Case Studies/Flat World Knowledge
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Overview
Flat World Knowledge is a commercial textbook publisher that incorporates CC licenses into their business model. Co-founded by the Director of Marketing for Prentice Hall Business Publishing, FWK makes higher education textbooks available via CC BY-NC-SA, allowing professors and students to adapt them to individual courses. Flat World Knowledge is competitive with traditional publishers as they hire quality authors and editors, overseeing professional peer-review for texts. Flat World Knowledge recently released information that 800 colleges will utilize their open textbooks this year (2010), saving 150,000 students $12 million or more in textbook expenses.
License Usage
Flat World Knowledge offers free and customizable online access to their textbooks, all available under CC BY-NC-SA. If users want a physical copy or downloadable PDF of their customization, they can order it from Flat World for a small fee, usually around $30 a textbook or $1.99 a chapter.
Motivations
How did the author or organization first hear about Creative Commons? Why did they choose to license under Creative Commons? Which license did they select and why? Any other issues you may have come across/comments you’d like to make.
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