Pressbooks is an online publishing platform that creates digital books, which are accessible through the web. The University System of New Hampshire, our faculty and community have collaborated on several of these “pressbooks” to develop free and open content that is tailored to their courses. You can use Pressbooks to publish textbooks, scholarly monographs, syllabi, fiction and non-fiction books, white papers, and more in multiple formats including:
- EPUB
- Web versions
Developing and publishing a pressbook requires no coding, graphic design, or publishing experience. The Pressbooks platform, based on WordPress, is designed to make authoring a book simple. All that is needed is the base text for the book. Once the written content is developed, Pressbooks’ prefabricated appearance options create a product that is neatly packaged and ready to use.
Unlike a traditional textbook or an “ebook”, a pressbook lives on the web. This means that authors can refine, remix, and adapt the book to fit the needs of their course. With a pressbook, there is no need to worry that content will become stale or irrelevant over time. What remains relevant can stay, while content that shifts out of focus can be removed or replaced with emerging ideas and topics.
One way that Pressbooks is being used at USNH is to highlight student works, and use them as supplementary material to a pressbook’s main content. Having students participate in the development of a pressbook adds value and meaning to assignments, as these works have an audience.
Because Pressbooks is freely accessible and has the ability to be openly licensed, the content created in the book can extend beyond the singular classroom. Courses can utilize a pressbook developed in a different class and, if need be, remix or add to it in their own version of the book. A pressbook can even extend outside of the individual institution and be used by other universities across the country.
For more information on using Pressbooks, view the Pressbooks Knowledge base article, or contact ET&S in TeamDynamix to set up a consultation.
Pressbooks is used by educational institutions around the world as well as authors and publishers.
For more information about Pressbooks, see here.