Wikibooks

From Free net encyclopedia

Wikibooks, previously called Wikimedia Free Textbook Project and Wikimedia-Textbooks, is part of the Wikimedia Foundation.

1 History
2 Content
3 Subprojects
4 See also
5 External links

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History

Started on July 10, 2003, the project is a collection of free textbooks, manuals, and other texts that are written collaboratively on the website. The site is a wiki, meaning that anyone can edit book modules without their contributions being subject to review before modifications are accepted.

The project was opened in response to a request by Wikipedia's Karl Wick for a place to start building open-content textbooks such as organic chemistry and physics in order to reduce the costs and other limitations on learning materials.

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Content

While some books are original, others began as text copied over from other sources of free-content textbooks found on the Internet. All of the site's content is covered by the GNU Free Documentation License. As with its sister project, Wikipedia, contributions remain the property of their creators, while the copyleft licensing ensures that the content will always remain freely distributable and reproducible to allow for further collaboration.

The site is working towards completion of several textbooks in numerous languages, which founders hope will be followed by mainstream adoption and use of texts developed and housed there.

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Subprojects

There are two subprojects within Wikibooks: Wikijunior and Wikiversity. The tentatively named Wikijunior is a youth print and online content project. Wikiversity is a free, open learning environment and research community. It has been proposed that Wikiversity become a project on equal standing with Wikibooks and other Wikimedia Foundation projects.

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