The openlearn project makes educational resources, taken from Open University courses, freely available to anyone, anywhere in the world with access to the internet. Published under a Creative Commons copyright license, users are free to download, remix and share the material under the same license.
The Open University itself was founded in the late 1960’s with a mission to make higher education available to those who had previously been excluded. Similar to Project Gutenberg’s aim to “break down the bars of ignorance and illiteracy” openlearn seeks to make its educational material globally available to those wish to use it.
Openlearn units cover all manner of subjects from Arts & History, to Study Skills, to IT and Computing. A full list of subject areas is available at http://openlearn.open.ac.uk.
Areas of interest to those involved in the creation of ebooks might include Design, Accessibility in Interaction Design, Presenting Information and ICTs: Device to Device Communication. Units that might be effectively turned into ebooks include Hume, Living with the Internet: Keeping It safe, Evolution Through Natural Selection, Global Warming and Learning How to Learn
Anyone wishing to reuse openlearn material should consult the openlearn FAQs on Intellectual Property or contact Stuart Brown at s.a.brown@open.ac.uk.