In a previous post, I took a look at the year in review for the Pressbooks community (the people who make and use our software). In this post, I’ll take a closer look as Pressbooks as a product, covering some of the exciting changes and developments to our software made in 2018 by our hard-working
When others ask me what Pressbooks is, I often say that it’s two things: 1) terrific open-source book publishing software and 2) the people who make, use, and care about that software. If there’s still time and interest, I go on to explain that Pressbooks is a collection of open-source software components, largely built on
The Pressbooks team recently spent some time planning our roadmap for Q1 2019. We’ve got some exciting projects planned for the next few months. Here are some of the major improvements we’ll be working on: Network-level improvements: Better usage statistics for network managers More tools for network managers to control default settings on their network,
Happy (early) Holidays! It’s our last major release of the year, and the gifts we have to offer include a few features that we know you’ve been waiting for. Read on for details about what’s included in this release. The New Glossary Feature Thanks to code contributions from Brad Payne and Alex Paredes at BCcampus,
It was while searching for a tool to help an American Government professor adapt an open textbook that James Paradiso, an instructional designer at University of Central Florida, discovered his university’s Pressbooks instance. UCF is a member of Unizin, a consortium of higher education institutions across the United States. Unizin offers access to educational software
In Q3, we added a couple new and exciting features to Pressbooks: Image attributions (thanks to Brad and Alex at BCcampus) New shortcodes to facilitate adding more complex content We also released a new Open Source plugin, Pressbooks Shibboleth SSO, which provides bilateral Shibboleth SSO integration for Pressbooks networks. And we converted a few more
We’re thrilled to announce the arrival of a new team member, Steel Wagstaff. Steel will work with our EDU clients to help them get the most out of their PressbooksEDU systems for OER initiatives. We couldn’t have found a more qualified candidate for the role. If you’re in open education, you’re probably already familiar with
What’s New on PressbooksEDU This week’s release brings with it a number of improvements to the default behaviors and interface of Pressbooks. Removed Suggested Videos from Embedded YouTube Videos YouTube videos embedded in platforms like Pressbooks naturally roll over into suggested videos once the video ends. As a platform for educational texts, we recognized the
The University of Florida, having recently acquired a hosted PressbooksEDU network in partnership with the Unizin higher education consortium, is looking to ramp up its OER production in the coming months. Jennifer Smith, director of the Office of Faculty Development and Teaching Experience, tested the tool herself to “ensure that the tool will be helpful
The Evolution of Affordable Content Efforts in the Higher Education Environment: Programs, Case Studies, and Examples, edited by Kristi Jensen and Shane Nackerud, is one of the latest books to be published by University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing on the Libraries’ Pressbooks network. The book is a compilation of case studies that delve deeply into