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Pressbooks Users Group �Kickoff Meeting

Steel Wagstaff, Technology Consultant, L&S Learning Support Services

Amanda Larson, OER TA, L&S Learning Support Services

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Outline

Our plan for today’s meeting

Introductions
Year in Review
Current state of development
What’s coming next
UW-Madison Authoring Guide
Listening Session
Next meeting plans

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1. Introductions

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1. Who are you?

2. What are you making?

3. How long using Pressbooks?

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2. Year in Review

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EI Publishes OER Strategic Framework

[August 2016]

Guiding Principles

Prioritize support for OER based on:

○ Potential impact: number of students, cost per textbook, ability to pay

○ Potential value to communities that don’t have resources to develop the content. Ex: less commonly taught languages, niche/specialized educational

areas, UW System students

○ Potential to improve and/or expand opportunities for learning

○ Potential benefit to the reputation/brand of the program/discipline

○ Evident faculty capacity and interest

Develop and encourage adoption of flexible formats that allow students to freely download, retain, and re-use material at low- or no-cost

Ensure that materials developed are sustainable (reliably available in updated and still useful versions while the content can still be valuable) and processes for creating them are scalable

Ensure that material created locally is broadly discoverable, has robust descriptive metadata, and is well integrated with commonly-used catalogues or repositories

Decisions pertaining to the design, development, procurement, leveraging or adoption of OER tools should be based on their suitability within our digital learning

ecosystem and their ability to support content sharing in a manner that is uniform, scalable and can be sustained as our digital learning ecosystem evolves

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OER MISSION @UW-Madison

--from EI’s OER website

MISSION

Support and encourage instructors to create, revise, and adopt OER course materials that increase student learning and student access to high quality, innovative learning materials at lower cost.

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Unizin Hosts Pressbooks!

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8.1.16

Unizin turns on production instances of Pressbooks for UW, Minnesota, & Ohio State

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Number of active Pressbooks titles on our production instance [January 2017]

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We joined the �REBUS Community

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REBUS Community

A Hewlett foundation-funded collaborative platform for creating Open Textbooks with three parts:

Building a global network of Open Textbook creators
Developing an Open Textbook publishing process in response to the needs of this community
Developing software and tools to support the processes of publishing Open Textbooks

Source: Rebus Community

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REBUS Community

Ways to get started as an OER maker

Join a network of like-minded makers
Find resources & best practices
Recruit contributors to your projects
Answer call for volunteers and contribute your skills & knowledge (like wikipedia!)

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3. Current State of Development

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Pressbooks eTexts

All published books exist as standalone web texts at http://wisc.pb.unizin.org and feature landing page with:

cover image
descriptive metadata
download options [several export formats]
table of contents
licensing information [not pictured]

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Using Pressbooks

TOP RIGHT: Uses a standard WordPress-based WYSIWYG editor. Editing texts and inserting media is as easy as writing in a word-processor. Many collaborators can work together on the same text with different roles & permissions.

BOTTOM RIGHT: Also has a drag-and-drop chapter organizer interface. Lets you create front & back matter, as well as two-level ‘parts’ & ‘chapters’ organization for main content.

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INTERACTIVE CONTENT

via H5P

Flashcards
Interactive Videos
Drag & Drop
Image Hot Spot
Documentation Tool
Quizzes & more!

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H5P

To activate H5P: navigate to ‘Plugins’ in your book’s dashboard and click ‘Activate’ [shown at top right].

Once H5P has activated, you can access the plugin content by clicking H5P Content [shown at bottom right].

This displays your options for creating content and displays your H5P Content library.

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Hypothes.is

To activate Hypothes.is navigate to Settings, select PB Textbook, and then click the Other tab.

Next, select the ‘Yes’ option, if it is not already selected. Then click the ‘Save Changes’ button.

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4. What’s Coming Next

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More Plugins!

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Pressbooks Plugins We’re Testing

COMING SOON

Enhanced Media Library�[Better media/file organization]
Simple Custom CSS �[styling w/o theme changes]
TablePress �[interactive tables]
Hypothes.is Enhancements�[More options for annotation]

STILL TESTING

CM Tooltip Glossary �[Rollover/interactive glossary]
Mathematica Toolbox�[Embed Mathematica stuff]
WP-ShowHide�[Show/hide content on click]
Transposh�[Automatic machine translation]

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Hypothes.is Update

Hypothes.is will soon be more tightly integrated with Pressbooks.

Options for the plugin will be located under ‘Settings’ on your book’s dashboard menu, and will provide you with more control over how and where Hypothes.is functions in your text.

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Longer-term Goals (Pressbooks & Unizin)

Single sign-on (with NetID)
Thin Common Cartridge exports (for importing to Canvas)
Improved support for Math notation
Metadata improvements (including MARC exports)
Learning Analytics & Gradebook Integration
Version Control/collaboration improvements
Improved API & improved ability to clone/import books

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5. UW-Madison Authoring Guide

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Authoring Guide Goals

Amanda is currently working on an Authoring Guide that will cover:

Basic Pressbooks tasks

Password Recovery
Using the Editor and text organizer
Changing common book settings

How to use H5P
How to use Hypothes.is
A guide to installing and using other supported plugins
Faculty Consulting

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6. Listening Session

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What do you want to see or do in Pressbooks that you can’t right now?
What would you like us to include in our authoring guide materials?
How can we better support your project?

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7. Our Next Meeting

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Best Times?

When can you convene for regular Pressbooks user group meetings?

Tuesdays, 9-10am
Wednesdays, noon-1pm
Thursdays, 2-3pm