Sept. 6, 2017 – Final Feedback Session

a construction site with sunlight streaming through the roof beams.

The Toronto Metropolitan University team will meet with eCampusOntario stakeholders on Wednesday, Sept. 6, 2017 to share the results of the project and demonstrate the final Open Publishing Infrastructure prototype.

By Invitation Only

Open Publishing Infrastructure Prototype Overview and Final Project Presentation

Date: Wednesday, Sept. 6, 2017

Time: 9:30 a.m. – 11:00 .a.m.

Location: 3rd floor Library, Collaboratory, 350 Victoria Street. 

A light breakfast with coffee and tea will be served

9:30 a.m. Open Publishing Infrastructure Infrastructure Project Overview – Dr. Wendy Freeman

9:40 a.m. Updates from Project Working Group Chairs

  • Hongbo He, Chair, Infrastructure Team (10 minutes)
  • Ann Ludbrook, Chair, Communications & Community Building (10 minutes)
  • Hugh McGuire, Pressbooks (10 minutes)
  • Lars Svekis, Chair, Learning Module Team (10 minutes)

10:20 a.m. – Full Demo and Prototype Overview – Hugh McGuire, Sally Wilson

10:45 a.m. Q&A & Discussion – All

11: a.m. Concluding remarks – Dr. Wendy Freeman

Download full PDF copy of agenda detailed above

Download full slide presentation

August 11 Usability Day Event

Members of the open educational resources community discussing a project prototype to make an open learning portal.

Members of the OER community gathered on Friday, Aug. 11 at the Toronto Metropolitan University Library and Archives (RULA) to discuss the progress so far on the Open Publishing Infrastructure Project, funded by eCampusOntario. Discussions ranged from the importance of helping Ontario teachers and student quickly and easily search for and find open learning resources, to the proposed look and feel of an Open Library design created by Agile Humanities.

Key enhancements to Pressbooks, the industry-standard open publishing platform, were also demoed and discussed, featuring a new design approach for the publishing platform by Plank Design.

Some of the highlights from the day’s discussion were as follows:

Search is primary. Remember that search is the most important functionality in the front end of the portal in the near term Finding materials should be the primary focal point.

Versioning and federation of content. Versioning was a key area of focus. What happens when materials change and evolve at BCcampus OpenEd change? How will content be federated and shared? How will versioning of materials be tracked?

Tracking adaptation. How do you get information on an adapted textbook? How will you know its lineage? How do you track the adaption process? This is an area for focus.

Building community. Getting educators involved in OER is another key area of focus. The call to action for the portal is important so that educators know how to get involved. Incentives and creating communities are key.

Clarifying user roles and actions. Clarify adoption, adaptation and creation. Make sure the community understands what each means. Clarify how learners and educators use the portal. Added note, should ‘create’ be featured so prominently on the main page of the portal?

Metadata matters. Do we offer enough ways to search materials, is there enough here to make the search and discovery work at this early stage? How best to collect community feedback on metadata?

A full recap of the day can be found here. An overview presentation can be found here.

Meet Our Partner – Agile Humanities

Rainbow keyboard

Agile Humanities, a Toronto-based open-source development and user experience design firm, is partnering with eCampusOntario, Pressbooks, and Toronto Metropolitan University on an open publishing infrastructure prototype designed to enhance and expand eCampusOntario’s Open Textbook Library. This library, developed and shared by BCcampus, will provide access to high-quality, academically reviewed textbooks and open education resources (OER) for Ontario post-secondary students.

Read more

Infrastructure Workgroup Update

image of web code on a screen

With the Ryerson DSpace instance up and running, the Ryerson CCS Applications Services team is now working in close collaboration with the BCcampus to assist them in their migration from the proprietary Equella system (the SOLAR website) to DSpace, the open source repository solution.

This joint effort will allow the Ryerson working group to collect experience and hands-on experience, and support the BCcampus team in their efforts. This exercise will also allow the team to learn more about the Open Textbook application (available on GitHub) aka “The Brad App” and its work with DSpace.

Continue reading “Infrastructure Workgroup Update”

Meet the Working Groups

A pair of glasses on top a slim chrome laptop.

There are four working groups working to support the primary project goal which is to:

Build a prototype open publishing infrastructure to integrate and extend the BC Open Textbook Library that will be migrated from BCcampus to eCampusOntario in May 2017 with a project completion date of Aug. 31, 2017

The four working streams to support this objective which are:

  • A working Pressbook prototype with enhanced features
  • Integrate an open source repository that will support the open textbook platform and other content
  • Community building and knowledge mobilization
  • Learning module authoring and distribution prototyping

The Pressbooks Working Group is focused on: Continue reading “Meet the Working Groups”

Meet Our Partner – Rebus Foundation

A shelf of books stacked with their spines up.

Ryerson, will collaborate with open education resource (OER) experts at Rebus Foundation, Ontario Council of University Libraries (OCUL) and the Ontario College Library Service (OCLS) in their capacity as advisory partners for the design and development of the prototype. 

Rebus Foundation is driving the project’s work on Pressbooks, a  technology platform based on Pressbooks, a industry-standard book writing solution.

Our Montreal-based Rebus Foundation Pressbooks team has been blogging about our joint project. Learn more

Ryerson Project Team Members

The top of the Student Learning Centre building at Toronto Metropolitan University.

Wendy Freeman
Director, Office of E- Learning
wfreeman@ryerson.ca

Naza Djafarova
Director, Digital Education Strategies
ndjafaro@ryerson.ca

Fangmin Wang
Head, Library Information Technology Services, Toronto Metropolitan University
fwang@ryerson.ca

Ann Ludbrook
Copyright and Scholarly Engagement Librarian
aludbrook@ryerson.ca

Sally Wilson
Web Services  Librarian
swilson@ryerson.ca

Trina Grover
Metadata Specialist, Librarian, Toronto Metropolitan University
tgrover@ryerson.ca Continue reading “Ryerson Project Team Members”