This document discusses the success of open textbook creation at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. It began as a grassroots effort and has grown significantly. The university uses Pressbooks, an open-source publishing platform, to create open textbooks that can be easily edited and include multimedia. Over 100 open textbooks have been published, saving students an estimated $3.4 million in textbook costs. Current support includes training faculty to create and adapt open textbooks. Future plans aim to improve the platform's functionality and produce useful analytics on student engagement with open textbooks.

1. Open Textbook Creation @ UW-Madison:
A Grassroots Success Story
Steel Wagstaff, Instructional Technology Consultant, UW-Madison
Open Textbook Summit
Vancouver, BC | May 24, 2017

2. OUTLINE
Slides posted to Twitter this morning: @SteelWagstaff
1. Open Textbooks @
UW-Madison
2. Creating & Using More OER
3. Pressbooks: A Love Story
4. Sample UW Open Texts
5. Current Support
6. Future Plans

3. 1. Open Textbooks @
UW-Madison

4. Local Contexts

5. UW-Madison
Madison: State capital. Population ~250,000
Flagship campus in UW system: 13 4 yr., 13 2 yr.
Big public school: ~43,000 total students,
~30,000 undergrads [21,000 from WI/MN].
Average student age: 20 yrs old [undergrad], 28
[grad student], 23 [all]
Tuition & Fees: $10,488 [resident]; $32,738
[non-resident]; 7th among Big 10 publics
Total Annual Cost of Attendance: $25,294
[resident], $48,144 [non-resident]
University budget: $3 Billion annually; 15% from
state, 20% from tuition; rest from feds & research
UW-Madison campus, Fall 2013. Photo by Jeff Miller/UW-Madison.

6. College of Letters & Science
Liberal arts college containing 3 divisions:
arts & humanities, physical & natural
sciences, social sciences.
Consists of: 34 academic departments, 13
non-academic departments, 5 professional
schools, and 73 interdisciplinary research
centers and institutes.
College is huge: >800 faculty, >50% of all
undergrads, >45% of all grad students.
Does most of the university’s teaching,
gathers disproportionately less research $.
Bascom Hall (L&S Admin bldg), Fall 2013. Photo by Jeff Miller/UW-Madison.

7. Learning Support Services
Mission: Support teaching, learning, and the
thoughtful use of technology in the College of
Letters & Science
Staff: 14 full-time staff, 3 groupings: facilities &
services, web security & devops, instructional
technology consulting
Consulting team: 4 full-time staff; 1-3 graduate
students
Huge consulting portfolio: support for LMSes (3
right now!) and other campus-level tools,
blended & online course development, media
production, faculty development, & more.
I’ve been a LSS consultant since January 2013. Van Hise Hall, June 2010. Photo by Jeff Miller.

8. OER Policy

9. UW-Madison OER Strategic Framework (August 2016)
Image: Roger Jones

10. OER MISSION
@UW-Madison
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.
--from EI’s OER website

11. 2. Creating & Using
More OER

12. Educate Faculty About
Open Textbooks

13. 34.3%
Percentage of faculty reporting that they were “aware” of Open Textbooks in 2016.
15.2% -- “somewhat aware” | 12.2% -- “aware” | 6.9% -- “very aware”
Source: “Opening the Textbook,” Babson Survey Research Group, July 2016

14. Why Open Textbooks?
1. Pedagogical
2. Ethical / Ideological
3. Economic

15. Where to learn more about OER
● David Wiley, founder of the Open Content Project (predecessor of Creative
Commons), the annual Open Education Conference, and Lumen Learning.
● Rajiv Jhangiani and Robert Biswas-Diener’s Open [edited collection, published
2017] & Martin Weller’s The Battle for Open [chapter 4 is about OER]
● Creative Commons [esp. Cable Green, CC’s director of Open Education]
● Hewlett Foundation, a large grantmaking organization
● Center for Open Education @ the University of Minnesota
● Open Education Group & OER Hub [research on OER]

16. Adopt Existing Open
Texts

17. 98%
% of courses which require a textbook or other material.
Source: “Opening the Textbook,” Babson Survey Research Group, July 2016

18. 5.3%
% of courses currently using an openly licensed (CC or public domain) required textbook.
Source: “Opening the Textbook,” Babson Survey Research Group, July 2016

19. Where to Find Ready-to-Adopt OER
1. Open Textbook Library maintained by University of Minnesota
2. OpenStax project out of Rice University
3. OpenED textbooks maintained by BC Campus
4. California’s Merlot II repository
5. The OER Commons

20. Adapt and/or Make
New OER

21. First, there is the need;
then, the way, the name, the formula.
—Charles Reznikoff, American poet [1894-1976]

22. Campus-wide eText Creation Pilot
“Instructors saw the value in including interactivity and multimedia
content. Technologists and instructors assumed that there were
authoring or editing platforms that would make this possible.
However, much of this type of software remains proprietary or
requires advanced programming skills ...
[Instructors] who wanted to create a textbook were also looking
for advanced interactivity and multimedia integration. While
some of our creators were able to find authoring tools that fit (even
if awkwardly) the scope of their project, others soon realized the
tools we had simply would not meet their expectations.”
-- DoIT Academic Technology report on the concluded pilot [June 2015]

23. Authoring Tool Wishlist
1. Easy to use
2. Collaborative, with version control
3. Standards-based, device & platform agnostic, compliant
with Federal accessibility law and local policies
4. Permits open licensing, exports to multiple formats,
gives readers durable access
5. Can include multimedia, annotation, & interactive
learning activities [e.g. ?s with personalized feedback]
6. Works alone or inside a LMS. When used with LMS,
offers assessment and analytic capabilities.

