July Monthly Check-in

Textbook Success Program February 2020 Cohort
1

@feb20-cohort Our next check-in will take place on July 8. Some suggestions for topics for us to discuss include:

  • print-on-demand
  • assessing the efficacy of OER
  • EPUB formats
  • working with H5P content

0 voters

Let me know by the end of June which of these you’d most like to tackle next month (and the others can remain as candidates for future sessions).

2

In order of preference:
print on demand
working with H5P content
EPUB formats
assessing the efficacy of OER

I suggest two of these for July and two for August…

3

Thanks Jinny, this is very helpful!

4

@feb20-cohort - so far, it looks like our topic for the mini-session this July is going to be “working with H5P content.” Please take the time to indicate your preference by the end of the week, if you haven’t already! Thanks to those who have submitted their input already.

5

@feb20-cohort - we’re back tomorrow morning at 9am ET on Zoom for our monthly check-in. Password information is the same, and will be re-shared over Direct Message.

This month, you’ve all voted for a mini-session on working with H5P content. Here’s what we’ll be referring to, in addition to a short demo from me:

  1. Handout: July Monthly Check-in (Working with H5P Content)
  2. Slides: July Monthly Check-in (Working with H5P Content)

We’ll also go over project updates, plus use our time to discuss any pertinent challenges or questions you are facing on your project — so come prepared! Looking forward to seeing you all soon. :slight_smile:

6

I apologize for being late in asking and hopefully there’s time tomorrow to discuss this.

Recently we realize we will have lots of videos for our book, some of which will be copyrighted content that we will get to use via authors’ permissions. We know that some may be on YouTube or Vimeo, and we will be able to link to or embed them; but we also expect that some will be files that authors allow us to use exclusively for our book. Currently the only alternative we can think of to YouTube/Vimeo is somehow setting up a dedicated server to house these copyrighted videos.

We’re hoping you may know of alternatives besides what we’ve considered.

Thank you, and again: sorry for the late notice.

Wade

7

I forgot to mention, we suspect some of the vids may be very large, perhaps 100’s of megs, which Pressbooks doesn’t want users uploading to their Media Libraries.

Wade

8

No worries Wade - not too late at all :slight_smile:

It’s good to avoid uploading large video files in the Pressbooks Media Library mainly so that the file size of export formats like EPUB can stay low (ensuring that readers with poor connectivity or limited bandwidth can still access the books).

Linking to or embedding videos hosted on a third-party platform like YouTube, Vimeo, or other is ideally the best option. For videos licensed All Rights Reserved, you could still host them on these platforms but under the appropriate license, or explore whether they can be unlisted videos (accessible only with a direct link). I’m not sure whether the authors/video creators will have a preference over this versus a dedicated server (or if these files are already hosted elsewhere that you could point to). I’m afraid for now, these are the only 2 options coming to mind, but I’ll continue to have a think and we can chat more tomorrow.

9

Thank you. Talk to you soon.

Wade

1 Like
10

Thank you @feb20-cohort for attending our check-in yesterday! It was good to hear a report of how things are progressing on your projects — whether you’re close to finishing or still chipping away at an earlier stage. I appreciated how we found the time during our conversation to discuss a few key questions or issues that certain projects are facing: on review workflow and tools, interactive elements besides H5P, licensing of figures, video hosting, and cover design.

Chat Transcript and Resources

I’ve saved our chat transcript for reference — it includes lots of questions related to our mini-session on working with H5P content.

I’ve also rounded up the resources shared:

Follow-ups

A few follow-ups from our call:

  • You all need to suggest and decide on a topic for our next mini-session. I’ll set up a poll soon!
  • I’ll follow-up about:
    • best practices for creating accessible Sketchfab elements in Pressbooks
    • Possibility for graded H5P activities on the Rebus Press
    • Connecting the two Math projects in the May and Feb cohorts
    • Sharing dates for upcoming Pressbooks training webinars when announced

If there’s anything I’ve missed, please let me know!

11

@feb20-cohort, as promised, I have an update on my set of follow-ups:

  • Decide on a topic for our next mini-session: August Monthly Check-in
  • Best practices for creating accessible Sketchfab elements in Pressbooks - see Sketchfab iFrame Accessibility
  • Possibility for graded H5P activities on the Rebus Press - The grade passback feature is only available on Pressbooks EDU networks with an LTI 1.3 connection. Given that the Rebus Press houses books and users at different institutions, this connection and feature will not be possible. However, it’s something you can explore if your project is hosted on your institution’s Pressbooks network.
  • Connecting the two Math projects in the May and Feb cohorts - Done via email, as per @mjlove’s request.

I’m still waiting to hear when the next Pressbooks training webinar will be, but I’ll be sure to update the group once I have this information.