About Open Textbooks
An open textbook is a type of open education resource.
According to the U.S. Government:
Open educational resources (OER) means teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use or re-purposing by others.*
education resources.
Many open textbooks are created by independent academic authors who were not satisfied with offerings from traditional textbook publishers, felt the cost of traditional textbooks were too high, became frustrated with the idiosyncrasies of copyright laws, or supported an education system that fostered the freedom to spread academic ideas for the benefit of all.
Most authors use a Creative Commons license on their open works, or a customized copyright with specific uses defined. (See References)
References
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_textbook
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