http://publications.cetis.ac.uk/2013/764

Its a very good article except that it makes one small factual error. Book Sprints were not inspired by Agile programming methods. The methodology was largely inspired by Unconferences and in particular those I participated in that were facilitated by Allen Gunn (Gunner).

Writing in Book Sprints, Phil Barker, Lorna M. Campbell and Martin Hawksey, Amber Thomas

Abstract

This lightning talk will outline a novel approach taken by Jisc and Cetis to synthesise and disseminate the technical outputs and findings of three years of HEFCE funded UKOER Programmes.  Rather than employing a consultant to produce a final synthesis report, the authors decided to undertake the task themselves by participating in a three-day Book Aprint facilitated by Adam Hyde of BookSprints.net. Over the course of the three days the authors wrote and edited a complete draft of a 21,000 word book titled “Technology for Open Educational Resources: Into the Wild – Reflections of three years of the UKOER programmes”. While the authors all had considerable experience of the technical issues and challenges surfaced by the UKOER programmes, and had blogged extensively about these topics, it was a challenge to write a large coherent volume of text in such a short period. By employing the Book Sprint methodology and the BookType open source book authoring platform the editorial team were able to rise to this challenge. Although BookType allows authors to restrict access to their works in progress, the team decide to produce the OER technical synthesis book as an open draft.  This meant that colleagues who were not participating in the Book Sprint were able to monitor progress, and read and comment on the draft as it grew.

Book Sprints are essentially short intense facilitated writing retreats, which bring together a group of four to twelve people along with a facilitator to produce a book in three to five days. The model involves little or no pre-production, and the aim is to have a published book (in ebook and print-on-demand formats) by the end of the Sprint. Book Sprints are not primarily an exercise in collating content from existing sources, the majority of the text is original material written during the Sprint, however in the case of “Into the Wild”, some material was incorporated from relevant blog posts.  Although the Book Sprint methodology was originally designed for producing open source software manuals, particularly FLOSS Manuals, the technique has now been adopted by other non-technical domains, including academic disciplines. For example, a group of Finnish high school teachers recently wrote a maths textbook during three-day Book Sprint (Harmon, 2012).

We believe that the facilitated Book Sprint approach and the open source BookType software will be of relevance to colleagues who are interested in developing books for or about open educational resources, particularly where they have the necessary background knowledge and access to content that can be adapted and reused, but lack the time or support to marshal these resources into a coherent, professional product.

In this paper we will outline and reflect on our experience of employing the Book Sprint methodology and explore its applicability to the creation of open educational resources.

http://www.supermarkt-berlin.net/en/content/diy-masterclass-writing-publishing-open-source-books

Currently there is no comprehensive how-to guide to collaborative, participation in public contracting processes – one of the key components of Open Contracting. Open Contracting truly comes alive through monitoring and engagement of citizens: when civil society organizations or affected communities request information to access contracts, or when parents participate in the tendering process of their child’ school lunch, and where there are mechanisms for feedback to government authorities for better contract performance

More and more champions are participating in the contracting processes and many do so in a collaborative manner through coalitions, networks and partnerships. However, thus far limited learning and sharing has taken place among these practitioners.

The Book Sprint is thus an important step in the OCP’s attempt to promote open contracting.

Posted on April 25, 2013 by Safari Books Online

Bleeding Edge Press, a publisher of short ebooks and videos, focuses on early or hot topics that ride the pulse of the developer community. Moving quickly through development, and tapping into decades of publishing experience, these short ebooks focus on developer-level topics and are being published in Safari Books Online, allowing subscribers to get their “hands” on these hot topics. The ebooks will also be published on Amazon, Google Play and the iBookstore.

Troy Mott, Co-founder and Publisher of Bleeding Edge Press, has benefited from working closely with Adam Hyde (http://toc.oreilly.com/ahyde), founder of the Book Sprint methodology (http://www.booksprints.net). “Zero to book in 5 days. Seem impossible? Its not, its very possible, fun, and extremely rewarding,” says Adam Hyde. “Book Sprints produce great books and they are a great learning environment and team-building process.”

With some close mentoring from Adam Hyde, Troy has implemented mini remote Book Sprints, creating short ebooks on a topic in a couple of days time. “We are breaking all of the rules and re-inventing what it means to be a publisher,” says Troy Mott. “It may take a traditional publisher many months to write and produce a book that takes us two weeks to create. Developers need information fast, and with this model, we are poised to deliver that to them.”

Bleeding Edge Press has published their first two books in Safari Books Online: Developing a Backbone.js Edge, which was created during a mini remote book sprint, and Developing an AngularJS Edge. For more information about these books and others as well, please visit http://bleedingedgepress.com.

“The book you hold in your hands should smell like fresh ink, and while we wouldn’t suggest you taste it, it was created in a hard-working five-day Book Sprint with OpenStack operators. Thanks to generous funding from the OpenStack Foundation, we could fly people from Australia, Canada, and all around the United States to sit in a room together.”

“With sticky notes, dry-erase markers, and a lot of discussion, the book project began to take shape. We could hardly believe we would accomplish the goal of a book in a week’s time. With 10,000 words on day one, we began to believe. With 20,000 words and two images on Tuesday, we felt energized. At 35,000 words on Wednesday, we wondered how much further we could push. On Thurday, we had over 45,000 words and felt confident enough to cut deeply through the glossary. The final word count will near 50,000 and the beauty of this book is that all community members can edit it and continue to add to the experience.”

So far we have 25,000 words in the book. The content is being written from a group with tremendous experience with OpenStack and as a consequence there are very useful insights being written into the book. This is one of the most rewarding parts of technical Book Sprints – gathering this vast real world experience of the contributors and bringing it to the reader.

Update day 4: We are almost done. 48,000 words and now we are restructuring and doing a lot of clean up.

The book release was accompanied by a panel discussion today at the festival. Although intended to be about the books contents the questions from the floor were about Book Sprints.

I also learned from one of the participants that Book Sprints are going to be included in a very exciting academic program, but more on this when confirmed.

6 Open Stack experts will be flying in from around the US and we will focus on the development of an Operators Guide.

Note: After this Adam will do a presentation in Austin at SXSW about Booktype and Book Sprints.