[Fhsst-authors] WikiBooks Interview

[Mark Horner]

Hi Karl

Sorry about the massive delay, if you are still interested I have 
attached my answers to your interview questions. I have
been completely snowed under for the last month and FHSST has had to 
take a back seat. Things are better now and I've had
some time to devote to the project again.

Best regards,

Mark

--
--
Mark Horner                                                                                                         
Jabber/AIM/Yahoo:   marknewlyn                                                               

Co-author:
http://www.nongnu.org/fhsst
http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/fhsst

"Life is but a seg-fault away ...

Life received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault.
0x42074d40 in calloc () from /lib/i686/liblife.so.6"


The following interview is with Mark Horner, the person heading the
Free High School Science Text (FHSST) project. This project has the
goal of providing free science textbooks to all of the high school
students in South Africa. These books, currently under development,
are being uploaded to and/or developed on Wikibooks.

Karl: Mark, thank you for taking time out of your Ph.D. research to
answer these email questions. Our first one: Tell us just a bit about
yourself. Where are you from? Where are you now? What is your research
about?

Mark: 

Firstly, thanks for the opportunity to talk about the project. I really 
appreciate it.
I'd also like to say up front that I am not the only person responsible for 
where things
stand and a lot of people have done a lot to help and keep things going. 

I am a South African PhD student registered at the University of Cape
Town (UCT, http://www.uct.ac.za). I am currently spending some time at Lawrence 
Berkeley National Laboratory (http://www.lbl.gov)
in California where I work on the STAR experiment which is housed at Brookhaven
National Laboratory in NY as part of the RHIC facility 
(http://www.bnl.gov/RHIC/). My research is to try 
deduce the properties of the medium created in the Au+Au collisions by 
extending 
the work in this preprint: http://arxiv.org/abs/nucl-ex/0501016. Here is a
more user friendly link: http://www.bnl.gov/RHIC/heavy_ion.htm 

Before I start to bore everyone, I think that's enough about what I do as a 
"day job". Unfortunately it doesn't leave me 
as much time as I would like for FHSST.

K: How did the Free High School Science Text project get started?

M:

I was a summer student at CERN in October 2002 and the PhD students in my group
were all discussing how it would be so much better to have a consolidated set 
of 
notes for Physics 3. I floated the idea of a collaborative effort to write 
either a 3rd year
Physics textbook or a high school textbook and there was more enthusiasm for 
the high
school book. The reason we thought there was an opening for a high school book 
at all
came down to an experience I had at the Grahamstown Science Festival 
(http://www.scifest.org.za/) in 2002. I was demonstrating
some wave properties as part of the UCT stand when a group of school students 
came to me with a notebook
and a pen and asked me to write down everything I'd told them during the 
demonstration. 
They said they didn't have textbooks and had understood more about waves during 
the 
demonstration than during their lessons. That was quite an eye-opener.

I also feel that education really is the key to any sort of sustainable, 
peaceful future for any
country and that's one of my personal motivations for not giving up. I believe 
that an investment in 
education is an investment in your own future. Southern Africa is 
relatively stable for the first time and now is our opportunity to try to add 
momentum to 
the education movements.

Another thing that I really like about the project is that it isn't competing 
with other education
initiatives, but developing a resource for them to use. Education initiatives 
need all the support
they can get and forming yet another tutoring organisation won't have the same 
impact as developing content
all other initiatives can use. I like to think we are filling a useful and 
fundamental niche.

K: Who is working on the project? Are they educators, students, someone else?

M:

Anyone and everyone who wants to. We try to accomodate anyone who wants to make 
a contribution. 
Most of the work has been written by graduate students  but we do have 
teachers, undergrads, professors
and industry professionals amongst our contributors. We also have a very 
widespread contributor base. For
a long time we had mostly South Africans but that has changed quite a lot over 
the last 2-3 months.

K: How many people are currently involved?

M: 

We have a relatively long list of contributors but only about 25 active 
contributors at any one time. We are always 
looking for people who are interested in making a contribution of any sizei; 
every bit counts and it certainly adds up
over time.


K: What is the timetable for the first book to be done? When do you
expect to see the books printed and in use in the classroom?

M:

We should have Physics finished by the end of this year and released for print 
by
the middle of next year. Its very difficult to put timelines on development 
because
we have a wide range of volunteers and things take time. There will be some 
pilot distributions
during 2006 and we should have a few thousand copies of Physics, Mathematics 
and Chemistry in 
circulation for the beginning of the 2007 school year (January in SA). 

