gabrielgurley.com
Open-Licensed Instructional Guides for Learners
Frequently
Asked Questions
1. Can I redistribute copies of an eBook purchased for student instructional use? YES! Under the terms of the Creative Commons license I have issued for my materials, instructors who purchase a copy of an eBook can redistribute it (make copies) to their students without incurring a licensing fee for instructional use.
2. Can I print copies of individual lessons found on this site, or redistribute copies of a paperback edition purchased for student instructional use? YES! Just like the eBook editions, the terms of the Creative Commons license I have issued for my paperback guides and individual lessons found on this site allow instructors to redistribute it (make photocopies) to their students without incurring a licensing fee for instructional use.
3. If I can make photocopies copies of lessons found within the documentation section and paperback books made available on this site, why should I purchase additional copies or require students to obtain their own copy? There are several answers and several ways in looking at the issue. First, the learning materials are written and released under the generous Creative Commons licensing terms because of my experience as an instructor and my commitment for learning to be accessible to everyone. Therefore, if a student can’t afford to purchase learning materials, or has to choose between buying a book or buying a meal for themselves or their family, I would much rather the student have free access to the materials.
However, students and instructors should also consider the costs of reproducing the materials. The distribution costs of an eBook via school file server may be negligible if students and instructors can effectively learn by using an electronic guide. The photocopying of a 200+ page book becomes another matter, if you factor in photocopy costs per page, purchasing of a ring binder to store the pages, and the time and effort it takes to assemble the documentation into a ring binder. In such a case, it may be more cost effective to buy a professionally published, bound paperback copy. Moreover, the purchasing of any official author-published eBook or paperback copy ensures revenue to continue producing and making available open licensed learning materials for the future.
4. Why are eBooks no longer available for free? There are several reasons why eBooks are no longer made available for free from this site. First, a number of users who were looking to use a specific lesson (for example, creating a resume) were having to download an entire eBook just to have access to that one lesson. Not only was this inefficient from a server bandwidth / distribution issue, but made it cumbersome from the users perspective as well. With the redesign of this site, users who need only one or two electronic lessons can now access those materials much easier and in less time via the HTML-based pages.
Also, the tools and overhead used to create the eBook and paperback editions isn’t cheap, including the software applications used for pre-press work, obtaining unique ISBN numbers for distribution purposes necessary for school bookstores to make adopted textbooks available, distribution fees accessed by educational book distributors, distributor catalog listings to notify bookstores of new editions, maintaining up-to-date hardware to create documentation for new software editions and more. Therefore, the revenues from the sale of these fuller-featured, interactive editions are used to offset these and other related costs.
5. What are the differences in the lessons found in the eBook and paperback editions versus the free, HTML-based online versions? The goal of releasing new material via HTML-based pages is two-fold. One, it will make it much easier and faster to release new lessons for users without having to perform all of the pre-press work (page layouts, illustration editing and formatting, table of contents, indexing and incorporating the lessons into larger works). Many of these lessons are expected over time to work their way into larger, more highly edited eBook and Paperback editions, but gives users earlier access to these materials.
Second, releasing new materials via HTML-based pages will also make it easier for users who only need access to a limited amount of material to do so. However, the free, HTML-based lessons should be looked upon as “open beta” versions - meaning that the instructions may not be 100% perfect from a technical standpoint nor will they necessarily be highly polished from a formatting and spelling / grammar perspective. However, users who find technical, spelling or grammatical errors are encouraged to file a report via the site’s Feedback form.
Users and instructors who seek comprehensive guides covering a wide variety of topics that have been thoroughly reviewed, edited and polished would benefit more from the purchase of an eBook or paperback edition.
6. I am an instructor and wish to receive an evaluation copy of your book. Do you still make complimentary copies of your books available for evaluation? As of October 2009, I have (unfortunately) been unable to continue offering complimentary evaluation copies of my books to instructors and administrators. Due to increased printing costs, in addition to individuals reproducing copies of my book and selling them online through CreateSpace (see FAQ #7 below) and, thereby, reducing the amount of revenue I receive that had previously been utilized to provide this service, it became financially unfeasible to do so.
To view a representation of the content available within any of my eBook or Paperback editions, visit the product page for the title of interest located under the Books link at the top site menu and click the associated content link to see the lesson in HTML format.
7. I have noticed at various online book retailers that there are two editions of your book being sold. Do you publish both editions and, if so, what are the differences in each? Shortly after I released “A Conceptual Guide to OpenOffice.org 3”, someone downloaded a copy of the eBook edition from the OpenOffice.org Documentation Site, uploaded it to CreateSpace (which is a print-on-demand company owned by Amazon), placed a new cover on the book with my name on it, and began selling reproduced paperback copies. That particular edition, which is now considered out-of-date, is still being sold. I do not have any affiliation with the person publishing this work or with CreateSpace, nor do I receive any proceeds from the sale of this reproduced version.
The second edition, “A Conceptual Guide to OpenOffice.org: Second Edition”, with the assigned ISBN number 978-0-9778991-7-3, is the edition that is published by myself and is considered to be the most current, up-to-date edition. Its book cover is unique from the older, reproduced version and also has a larger number of pages (282 pages for the reproduced edition vs. 364 pages for the Second Edition I publish). Proceeds from the sale of the edition I publish is used for the development of future learning materials, as well as the release of these learning materials under open licenses in cooperation with other open source projects such as the OpenOffice.org Documentation Project.