24. Oh baby, you —
you got what I need ...
—Biz Markie, “Just a Friend” [1989]

25. 3. Pressbooks: A Love
Story

26. 8.1.16
Unizin turns on production instances of Pressbooks for UW, Minnesota, & Ohio State

27. 108
Unique Pressbooks titles on our production instance [May 2017]

28. $3,400
Total amount spent on Pressbooks to date at UW-Madison

29. Pressbooks eTexts
All published books exist as standalone
web texts featuring landing page with:
1. cover image
2. descriptive metadata
3. download options [many formats]
4. table of contents
5. licensing information [not shown]
1
2
3
4

30. Using Pressbooks
TOP RIGHT: Pressbooks uses a standard
WordPress WYSIWYG editor. Editing
texts and inserting media is as easy as
using a word processor. Collaborators
can work together on the same text with
different roles & permissions.
BOTTOM RIGHT: Pressbooks features a
drag-and-drop chapter organization
interface. Lets you create front & back
matter, as well as two-level ‘part’ &
‘chapter’ organization for main content.

31. 4. Sample UW Open
Texts

32. World Regions Textbook
Co-edited by John Agnew [UCLA] and
Kris Olds [UW-Madison]. Originally
developed for Oxford University Press,
dropped prior to publication, now OER.
Designed to be used in World Regions
geography courses as a replacement for
high production value, high cost textbook.
● Spring 2018 target publication date
● To include maps, interactive H5P
components, & more John Agnew [top left], Kris Olds [bottom left], Amanda Larson,
Steel Wagstaff, Kramer Gillin at work in Prof. Olds’ office [at right]

33. RICH MEDIA
● Audio
● Images
● Video
● Playlists
via Kaltura MediaSpace & Pressbooks

34. Three examples of embedded media in Pressbooks: 1. audio playlist [top
left], 2. embedded YouTube video [top right], 3. audio file [bottom right].
1 2
3

35. Português para principiantes
An online edition of Claude E. Leroy’s Português
Para Principiantes, a Brazilian Portuguese language
textbook first published by UW Extension in 1964
and last revised in 1993.
● Used by 100s of students this past year
● 30+ lessons, 30 dialogues, several cultural
‘spotlights’ and brief passages of literature
● Integrated audio dialogues and vocabulary
● Interactive H5P components Cover design by Steel Wagstaff. All images
used under CC BY licenses.

36. INTERACTIVE
CONTENT
● Flashcards
● Interactive Videos
● Drag & Drop
● Image Hot Spot
● Documentation Tool
● Quizzes & more!
via H5P

37. Three examples of H5P activities in Pressbooks: 1. True/False type question
set [top left], 2. Fill in the blank activity [bottom left], 3. drag and drop [right]
1
2
3

38. First-Semester Indonesian
An in-production text designed for use in
first-semester Indonesian language classes.
● Target completion date: Fall 2017
● Uses many types of H5P activities to
support in-class instruction and
independent learning outside of class.
● No grant funding or additional assistance,
just a motivated, willing instructor.
Text’s Author: Ika Hutami

39. ANNOTATION
● Team Communication during
the editing process.
● Student discussion through
annotation.
● Annotation supports text,
images, and video.
via hypothes.is

40. At left: Hypothes.is annotations
[right pane] and H5P quiz
[bottom left] in Pressbooks page

41. Public Domain Anthologies / Course Readers
Political Science professor John Zumbrunnen has
been producing anthologies with passages from
primary texts in the public domain for use in his
undergraduate and graduate level courses.
Currently in use in 3 Poli Sci courses.
● John invites students to annotate
collaboratively and add to their shared
understanding of the texts they’re studying.
● Image at right taken from Political Science
601: Political Theory of the American
Revolution, a book comprised of several
classic political texts from the American
Revolutionary War period

42. ADAPT
EXISTING OER
● Pressbooks can ingest output
files from other sources
● Quick/simple import
● Source files then become
editable/adaptable
From OpenStax & other OER libraries

43. Chemistry Open Stax Adoption
Our Chemistry department is redesigning their curriculum to
focus on increasing active learning, especially in introductory,
‘large lecture’ courses. They’re considering adopting OpenStax’s
Chemistry textbook and revising it using Pressbooks.
● Import took less than 5 minutes
● All content can be edited as desired (at the sentence level)
● Chapters can be reordered, omitted, etc.
● Additional learning activities can be added
● Unizin effort (led by Ohio State University) to produce
large high-quality open question banks.
OpenStax Chemistry text in Pressbooks

