University of Minnesota (Open Education Network)

The Open Textbook Network of the University of Minnesota will create an Open Platform for Authoring Open Textbooks - an application that will provide a strategic infrastructure for writing, designing, and producing open textbooks. The development process will be open, iterative, and community focused. The proposal is based on the following plan: (1) Structuring the Authoring Experience - The Platform will provide structural supports to help authors delineate and apply consistent instructional design across all elements of a textbook. (2) Interoperability - Content import/export functionality will be compatible with existing publishing technologies through standard data and file structures. (3) Collaboration - The Platform will provide collaboration functionality for faculty to work with authors, librarians, editors, peer reviewers, instructional designers, and other contributors who can help authors create quality textbooks. This project aims to expand the capacity for the authoring of OER materials.