1. Open Textbook Authoring
Models & Platforms
Scott Leslie
BCcampus
February 7, 2012

2. What is this talk about?
Is it about:
Textbooks?
eBooks?
Open Textbooks?
Websites?
OER?

3. What is this talk about?
YES

4. Like any new technology, ebooks&
textbooks CAN simply replicate the
forms of their predecessors…
But they DON'T HAVE TO.

5. Choices
• Part of what eBooks and Open
Textbooks can be is based on the
“affordances” offered by the
technologies
• Part of it is based on what you are used
to or wanting to do
• Part of it is meeting immediate needs
and anticipating future ones as best as
possible

6. “Affordances”
"a quality of an object, or an
environment, which allows an
individual to perform an action"
(wikipedia)

7. “Networked” Affordances
• one copy used by many
• left in place / addressable
• allows for collaboration

8. “Digital” Affordances
• its form is not its content
• infinite copy-ability
• infinite change-ability/versions - it does
not need to be "final" or "finished”
• iterable, forkable new versions

9. “Open” Affordances
• Serendipity as operating principle
– can't guarantee if you share openly
serendipity will happen, but CAN
guarantee if you don't share openly, it
probably WON'T

10. Questions to help work through these
choices
• Who are the Authors?
• Who will Read/Use the material?
• How will they Author?
• How will they Read?
• How they Interact with the material
and each other?

11. Who are the Authors?
• Single Author?
• Multiple (Known) Authors?
• Multiple Authors, some unknown
• Students as Authors / Book as Product

12. Who will Read/Use the material?
• My students?
• Any student?
• My co-instructors?
• Any instructor?

13. How will they Author?
• Written on one's own on the desktop
(word)
• Written on one's own on the network
(google docs)
• Written with another, but not
collaboratively (google docs, wordpress
chapters)
• Written with others, colloboratively and
asynchronously (wiki)
• Written with others, collaboratively and
synchronously (booki, etherpad)

14. How will they Read?
• Online (web browser)
• In print (themselves, or bound via
service or bookstore)
• eBook
• Audiobook? Accessibility?

15. How they Interact with the material
and each other?
• On their own? / With others
• Annotatable? Annotations Shareable?
Outside of closed platform?
• Rich Media and Interactivity?
• Can they contribute? Comment?
Fork/Derive?

16. Picking the solution that is right for
you means a balance between
Your current practice
and skill levels
Your infrastructure
Realistic potential
and other technical
for serendipity
Realities
Needs of your primary readership,
and where possible, future ones

17. Examples
• On your own – Desktop approach
• On your own or with others –
Wordpress approach
• With others – Mediawiki approach
• With others (and REAL fast!) – book
sprints

18. On your own – desktop approach
Example: Industrial Organization -
http://nboccard.wordpress.com/downloa
d/
• LaTeX - http://www.latex-project.org/
• Word (or better Open Office) -> HTML -
>ePub; print to PDF
• Sigil - http://code.google.com/p/sigil/
• Can still get multiple outputs but lose
affordances around versioning,
collaboration

19. On your own or with others –
Wordpress approach
Example: http://sleslie.pressbooks.com/
Example: http://tkbr.ccsp.sfu.ca/bookofmpub/
• Pressbooks – http://pressbooks.com
• Anthologize - http://anthologize.org/
• Produces web, PDF and ePub versions
• Comments allow for interaction w/ non-
authors
• Easily permits multiple authors or single
author

20. With others – Mediawiki approach
Example:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cognitive_Psychology_
and_Cognitive_Neuroscience
• Collections Plugin -
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Collectio
n
• ePubExport -
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:EPubExpo
rt
• WikiEducator - http://wikieducator.org/Main_Page
• Produces web, PDF and ePub version
• Web versions imminently collaborative, both in
authoring and after the fact as teaching/learning
space

21. With others (and REAL fast!) – Book
Sprints
Examples:
http://www.booki.cc/groups/floss-
manuals/
• Book Sprints -
http://www.booksprints.net/
• Booki - http://www.booki.cc/
• Etherpad - http://etherpad.org/

22. BUT WHAT ABOUT THE IPAD/IBOOKS?
• Absolutely, worth looking into, but…
• To fully get the benefit, all of your
readers must be using iPads
• Apple playing fast and loose with
standards (again)
• Lots of Teh Shiny is stuff you couldn’t
do on your own anyways, and with
others, CAN do in more accessible ways

23. Other Stuff
• Connexions – http://cnx.org/
• ePub reader browser add-
onhttps://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/epubreader/
• GrabMyBooks browser add-on
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/grabmybooks/
• It's all about the (work)FLOW - Open
Educator as DJ
http://edtechpost.wikispaces.com/Open+
Educator+as+DJ+%28Final%29

24. The End
• BCcampus Open Textbook pilot –
http://opentextbook.troy.bccampus.ca/
• Edtechpost –
http://www.edtechpost.ca/
• sleslie@bccampus.ca / @sleslie