Chapter 1 of ADS using Mathbook XML

A reformatting of Chapter 1: Set Theory of  Applied Discrete Structures was just completed using  Mathbook XML, an application for authors of scientific articles, textbooks and monographs initiated by Rob Beezer, U. of Puget Sound.

The chapter was converted by exporting the Mathematica Notebook to XML and then making many adjustments by hand to Mathbook XML.  I wanted to do this as a learning process. Next, I want to explore ways to convert remaining Mathematica Notebooks using their natural structure with regular expressions. Whether that works out remains to be seen.

The source code for Chapter 1 and some abbreviated front matter was converted to html and can be viewed at http://faculty.uml.edu/klevasseur/ads-html/ .   One of the advantages of this conversion  is that the html sizes nicely to whatever you view it on, from a phone to a desktop browser.  Also it will be the easy to convert to LaTeX and other formats.

A first look at the new format.

Developments in Open Source Textbooks: mathbook XML

Rob Beezer at University of Puget Sound is spearheading the development of MathBook XML, which is "a lightweight XML application for authors of scientific articles, textbooks and monographs."  I'm seriously considering a conversion from Mathematica Notebooks to this new format.

I spend a bit of time playing with the current version this week and converted a very small web page with a few sage cells. Then I exported to html.

It wasn't obvious to me what code should appear in the output field of the sage sections, which would be all graphics in this case.  It isn't a problem for the html version since the cells can be evaluated.  Converted to LaTeX, the lack of output is a problem, but it still looks good.

2015 Economic Impact - rough estimates.

2015 Economic Impact of Applied Discrete Structures

We had a event on campus where open source textbooks were one of the featured subjects, so I took the opportunity to put together the numbers for the economic impact of Applied Discrete Structures (ADS) for the calendar year 2015.

UML Impact

It's fairly easy to identify the impact here at UML.  I counted 405 students who took the first semester of our discrete math sequence (new course numbers  MATH.3210/3220  Discrete Structures I/II). I continue to assume that the average cost of our previous text with a mix of new/used purchases would be $140.  If 90% use the pdf and save the whole amount and the rest buy the hard copy of ADS.  That translates to a savings of about $55,000 for UML students in 2015.

Outside Impact

The impact on students outside of UML is tougher to estimate.  I know of 14 adoptions in 2015, but have no idea how many more there were.  Working from just what I know, and assuming 25 students per adoptions with the same assumptions about the alternate book and hard copy usage, I come up with around $47,000.

Conclusion

Combining these two amounts, I'm confident we've saved students over $100,000 in 2015.  If you used ADS and are not on the adoption list,  please let me know so that I can update my estimate.

Code for Spanning Trees in a Sage Cell

It's been over a year since I've posted to this blog, mostly because I've been busy being department chair.  As I type this, I've got 313 days left on my term.  So the end is almost in sight.  I posted a page with code for computing the spanning trees of a graph a while ago on http://faculty.uml.edu/klevasseur/ads2/sage_cell/sage_cell.html but I'm not sure how much use it's had.

Here is a video that shows how to use this resource:


A comment from who finds this resource useful will make it more likely that I will find the time to add more!

Update from JMM2014: WeBWork, LaTeX, and Sage Cells

I was in Baltimore for a couple of days last week and concentrated on talks related to open source texts and software.   I spoke in one of the sessions on open source texts, outlining this project.

There were three main things I added to my "to do" list based on the talks I attended.

1. Start developing problem sets for WeBWork.   To that end, I've arranged for out WeBWork server at UMass Lowell to updated, and once that's done I hope to get started on developing problems.
2. Start the process of converting our book to LaTeX.   One of the talks, by David Farmer, convinced me that getting our "source content" into a mainstream  format is the way to go.
3. Embedded Sage Cells seem to be a good to introduce the use of Sage in mathematics.  I hope to gradually add content in that form to our web page.  I did a short test page showing how to create graphs at http://faculty.uml.edu/klevasseur/ads2/sage_cell/sage_cell_graphs.html

This should keep me busy for a while!

By the way, the Baltimore Convention Center is next door to Camden Yards and also near the birthplace of Babe Ruth.