Open Text Book

Visualizing Information for Advocacy: An Introduction to Information Design

A brief but interesting little booklet from the Tactical Technology Collective on information design. From the blurb:

Modern life is saturated with ever increasing amounts of information, advertising and media with little time to digest what is being said. Against this background, NGOs and advocates too often find the information they want to communicate, either buried in long reports full of professional jargon and statistics, or overlooked in an endless stream of media releases. Whether communicating to the public, staff, donors or government officials, information design can help NGOs communicate with more impact, increase accessibility, and present issues powerfully.

Visualizing Information for Advocacy is available as a PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution Sharealike license.

Add comment August 12th, 2008

Introduction to Programming Using Java

Introduction to Programming Using Java by David J. Eck at Hobart and William Smith Colleges is available under a CC-BY license. From the blurb:

WELCOME TO the fifth edition of Introduction to Programming Using Java, a free, on-line textbook on introductory programming, which uses Java as the language of instruction. This book is directed mainly towards beginning programmers, although it might also be useful for experienced programmers who want to learn something about Java. It is certainly not meant to provide complete coverage of the Java language.

Add comment July 7th, 2008

‘How to Think Like a Computer Scientist’

How to Think Like a Computer Scientist is available in 4 versions, each based on a different programming language:

• A Python version by Allen B. Downey, Jeff Elkner and Chris Meyers;
• A Java version by Allen B. Downey;
• A Logo version by Allen B. Downey and Guido Gay;
• A C++ version by Allen B. Downey.

All versions are licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) and make their source code available.

2008-07-07: updated links!

5 comments October 1st, 2007

‘Wireless Networking in the Developing World’ and ‘How to Accelerate Your Internet’

Here are two interesting open textbooks with practical instructions about communications technologies:

• Wireless Networking in the Developing World. Creative Commons - Attribution ShareAlike (BY-SA)
• How to Accelerate Your Internet. Creative Commons - Attribution ShareAlike (BY-SA)

2 comments August 22nd, 2007