Connexions - Building Communities and Sharing Knowledge

Google TechTalks April 11, 2006 Richard G. Baraniuk Richard G. Baraniuk is the Victor E. Cameron Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Rice University and Founder of Connexions. W. Joseph King W. Joseph King is the Executive Director of Connexions. Previously, he was an investment banker focused on incubating new technology companies. ABSTRACT A grassroots movement is on the verge of sweeping through the academic world. The "open access movement" is based on a set of intuitions that are shared by a remarkably wide range of academics: that knowledge should be free and open to use and re-use; that collaboration should be easier, not harder; that people should receive credit and kudos for contributing to education and research; and that concepts and ideas are linked in unusual and surprising ways and not the simple linear forms that textbooks present. In this talk, we will overview Connexions (cnx.org), a non-profit start-up launched at Rice University in 1999 that aims to reinvent how we write, edit, publish, and use textbooks.