University of Georgia professor Rick Watson has announced his intention to release a series of low cost textbooks built on the same theory as Wikipedia.

The ultimate goal of the Global Text Project is to provide free textbooks for everyone. Watson describes the ideas fundaments as being a graduate course he taught on XML in 2004. Finding existing textbooks lacking, he instead decided to let students write their own content, including useful information.

As time progressed, the makeshift textbook became a resource for successive classes, who he would allow edit the document wherever they deemed necessary. The new project aims to harness the same idea and apply it on a much larger scale, providing free textbooks globally.

The main difference between the GTP and Wikipedia models is that each chapter will be guided by an academic with expertise in the area covered. This handily negates the issues that plague Wikipedia's accuracy. It will be interesting to see how distribution is handled. Regular changes to the source material will mean that digital distribution is the easiest model, but physical textbooks are a practical necessity.

One imagines a healthy printing racket could be set up in the not too distant future with this and Google's offer of free classic books as a bases.

Ars Technica has the full story, click here for more.