K: Where does the funding come from for this project?

M:

At the moment we haven't tried very hard to raise any money. Our hosting is 
free on Savannah as we use
the GFDL. All the recruiting has been by word-of-mouth or email. We have 
registered a non-profit
organisation in South Africa which is, for practical purposes, a prerequisite 
for receiving funding from
any corporate sponsors.

We are currently working on our first real attempt to raise money. We need to 
have someone employed
by the organisation at least part-time in 2006 as we will need to run pilot 
distributions, raise money,
organise printing, run competitions and many other things that the current 
volunteer administrators
just won't be able to keep up with. 

We will approach
large corporations, who do sponsor education initiatives, as well as the 
national lottery. A more grass-roots
approach we would also like to try get moving is that schools raise money from 
their local communities to order
our books directly from the printer. A project where we match the money raised 
might help get communities more
active in supporting their schools. Obviously we will do our best to raise 
money to completely cover the costs
of distributing to schools in extremely poor areas and these schools will be 
our priority.

K: What would be your definition of success for this project?

M: 

Two things:
1) We make a complete set of textbooks available free of royalties and they
are widely used in SA schools. They will always be available through 
print-on-demand for anyone who can raise
money for a print. Even through print-on-demand we estimate that the cost of 
the books would be less than 40% of
current books.

2) Widespread adoption of our content as a starting point for other education 
initiatives to build their
own books, exercises, lesson plans etc. We already have had some success on 
this front and so the future
looks really bright.


K: Can you describe the FHSST textbook development process?

M:

I am nervous of calling anything our development process before we actually 
finish a book but here is
our (my) current feeling for how it is going to go. We need 3 pieces to meet 
the spirit of the syllabus in SA. We
must have the core content with worked examples, we must have experimental and 
project activities and 
we must introduce a large body of information regarding real world applications.

Each book has a single coordinator who is also a member of the administration 
team. 
Our first approach is to collect all the core content with worked examples. To 
do this we assign individuals
small sections to write with basic guidelines. The coordinator tries to keep 
things as coherent as possible
given that it is being written by a large group of people. We try to keep the 
language usage and style
as consistent as possible.

Once the core content, which is not specific to SA, is done we rotate editing 
of chapters through the authors, checking
everything. Hopefully every chapter would be read by at least 5 people and 
checked thoroughly. These editors would have
stricter style guidelines to impose.

While this is going on we contact individuals and companies with a call for 
essays of real-world applications for the books.
These are modular and country specific. To make a version for another country I 
would replace all the essays with essays from
people in that country.

Then it goes to one qualified editor to check that the text is coherent and 
consistent and the experiments and projects are
added.

Then we will trial the book with a few teachers and get final feedback from 
them. This would be last set of changes before
we pilot the books with students.


K: How did the partnership with Tuxlabs come about? 

M:

They had just got close to the 100 mark for labs built and were looking for 
proper education content
to put on their servers since their labs are not necessarily connected to the 
internet. They did some searching online and decided we had the most content 
that was
actually going to be useful to them and so they phoned us one day to ask if 
we'd be keen to meet. One of
our objectives is to try to work with other organisations, educational 
initiatives competing is a real waste
of resources. After a meeting we agreed that we'd help them as much as we could.

They had been trying to hire people to write content but the prospect of a free 
license had scared most
potential authors off.


K: What role do you think the Wikibooks community can play in the
development of these books?

M:

I think that a large community like Wikibooks could be an incredible resource 
for writing
the core content and developing worked examples. Harnessing the power of such a 
large 
community effectively would allow us to develop books very quickly. I think 
Wikibooks could ultimately
play a massive role in addressing educational deficiencies all over the world.

The Wikibooks logo says "Think free. Learn free.", so I think we're all in the 
same business, making knowledge
available to all. We've just picked a specific group that needs specific 
information which
should make a massive difference to their future.

K: I think an email of mine convinced you to start the development of
the FHSST Biology book directly online. How do you think that
developing a book from scratch on Wikibooks will effect the process?

M:

I think there are two massive benefits which come to mind immediately, ease of 
development
for people of different technological backgrounds and a large community of 
active individuals who
care about the same things.

