I received this announcement on the Internet Society‘s Public Software mailing list. The Saylor Foundation provides online college-level courses at no charge, but also without college credit. (The Open Education Resources University (OERu) project is working on creating a system of free course materials with paid examinations for credit.)
What we need next is the same deal from some other organization for creating primary and secondary school textbooks, with support for translation to the hundred or so languages that Sugar is being localized to. The total required, at $20,000 per textbook, would probably be between one and two million dollars, depending on how many local versions are required on topics such as civics, health, foreign languages, and so on, and how much support will be needed for translation.
The Saylor Foundation pays USD 20,000 to each author of a university textbook which is then made available under a CC-BY license. You can see below four winners this year:
Elementary Linear Algebra (PDF) by Dr. Kenneth Kuttler of Brigham Young University – MA211 Linear Algebra I
Linear Algebra, Theory and Applications (PDF) by Dr. Kenneth Kuttler of Brigham Young University – MA212 Linear Algebra II
Computer Networking: Principles, Protocol, and Practice (PDF) by Dr. Olivier Bonaventure of the Université catholique de Louvain in Belgium – CS402 Local Area Networks
Real Analysis I (PDF) by Dr. Elias Zakon of the University of Windsor – MA241 Real Analysis I
Deadline May 31, 2012, for the next round of proposals. Please forward to other lists
