Here's an interesting idea, Open Source Learning:
Creating textbooks using a 'Knowledge Eco-System'. Open source tools and content. But how do we get the right people on the content i.e. how have domain knowledge and can create a useful and accurate textbook? This is a significant issue. Here is an example of a problem. I recently went to see Blade Runner: The Final cut, and this make me do some searching on the film to find out the actors in the film. In Daryl Hannah's Wikipedia page, someone edited her page with the following inaccurate information "She has recently had several notable roles, but was not in the movie Kill Bill, as is commonly believed.". This is wrong! The information was corrected - "She has recently had a number of notable roles including the Kill Bill series.". This is confirmed by another source, in case you haven't seen either film. She played Ellie Driver, a one eyed assassin. Richard argues for peer review at the end - I agree!
Which brings me on to the issue of Wikipedia - here's a talk by Jimmy Wales:
"Giving people access to the sum of all knowledge". Providing its accurate that is. I do like the idea of Wikipedia, but it always will have limits to its usefulness, for all the tools for tracking changes provided. For an example, see above. Oliver Kamm makes a number of valid criticisms of Wikipedia here and here.
Harry Barnes gives a Reasonable response to Kamm, but Jimmy Wales doesn't. No Jimmy, you must respond clearly and coherently to criticisms such as these.