Let me elaborate, we found that there can be significant teething problems for 
people from a Windows/Word
only background to move to working on LaTeX documents available via CVS. We do 
not want to restrict volunteers
to people who know how to use CVS and LaTeX. Different scientific communities 
use different software. Amongst
mathematicians and physicists I have found that CVS and LaTeX are quite common, 
but amongst the biologists they
are almost unheard of. Forcing CVS and LaTeX use would severely decrease our 
potential contributor base. Contributing
through Wikibooks requires a browser and a small learning curve regarding 
syntax. Its a much smaller hurdle than
learning all LaTeX syntax, how to use CVS and all the other nuances that show 
up. The online help also reduces the workload on the administrators of FHSST to 
help individual authors.

I hope that development on Wikibooks will prove to be faster, more efficient 
and less stressful for everyone involved.

A large fraction of people aren't really interested in developing free 
textbooks. Wikibooks brings together 
a large number of like-minded people which is great. There is a community of 
people out there who are dedicated
to this worthy cause and we can definitely achieve more working together.

My only concern, and it may stem from not having spent enough time working on
Wikibooks and getting a good feel for things, is how to create a feeling of 
community around a single book. As part
of the FHSST project we have a mailing list for each book for general 
discussion. I know about talk
pages and watching a page on Wikibooks but I feel that mailing lists get the 
core discussions to
people faster, requiring less active effort on the part of the author. To 
produce a 
textbook, cohesion and consistent notation and language style are very important
and I think the best way to ensure this is to get the authors involved in
discussion. These issues aren't as important for a project like Wikipedia but
to produce a textbook that will be used in a classroom they need to be
addressed. By doing so we address one of the first concerns raised by people 
when 
they hear that the books were written by volunteers.

K: Who will be the people using these books first? All public high
school students in South Africa, or all high school students in
general?

M:

In reality we will need to build a base of support and prove ourselves before 
we 
will be able to raise enough money to print books for all students, though that 
is the ultimate
goal. We will make our books available from the printer at the cost of only the 
printing so students/schools who can afford them
can just order them directly. For the schools that really need them we will 
need to raise money
to cover printing costs. We would like to support as many other education 
initiatives as possible
and so we would like to distribute books to schools that are involved with 
partner education initiatives
first. These initiatives include tuXlabs and iKamva 
(http://www.ikamva.kabissa.org/), specifically because the tuXlabs schools will 
have the FHSST
content available on their computers and the iKamva tutors will have helped 
trial the FHSST content.

>From that base we would need to demonstrate that our texts are well received 
>by the students, make a difference and have the support
of the teachers all on a large scale. When we can do this we can raise money to 
expand into more rural schools, though we
won't be restricting use in schools in more affluent areas but we'll first go 
where we are needed most.

K: The FHSST website states that the primary goal of the project is to
provide free science texts to high school students in South Africa.
Providing these texts to Wikibooks will make them available to the
whole world. What effect do you think this will have?

M:

Ultimately it would be great if there were FHSST textbooks used in all 
countries. All
we would have to do is replace the essays with ones more relevant to that 
country. In a sense
we have a modular textbook. It would also be nice to make a translation 
project. All
of this must wait until we at least have some books written. If we spread 
ourselves too thin I think
things might fall apart and nothing will be achieved.

Our objective is to write books to make a difference in SA but at no point did 
we not want to make them available 
to everyone, we are well aware of the implications of the GFDL. Our focus was 
just to make an investment 
in education in our country. The way I see it an investment in education is an 
investment in your own future.

K: Are the books being written according to South African curriculum
standards? Are these closely related to those of other countries?

M:

I am not a curriculum expert so I can't comment much on how the SA curriculum 
compares to other countries. 
We have adopted the approach of  fulfilling all the syllabus requirements and 
more. Everything that is mentioned
in the SA syllabus will be contained in our books and more. We felt that if we 
wrote a book which wasn't
adequate preparation for a student to enter university then we have failed. We 
have included
any topics which we feel can be introduced in high school and would help better 
prepare students
for university. This content will all be labelled as optional if it is not in 
the syllabus. Hopefully it will help all
the motivated, diligent students out there that want to know more and go 
further. We have taken some guidance
regarding additional content from the UK syllabus as well as from university 
students.

It also means that if the syllabus should change by any reasonable amount in 
the next few years, our books 
should still have sufficient scope to cover the changes. This would save 
unnecessary reprinting of books.


K: What will happen to the other high school science textbooks
currently being used in South Africa? Are most of the books used
currently imported from outside the country?

