The Rest Is Teaching: A Podcast for Computing Education Practitioners & Researchers

Suzanne Matthews, Tia Newhall and Kevin C. Webb on Diving Into Open Interactive Textbook Publishing

Sep 11, 2025

Guest

Kevin C. Webb

Join Suzanne Matthews, an associate professor at West Point, Tia Newhall, a computer science professor at Swarthmore, and Kevin C. Webb, a fellow instructor, as they dive into their groundbreaking open-access textbook, Dive into Systems. They discuss the motivations behind creating a free resource for computer systems education and the challenges of developing interactive tools and modular content. Highlights include using real-world security vulnerabilities to teach fundamental concepts and the growing impact of online resources in academia.

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INSIGHT

Purpose: A Free, Bridging Systems Textbook

Dive into Systems fills a gap by targeting students with only CS1 background for systems and architecture topics.
The authors intentionally made the book broadly applicable and freely available to increase accessibility.

ADVICE

Make Chapters Independent

Design chapters with minimal dependencies so instructors can mix-and-match topics for different course structures.
Assume only CS1 prerequisites to maximize reusability across courses.

INSIGHT

Online First, But Print Still Matters

Publishing online provides searchability, free access, and easier adaptation during events like COVID-19.
Offering a print edition still matters for readers and institutional recognition despite online advantages.

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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