The textbook has long been a mainstay of education. Although online textbooks can give students easy (and sometimes free) access to increasingly interactive resources, authors have a bewildering array of tools and publishing models to select from. Freely available software allows instructors to publish course material freed from the constraints of printed paper and monolithic Learning Management Systems (LMSs) . One example of this is Dive into Systems. We spoke to the authors of this textbook: Suzanne Matthews, Tia Newhall and Kevin C. Webb from Swarthmore College, Pennsylvania and the United States Military Academy at WestPoint, New York about their accompanying paper Dive into Systems: A Free, Online Textbook for Introducing Computer Systems. Their paper was published at the SIGCSE technical symposium, from the abstract

This paper presents our experiences, motivations, and goals for developing Dive into Systems, a new, free, online textbook that introduces computer systems, computer organisation, and parallel computing. Our book’s topic coverage is designed to give readers a gentle and broad introduction to these important topics. It teaches the fundamentals of computer systems and architecture, introduces skills for writing efficient programs, and provides necessary background to prepare students for advanced study in computer systems topics. Our book assumes only a CS1 background of the reader and is designed to be useful to a range of courses as a primary textbook for courses that introduce computer systems topics or as an auxiliary textbook to provide systems background in other courses. Results of an evaluation from students and faculty at 18 institutions who used a beta release of our book show overwhelmingly strong support for its coverage of computer systems topics, its readability, and its availability. Chapters are reviewed and edited by external volunteers from the CS education community. Their feedback, as well as that of student and faculty users, is continuously incorporated into its online content at diveintosystems.org/book

Cite this episode, its transcript and show notes using DOI:10.59350/shk5w-r7n33

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