Contacts for EM
List of general and open textbook contacts collected from Nicole Allen.
Contacts
Eric Frank Co-Founder, Flat World Knowledge eric@flatworldknowledge.com 845-825-9499 www.flatworldknowledge.com
Flat World Knowledge is the open textbook publishing company I told you about. Eric is co-founder, Chief Marketing Officer, and he serves as the delegate to partnerships with the open ed world. He is a veteran of the traditional publishing industry, and can provide a unique inside perspective on the state of the industry.
David Wiley Professor, Brigham Young University david.wiley@byu.edu 435-797-7562 www.opencontent.org
David is considered the founder of the open education movement. He was the original creator of the Open Publication License, which was the inspiration for Creative Commons. He is also the "Chief Openness Officer" at Flat World Knowledge. He recently opened a charter school called "The Open High School of Utah," which is completely online and uses only OER. He is a big proponent of OER, but he agrees that an intermediary step like open textbooks is necessary. It can be hard to get ahold of him, but it's worth it.
<a id="al_greco">Al Greco</a> Professor, Fordham University agreco@fordham.edu 212 636 6199
Al is one of the few academics who studies the economics of publishing. He has a wealth of information on textbooks and the state of the industry. Last time I spoke to him, he was working on a study on scholarly publishing and university presses.
Diane Harley Researcher at the Center for Studies in Higher Education, UC Berkeley dianeh@berkeley.edu 510 642 4343
Diane has produced a number of studies on OER, and she just began a study on our campaign to determine the success of organizing professors around the issue of affordability. Her work is criticized by many of the intellectual leaders in the open ed movement, because she is conservative about the potential for OER use. She shares our belief that professors are not going to switch straight from traditional textbooks to OER.
Mark Nelson Digital Content Strategist, National Association of College Stores MNelson@nacs.org thecite.blogspot.com
College bookstores are another piece of the puzzle. Their job is to get book assignments from faculty, and then deliver the books to students. As education goes digital, their business model is in for a serious change, and it's Mark's job to figure out how they will survive in the future (including how to incorporate OER). College stores add a different perspective on the publishing industry, so he is definitely worth contacting.
Preston McAfee Professor, Caltech mcafee@yahoo-inc.com www.introecon.com
Preston is a well known economist and author of open textbook www.introecon.com. He is a sharp critic of publishers for being too greedy, and has been very vocal in our project for the past year. He recently took a leave from Caltech to head up research at Yahoo, but I think he is teaching this semester.
Judy Baker Director, Community College Consortium for OER bakerjudy@fhda.edu cccoer.wordpress.com
CCCOER is probably the first coordinated institutional effort for OER. In theory, they are supposed to collect, vet and distribute OER to community college faculty. Judy is also a Dean at Foothill college in Los Altos Hills, CA. Martha Kanter, the chancellor of the Foothill-De Anza district, is the visionary behind CCCOER. Her email is kantermartha@fhda.edu.
Cable Green Director of eLearning, Washington State Board of Community & Technical Colleges cgreen@sbctc.edu blog.oer.sbctc.edu
Cable is heading up a project to include open online courses in the eLearning program. The state allocated money for this specific purpose. He is a long time advocate for OER, and has done a good job selling the economic benefits of open courses to the administration of the school system.
Sanford Forte Director, California Open Source Textbook Project siforte@ix.netcom.com www.opensourcetext.org
Sanford heads up a K12 open textbook program. It is unclear what their progress is, but he knows a lot about the economics of K12 textbooks.
Gerry Hanley Executive Director of MERLOT and Director of Academic Tech for the Calstate Chancellor's office ghanley@calstate.edu www.merlot.org
MERLOT is a repository of digital learning materials (merlot.org), somewhat similar to connexions. The difference is that MERLOT only catalogues materials and links out to them, while CNX actually hosts the content. MERLOT is great in theory - it provides a mechanism for peer & user review, and even has an editorial board to review materials. Gerry is the visionary behind it.
Bibliography for Item 7 in EM
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