M:

A large number of textbooks are written and printed locally, however, they are
still costly.
One key point to note is that we have a new syllabus, with an outcomes-based 
structure, starting with a phased implementation in 2006 and so all schools 
will need new books
to cater for significant changes in the syllabus.

It has been asked of me how I feel about competing with publishing houses for 
their market and
for the most part I feel that our target audience are precisely the people who 
fall outside the 
real market for big publishing houses. Its clear that they haven't stepped up 
to the challenge of
getting books to all students and I feel education is too important for us to 
stand idly by.

In the long run our efforts to strengthen communities would enlarge the 
potential markets for the 
big publishing houses and when schools have more than adequate financial 
resources they will buy the 
books they feel are best for the students and not the cheapest books. This 
would mean that it would
be a more than fair competition for a large publishing house.

K: What percentage of South Africans achieve at least a high school
level of education?

M:

This I had to research and I found a nice page documenting the situation in
South Africa. Here is a short quote and the link.

"While 65% of whites over 20 years old and 40% of Indians have a high school 
or higher qualification, this figure is only 14% among blacks and 17% among 
the coloured population." 

http://www.southafrica.info/ess_info/sa_glance/education/education.htm

One note to avoid confusion, the term coloured has a different meaning in SA to 
what it
does in the US. I refer you to this page for an
explanation of what it means in a South African context:

http://www.southafrica.info/ess_info/sa_glance/demographics/population.htm

K: What is the extent of your relationship with the California
Open-Source Textbook Project (COSTP)?

M:

I must admit they have never responded to any of my attempts to contact them. I 
do not think their project is active anymore but they are a good example of 
an education initiative (assuming they were still active) which could take 
our books and quickly modify them for the US. In that way I think we can support
many other education initiatives by making core content available. F=ma in all 
countries,
so English speaking countries just have to change the essays. In the US some 
spelling
issues might need to be addressed as well.


K: How would you compare and contrast FHSST to the MIT OpenCourseWare
project (Massachusetts Institute of Technology plan to make its course
materials available on the web)?

M:

We have quite different target audiences, although I think that web-based 
coursework is a great idea. 
We hope to eventually make a difference to kids who've never seen a computer. 
We really want to support initiatives working in 
extremely poor areas. By educating people in those areas you work towards 
sustainable development. In a
few educated generations the communities might be strong enough, economically, 
to support schools with computers
and internet access but there are many schools who have nothing like that now.

Of course, the content will also be available for free on the Web, for anyone
with access to a computer to download and print in any/all countries.


K: What are the biggest challenges that you see facing the FHSST project?

M:

At the moment we have many ideas and some good solid plans but we don't have 
the time to carry
them out. If we manage to raise sufficient funding then we will hire someone to 
work on the project
at least part-time. This will improve our turnaround time for all 
administrative issues. It will also
allow us to do more active recruiting and have a single person to start 
negotiating prices for printing
etc. We can also put some of our ideas, like scientific writing competitions to 
raise content rapidly, into
action.

Once we have books we need to overcome the "you get what you pay for" stigma 
but this will be relatively
easy if we can gain the support of organisations like the South African 
Institute of Physics, a few members of which
are already involved with our Physics book.

Then we need to raise lots of money, but at least we'll be able to print books 
for less than $3 per book!

K: What are the enemies to education and learning today? How are they
different in South Africa than in other (more developed) countries?

M:

Thats quite a question! There are many symptoms for problems in education but I 
think
that we can bring it all down to one thing, complacency. People must never 
become complacent
about education. If you do you'll only notice in 15 - 20 years time and then it 
takes as long to
fix. The world needs to treat education as a mission critical endeavour all the 
time, at all levels. 
A strong education system will support so many other facets of society by 
producing well-rounded, 
well educated individuals.

It is not just about the government worrying about education; communities need 
to support their schools and
never lose sight of the fact that the next generation will strengthen or weaken 
their own society.

It is a concern that worldwide it seems corporations can monopolise textbook 
markets, politics can affect what science is taught,
teacher and school budgets are being cut and there is no massive outcry from 
the public.

We can't solve all these problems at once but, by working together, we can 
create a community to support
education and hopefully turn the tide.


K: Mark, thank you very much for your effort and contribution in the
FHSST project, and your time in answering all of these questions.

M:

Thank you for the opportunity. I apologise that it took me so long to answer 
all your questions.
I really hope that we can add something to the Wikibooks community by ensuring 
that all the content we develop
is available on Wikibooks and is of high enough quality to be useful to 
everyone.