1. Can I redistribute copies of an eBook purchased for student instructional use? YES! Under the terms of the Creative Commons license I have issued for my materials, instructors who purchase a copy of an eBook can redistribute it (make copies) to their students without incurring a licensing fee for instructional use.
2. Can I print copies of individual lessons found on this site, or redistribute copies of a paperback edition purchased for student instructional use? YES! Just like the eBook editions, the terms of the Creative Commons license I have issued for my paperback guides and individual lessons found on this site allow instructors to redistribute it (make photocopies) to their students without incurring a licensing fee for instructional use.
3. If I can make photocopies copies of lessons found within the documentation section and paperback books made available on this site, why should I purchase additional copies or require students to obtain their own copy? There are several answers and several ways in looking at the issue. First, the learning materials are written and released under the generous Creative Commons licensing terms because of my experience as an instructor and my commitment for learning to be accessible to everyone. Therefore, if a student can’t afford to purchase learning materials, or has to choose between buying a book or buying a meal for themselves or their family, I would much rather the student have free access to the materials.
However, students and instructors should also consider the costs of reproducing the materials. The distribution costs of an eBook via school file server may be negligible if students and instructors can effectively learn by using an electronic guide. The photocopying of a 200+ page book becomes another matter, if you factor in photocopy costs per page, purchasing of a ring binder to store the pages, and the time and effort it takes to assemble the documentation into a ring binder. In such a case, it may be more cost effective to buy a professionally published, bound paperback copy. Moreover, the purchasing of any official author-published eBook or paperback copy ensures revenue to continue producing and making available open licensed learning materials for the future.
4. Why are eBooks no longer available for free? There are several reasons why eBooks are no longer made available for free from this site. First, a number of users who were looking to use a specific lesson (for example, creating a resume) were having to download an entire eBook just to have access to that one lesson. Not only was this inefficient from a server bandwidth / distribution issue, but made it cumbersome from the users perspective as well. With the redesign of this site, users who need only one or two electronic lessons can now access those materials much easier and in less time via the HTML-based pages.
Also, the tools and overhead used to create the eBook and paperback editions isn’t cheap, including the software applications used for pre-press work, obtaining unique ISBN numbers for distribution purposes necessary for school bookstores to make adopted textbooks available, distribution fees accessed by educational book distributors, distributor catalog listings to notify bookstores of new editions, maintaining up-to-date hardware to create documentation for new software editions and more. Therefore, the revenues from the sale of these fuller-featured, interactive editions are used to offset these and other related costs.
5. What are the differences in the lessons found in the eBook and paperback editions versus the free, HTML-based online versions? The goal of releasing new material via HTML-based pages is two-fold. One, it will make it much easier and faster to release new lessons for users without having to perform all of the pre-press work (page layouts, illustration editing and formatting, table of contents, indexing and incorporating the lessons into larger works). Many of these lessons are expected over time to work their way into larger, more highly edited eBook and Paperback editions, but gives users earlier access to these materials.
Second, releasing new materials via HTML-based pages will also make it easier for users who only need access to a limited amount of material to do so. However, the free, HTML-based lessons should be looked upon as “open beta” versions - meaning that the instructions may not be 100% perfect from a technical standpoint nor will they necessarily be highly polished from a formatting and spelling / grammar perspective. However, users who find technical, spelling or grammatical errors are encouraged to file a report via the site’s Feedback form.
Users and instructors who seek comprehensive guides covering a wide variety of topics that have been thoroughly reviewed, edited and polished would benefit more from the purchase of an eBook or paperback edition.
6. I am an instructor and wish to receive an evaluation copy of your book. Do you still make complimentary copies of your books available for evaluation? As of October 2009, I have (unfortunately) been unable to continue offering complimentary evaluation copies of my books to instructors and administrators. Due to increased printing costs, in addition to individuals reproducing copies of my book and selling them online through CreateSpace (see FAQ #7 below) and, thereby, reducing the amount of revenue I receive that had previously been utilized to provide this service, it became financially unfeasible to do so.
To view a representation of the content available within any of my eBook or Paperback editions, visit the product page for the title of interest located under the Books link at the top site menu and click the associated content link to see the lesson in HTML format.
7. I have noticed at various online book retailers that there are two editions of your book being sold. Do you publish both editions and, if so, what are the differences in each? Shortly after I released “A Conceptual Guide to OpenOffice.org 3”, someone downloaded a copy of the eBook edition from the OpenOffice.org Documentation Site, uploaded it to CreateSpace (which is a print-on-demand company owned by Amazon), placed a new cover on the book with my name on it, and began selling reproduced paperback copies. That particular edition, which is now considered out-of-date, is still being sold. I do not have any affiliation with the person publishing this work or with CreateSpace, nor do I receive any proceeds from the sale of this reproduced version.
The second edition, “A Conceptual Guide to OpenOffice.org: Second Edition”, with the assigned ISBN number 978-0-9778991-7-3, is the edition that is published by myself and is considered to be the most current, up-to-date edition. Its book cover is unique from the older, reproduced version and also has a larger number of pages (282 pages for the reproduced edition vs. 364 pages for the Second Edition I publish). Proceeds from the sale of the edition I publish is used for the development of future learning materials, as well as the release of these learning materials under open licenses in cooperation with other open source projects such as the OpenOffice.org Documentation Project.