44. 4. Current Support

45. RECRUIT &
HELP MAKERS
What we do now
1. Demonstrations &
Presentations
2. Limited 1-on-1 consulting
3. Community of Practice
4. User Guide & Other Resources

46. Demonstrations &
Presentations

47. Guiding Principles
1. Go anywhere
2. Talk to everyone
3. Say ‘yes … you can’
4. Find partners, champions, &
enthusiasts
5. Build local capacity
Campus-wide brownbag on Pressbooks and OER, February 2017

48. Limited 1-on-1
Consulting

49. OER Graduate Assistant
Received grant funding to hire a 50%
graduate assistant for Fall 2016 & Spring
2017 semesters. Hired Amanda Larson [at
right] (master’s student in library school)
DUTIES:
● Provide 1-on-1 user training
● Assist with OER programming and
faculty development efforts
● Produce training and documentation

50. Community of Practice

51. Started in Fall 2016
● 1 hour long, once a month
● Focus on a single topic
● Invite 1-2 makers to talk for
<10 min. on what they’re doing
● We lead brief demonstrations,
facilitate conversation & solicit
new feature requests
Monthly User Group Meetings
OER TA Amanda Larson in a Pressbooks Users Group Meeting, January 2017

52. User Guide & Other
Resources

53. Training & Consulting Resources
With Amanda, are developing several resources:
1. Single-page handouts for talks/consulting situations:
a. What is Pressbooks?
b. Basics of OER
c. Guide to open licensing [we recommend CC BY]
2. Pressbooks 101: a text companion to our monthly users group meetings.
3. UW-Madison Pressbooks Authoring Guide
a. Local flavor based on the version written by BC Campus’ Lauri Aasoph and Amanda Coolidge

54. 5. Future Plans

55. Remember These?
1. Easy to use
2. Collaborative, with version control
3. Standards-based, device & platform agnostic, compliant
with Federal accessibility law and local policies
4. Permits open licensing, exports to multiple formats,
gives readers durable access
5. Can include multimedia, annotation, & interactive
learning activities [e.g. ?s with personalized feedback]
6. Works alone or inside a LMS. When used with LMS,
offers assessment and analytic capabilities.
Pressbooks
can do now
What we’re
working on

56. WHAT WE'RE
WORKING ON
At UW-Madison and within Unizin
1. Metadata improvements
2. Quickly import books into an
LMS
3. Pressbooks as a ‘platform’
4. Produce useful learning
analytics

57. Metadata Improvements
Pressbooks saves metadata information to the
“Book Info” section. We’ve mapped existing book
info fields to the elements which constitute a MARC
record (the machine-readable format used to ingest
library records into large library catalogues).
Our plan: Produce an MARC record export routine.
The resulting file could be given to a cataloguer at
your institution’s library, improved as needed, then
entered into OCLC’s WorldCat, improving the global
‘findability’ of any published Pressbook.

58. Import into an LMS
Thin Common Cartridge is an IMS Global standard.
A thin CC consists of an XML manifest file and
pointers to a number of structured resources.
In the case of a Pressbooks book, a Thin CC
consists an individual link for each of the book’s
parts/chapters [top right]. If LTI links are used,
content appears to users as though it were native
to the LMS [a Pressbook in Canvas, bottom right].
Our plan: We’ve forked working prototype plugins
for producing Thin CCs and LTI links from Lumen
Learning’s GitHub repo. Now working to make Thin
CC exports part of core Pressbooks and adding
grade passback to our LTI integration.

59. Pressbooks as a Platform
We’re trying to make well-designed learning objects/textbooks, but we have ?s:
● When a learner accesses one of our books, what do they do? In what order?
● How do they engage with the embedded media?
● How do they interact with the annotation layer (i.e. do they read annotations, do they respond to
others’ questions, do they post their own)?
● Do they engage with the interactive H5P activities embedded throughout? If so, which questions
do most learners get right/wrong?
Our plan: Instrumentalize Pressbooks -- as an integrated authoring ‘platform’
including H5P & Hypothes.is -- so that it generates useful learning analytics.
Exchange info between the ‘app’ and a Learning Management System via LTI.

60. Produce Useful Learning Analytics
Caliper Analytics is an IMS Global spec
which “define[s] a standard for enabling the
collection of rich contextual data about
learning interactions and a Sensor API for
capturing and reporting this data.”
Version 1.1 is forthcoming in May. Lead
author: Anthony Whyte (U Michigan)
Our plan: Build Caliper metric profiles and
sensor APIs to enable us to produce and
store Pressbooks engagement information
in a Learning Record Store.
Caliper Analytics 1.1 draft specification [GitHub]

61. Questions?
email: swagstaff@wisc.edu