FCLA is an introductory textbook conceived as open-source,
free to copy/modify/distribute with a GFDL license

• December 2003: Began revising course notes
• December 2006: Version 1.0, \(\mathrm{\LaTeX}\)
• December 2006: (X)HTML Version
• July 2008: jsMath Version
• Summer/Fall 2012: Conversion to prototype XML
• Summer/Fall 2012: \(\mathrm{\LaTeX}\)/PDF and HTML versions

New source format for authoring scholarly work

• May 2013: Shuttleworth Foundation Flash Grant
• Frees an author from presentation and technical details
• Write once, read anywhere
• Multiple output formats from one source
• Designed to be easy for authors
• \(\mathrm{\LaTeX}\) syntax for math (and math only)
• NOT “data exchange” XML

• By Tom Judson, with help from RAB
• AATA was once a “real” book (1990-1997)
• Open source'd in February 2009
• #1 in Google for “abstract algebra textbook”

Pros:

• Stable format
• No batteries
• Well-understood navigation
• Bookshelf trophies

Cons:

• Expensive (AATA: $23.70)
• Manufactured (AATA: \(\sim\)$10)
• Bulky
• Hard to search (index, table of contents)
• Supplements are additional (e.g. solutions, technology)
• Out-of-Print (AATA: print-on-demand)
• Edition churn

Pros:

• Preserves familiar printed page format
• Portable: readable on a tablet
• Inexpensive to distribute
• Navigation: searchable, hyperlinks
• 16 GB USB = 8,000 copies of AATA
• Math: pdflatex
• Many “lecture notes” exist for “free” in this format

Cons:

• Preserves familiar printed page format
  (table of contents, index, margins, page numbers, aspect ratio)
• Limited interactivity (hyperlinks)
• Suboptimal on tablets, smartphones

Pros:

• Available wherever there is a web browser
• Responsive design (smartphones)
• Interactivity options: GeoGebra, WeBWorK, Sage
• Navigation: tree view of hierarchy
• Navigation: in situ cross-references
• Navigation: information hiding (e.g. proofs, solutions)
• Math: MathJax (successor to jsMath)

Cons:

• Requires internet connection (currently)
• Search not implemented (yet)
• Difficult to commercialize content

Question:

• Which parts of traditional book design (a 580-year-old technology) do we keep and which do we upgrade/replace?
• For example, footnotes should definitely be “pop-ups” (not a hyperlink to the bottom of the page)

• EPUB: Limited interactivity (Lon Mitchell, Chris Hughes)
• Sage Notebook Worksheets: difficult to organize long documents
• iPython Notebooks: working conversion for single notebooks
• S5 Slideshows: meta-example, this talk
• Sage Math Cloud worksheets, linked into book-length documents

• Student assignments in Sage
• Exercises and content in SMC native format

• Code: GitHub, GPL'ed, rbeezer/mathbook
• Discussion: Google Groups' mathbook-xml-support
• Website: mathbook.pugetsound.edu
• FCLA: linear.pugetsound.edu
• AATA: abstract.pugetsound.edu
• Sage Math Cloud: cloud.sagemath.com

Thanks for listening!