators present, paper prototyping will help them select the relevant content to turn into a chapter, according to the framework and chapter guidelines that have been agreed upon. Later on, rich-media will be added in the relevant places.
• A custodian will be selected from each group, who will copy this content across to form one coherent document per chapter. While this is taking place, content will be sourced to fill any gaps, and search for relevant rich-media to include.
• There will be trained facilitators and technical support on hand.

 

 

Is this only a project for Life Sciences educators?

• We welcome a broad community! If you feel that you have appropriate teaching notes and knowledge to add to a community driven Life Sciences textbook we would love to have you participate.
• If you are a post-graduate student with a background in Life Sciences / Biology; a FET educator; or a curriculum advisor / curriculum specialist, we would love for you to come on board.
• The Life Sciences volunteers will have a short screening to ensure that we will have a broad enough and appropriate range of content to pull from.
• If you are interested in being involved and would like further information, please join us at our Life Sciences information evenings on either the 21 September, 22 September or 27 September.

 

What sort of resources is Siyavula looking for?

• The greater the variety of resources we can include, the better it will be for the book. As long as the resources are available in an editable format (Word, Open Office, PowerPoint), we would love for them to be contributed as it all adds to a richer textbook! Practicals, worksheets, worked examples, diagrams and real life applications are all welcome, especially those that reflect the new South Africa, that are demographically and culturally sensitive.
• Your teaching notes do not need to cover a complete chapter or book on their own. We will be working in small groups on each chapter and you will be able to preselect which chapters you are most interested in working on. If you have notes covering other chapters, please bring those along too!

 

How is this book different from other textbooks?

• We have coined the term “WebBook” for our series of Maths and Physical Science textbooks, which will apply to the Life Sciences book too. This is due to the online videos, simulations and assessment items that will be linked to in the book in the appropriate places – we’ve done this for our Maths and Physical Science textbooks - take a look here – the same will be done for Life Sciences! We’ve built the pipeline to elegantly produce a print version that has shortcodes to link to the online resources. This will help educators who are struggling to integrate ICT in their lessons – we’ll put links to the right resources, in the right place in a curriculum-aligned textbook.
• All the rich media will be open and can be provided offline on a DVD for your class or computer lab.

• The Life Sciences textbook will be further supplemented with Mindset Learn material, adding to the richness of the learning experience. Mindset Learn have even offered to create content on certain topics if teachers see a need for it.
• We’ve built an online assessment bank were questions can be shared – we’ll make sure all the exercises and their solutions end up in it. We’re working hard to make it better – it is free and open of course - www.fullmarks.org.za – it still needs a lot of work but much is underway. In the book all exercises link to their solutions in the bank.
• The book will also differ in that it will be compiled by the end-users (educators) and maintained by the end-users. Our aim is to create a community around the content, and start a discussion thereof, with the intention of this leading to the emergence of higher quality teaching resources and innovation for all.
• Using an online annotation tool, we will gather comments, discussion, errata and resource requests for the book. This will be an online community driven website where comments are reflected in the text, creating a feedback loop and facilitating ongoing community participation beyond the Life Sciences weekend. It is a place for you to check feedback from other educators on anything in the book. Each annotation goes into a ticketing system so nothing is lost and there is a complete public record of any feedback, and what action was taken related to the feedback.
• The final result will be a textbook which is a tour guide to a world of online resources that is maintained by a community, saves everyone time and gives everyone access to better resources to support their teaching.
• Community - this will be your book! That is really powerful!

 

 

What are the legal implications of this textbook?

• Educators contributing resources need to be willing to make them available under a Creative Commons open copyright licence (CC-BY). This means that you agree to the work being freely available for any person or organisation to copy, edit, download, remix and redistribute it, as long as you are credited for it.
• You may have created your teaching resources by drawing on a variety of textbooks, other educators’ notes and tests, and online material etc. As a result of this you may be unsure as to whether or not you are legally allowed to share your work openly with the Life Sciences community. Work that has been copied wholesale from resources under “All rights reserved” copyright licenses is problematic and we will need to re-develop. Other participants in the weekend may be able to replace the copied content with their own work. Curriculum-specified definitions etc. will be word-for-word the same as other books but this is not copyright violation. Using other resources for inspiration and ideas but producing your own work is fine.

Whose responsibility will it be to work on the book after the weekend is over?

• There will be a committee who will review the book after the weekend is over. If you are willing to continue volunteering your time and knowledge, Siyavula will continuously support you in the process. But, as a volunteer, you are under no obligation to continue contributing or editing the texts.
• We encourage participation and communication to continue, and provide many platforms for this to be possible. One such platform is the online annotation tool which you can use to comment on the text. Comments take the form of errata, teachers’ notes and resources suggestions.
• The community will be made aware of any improvements or changes made to the textbook. The original first edition will always be available online and major changes will be made in derived editions of the text.

 

 

Why is Siyavula involved in creating this resource? What’s in it for them?

• By adding a Grade 10 Life Sciences resource to the list of free and open textbooks, we are adding to the pool of open educational resources available to all South African educators, and with your Life Sciences contribution we can transform learning in our country!
• We believe that for more effective education we need a larger, more diverse pool of resources to draw on and this resource would be a safe (from a legal perspective) starting point for educators, increasing the likelihood of adaptations being shared back.
• We want to work in a sector where effective collaboration, education and technology usage is pervasive where we can explore new, exciting ideas and innovations.

How does Siyavula make money?

• We try to add value in ways that do not impact on the openness and availability of the resources, for which we can charge.
• We manage the process of producing printed books which are sold with a small mark-up. You can print them yourself if you like.
• We provide paid courses on various aspects of the open value chain, copyright for educators, tools for collaboration, technology integration into various subjects etc.
• We provide paid services related to the analysis of meta-data collected about the various open educational resources available.
• All the resources and all the software used is freely available for educators.

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