Textbook case of good work

Kevin Desouza doesn't like waste.

Desouza is an assistant professor in the Information School at the University of Washington. He doesn't want his students sweating over papers only their professor will see. He wants them to do work that is immediately useful and to publish it.

I sought him out because I'd read he was getting some of his students to write their own textbook, but that's just part of the story.

His students, even some undergraduates, publish book reviews and submit articles to professional journals.

"My goal is zero waste and 100 percent openness," he said.

Desouza was inspired by the Global Text Project, which was started five years ago to create free, digital textbooks.

The soaring cost of textbooks is a big issue for college students across the country. It is an even more acute problem for students in poorer countries.

But having students write a book doesn't just produce free content, it also makes the work they do more meaningful and gives them confidence and something to put on their résumés.

Desouza is 29, but he has run a company, written seven books and started two institutes.

He said his family is a mix of British, Portuguese and Indian. His parents moved from India to Qatar, where he grew up.

He came to the United States for college in 1996 and came to the UW in 2005, right after earning his Ph.D.

He believes access to education is fundamental to making a more equitable world, an idea reinforced by a stint last summer teaching in Johannesburg, South Africa, at the University of the Witwatersrand.

Some of his students there spend a year's earnings on a single textbook that might be 20 years out of date. That kind of inequity is intolerable to him.

He has found that students have a common hunger for the transformation that education can bring to their lives.

In poorer countries, students see more clearly education is not about grades or rankings, it is about a better life.

Desouza said his students here shouldn't be working for grades, but to change the world.

He began small, having 15 students contribute a chapter to "Information Systems," an online book of the Global Text Project. Then last year he assigned students in his class on information and management of change to write a textbook on the subject.

He had them work with members of the BearingPoint management-consulting firm so their work would be grounded in more than theory.

Some of his colleagues were skeptical, he said, but the students produced a first draft in 10 weeks.

He has assigned another class to work on revisions.

South African students will contribute case studies and have free access to an up-to-date text with work relevant to their country.

Desouza is in discussions to have the text translated for use in other countries as well.

Students do a lot of work, he said. It would be a shame if all they got out of it was a grade.

I'll give him an A for putting his own time and energy to good use.

Jerry Large's column appears Monday and Thursday. Reach him at 206-464-3346 or jlarge@seattletimes.com.