At Pressbooks, we’re beyond excited to be partnering with Unizin, a nonprofit consortium of leading higher education institutions, to host PressbooksEDU networks at 14 U.S. universities.
The universities include:
- Indiana University
- Ohio State
- Oregon State University
- Penn State
- University of Central Florida
- University of Iowa
- University of Florida
- University of Michigan
- University of Minnesota
- University of Nebraska – Lincoln
- University of Nebraska – Omaha
- University of Nebraska – Kearney
- University of South Florida
- University of Wisconsin-Madison
Through this partnership, each of these member universities will get their own PressbooksEDU network, open-source book formatting software widely used in higher education to develop open textbooks and OER that are accessible in multiple formats: EPUB, MOBI, PDF, XML, HTML, OpenDocument, and others.
The new systems will be hosted by Pressbooks’ team of developers, experts in the nuances of Pressbooks. We will provide hosting, maintenance, backups, and regular updates and ensure the systems are always running the latest release of Pressbooks.
Each standalone PressbooksEDU network will be brandable to its institution, and include Pressbooks educational features: H5P, for adding quizzes and interactives to books; and cloning, which allows remixing and revising of open content built by others on Pressbooks.
The Unizin PressbooksEDU networks will also include new features, developed with input from the Unizin consortium, including LTI integration for the Canvas and Moodle learning management systems.
Collaborative publishing models are an important part of an evolving environment for educational resources. The Pressbooks implementations will make Open Educational Resources (OER) more accessible than ever to faculty and staff at Unizin institutions. OER is revolutionizing education by lowering students’ barriers to educational resources and allowing faculty and staff greater control over their curriculum. Openness and creation are two of Pressbooks’ core principles, and we’re proud to be part of Unizin’s innovative efforts to support new kinds of faculty- and student-driven publishing.
Etienne Pelaprat, director of product management at Unizin, speaks highly of our work at Pressbooks.
“Pressbooks offers products and services that enable our Universities to build and deliver media-rich, low-cost, and free content that drives learning experiences,” said Pelaprat. “They share our view of a content ecosystem where content is designed, published, discoverable, and adopted across institutions who collaborate in digital pedagogy. In Pressbooks, we feel we have strong partners who understand higher education’s need to create affordable, standards-aligned, and data-driven digital content at scale.”
Any Unizin member institution is eligible to buy PressbooksEDU (under special pricing arrangement) through Unizin. For more information, contact Brad Zurcher, Brad.Zurcher@unizin.org, at Unizin, or Liz Mays at Pressbooks at liz@pressbooks.com.
About Pressbooks
PressbookEDU is an open-source publishing platform used widely in higher education to develop open textbooks and OER that are accessible in multiple formats: EPUB, MOBI, PDF, XML, HTML, OpenDocument, and others. Our technology and our business are driven by a set of values aligned with educational institutions: openness, user control, accessibility, and the power of creation. To learn more, visit pressbooks.education. PressbooksEDU is built and maintained by Book Oven Inc., in Montreal, Canada.
About Unizin
Unizin, Ltd. is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit consortium of leading universities committed to improving teaching and learning through technology. The collaboration happening at Unizin empowers institutions to enhance, diversify, and evolve their unique learning environments. By supporting interoperability, open source, and standards-based solutions, Unizin saves their Members valuable resources they can use to provide extraordinary learning experiences that improve student outcomes.
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