1. Who, What, Why, and How of the LibreTexts Project
Delmar Larsen
Executive Director, LibreTexts
Associate Professor,
Department of Chemistry,
University of California, Davis
USERNAME: Remix
Password: ILoveRemixing!
Libretexts-Constructionforum
When it comes to SOLT research, Mount Royal University comes immediately to my mind. I would like to thank Brett and the other organizers of the meeting for the giving me the opportunity to meet with SOTL researchers both at MRU and abroad, that are presenting your excellent results here. I am also thankful for giving me the opportunity to present our Libretexts project centered out of the University of California, Davis, but used internationally as you will learn.
How do we know that students are using the Wiki? In contrast, how do we know they are using print textbooks?
What evidence is there for a digital textbook being a viable replacement to a print textbook?
Are there best practices for adopting a digital textbook?
What peer-review processes does the Wiki undergo?
Are faculty recognized for contributions to the Wiki in a similar manner to writing a commercial textbook, and should they be?
How does LibreText compare to Wikipedia?  Can students trust LibreTexts?

2. Presentation Overview
How and What we are and not
Modes of Usage
OER Fragmentation and The Rise of Oracles
Step 1: Harvesting it All
Step 2: Remixing it All

3. My Father’s Truck

4. Mission Statement
The LibreTexts mission is to unite students, faculty and scholars in a cooperative effort to develop an easy-to-use online platform for the construction, customization, and dissemination of open educational resources (OER) to reduce the burdens of unreasonable textbook costs to our students and society.

5. What is OER?
Open Educational Resources (OER) describe any copyrightable work that is either (1) in the public domain or (2) licensed in a manner that provides users with free and perpetual permission to engage in the 5R activities:
Retain - the right to make, own, and control copies of the content (e.g., download, duplicate, store, and manage)
Reuse - the right to use the content in a wide range of ways (e.g., in a class, in a study group, on a website, in a video)
Revise - the right to adapt, adjust, modify, or alter the content itself (e.g., translate the content into another language)
Remix - the right to combine the original or revised content with other material to create something new (e.g., incorporate the content into a mashup)
Redistribute - the right to share copies of the original content, your revisions, or your remixes with others (e.g., give a copy of the content to a friend)

6. Three Principal Aspects of the LibreTexts Project
Construction Platform
Publishing Platform
Dissemination Platform
Usage (Educational) Platform
The LibreTexts as a Curated Repository of “living” Content – largest on the net, most visited on the net
The LibreTexts as a Construction and Dissemination Platform – 100s of course
The LibreTexts as Student Assessment/Performance Tool – 60M students annually

7. Three Principal Aspects of how the LibreTexts project is used
The LibreTexts as a Curated Repository of “living” OER Content – largest and most visited on the net
The LibreTexts as a Construction and Dissemination Platform – 100s of courses
The LibreTexts as Student Assessment/Performance Tool – 60M students annually

8. The LibreTexts is First and Foremost a Community Effort
Including Diablo Valley College

9. The Textbook of the Future is not the textbook of the past
We need to stop thinking about building OER individual textbooks…
We need to start thinking about building OER “textlibraries”…
CC BY 2.0; Stewart Butterfield - flickr

11. We focus on building an integrated online platform
Ease of dissemination
Seamlessly integrates content over multiple sub-fields or across different fields
Facilitates highly-collaborative and highly-distributed construction efforts
Provides a mechanism for more advanced features than a PDF or paper-based book
Online Homework system (adaptive)
3D capabilities
Multimedia including videos and simulations
Numerical calculations infrastructure
Student tracking and assessment
Integrated annotation infrastructure
Online Homework system (adaptive)
3D capabilities
Multimedia including videos and simulations
Numerical calculations infrastructure
Student tracking and assessment
Integrated annotation infrastructure

12. Organization of a Library
Campus Sandboxes
Where the Texts are
Where the Problems are
Everything else

13. Download Center Mechanisms of Using Libretexts Books Online Via PDF
Via LMS
Common Cartridge
LTI (soon)
EPUB (soon)
Professionally Bound Text

14. The OER Universe

15. Step 1: Either Connect all OER Content or Integrate all OER content
Enter The Oracles
Step 1: Either Connect all OER Content or Integrate all OER content
Step 2: Construct a tool to traverse this aggregation effectively and allow finding and remixing

16. Step 1: We want to “Borgify” the OER Universe
Integrated (Harvest) existing OER
Depository/Referatories into LibreTexts
Edit and Typeset to Central Standard
Cross reference and add Meta-tags for content curations
Build an OER Remixer to let faculty rapidly construct customizable texts

17. Building the Ultimate OER Repository
Mechanism 1: Student contribution via course effort (e.g., extra credit)
Mechanism 2: Student integration of existing content from faculty
Mechanism 3: Faculty construction of raw content from scratch

18. Content Development

19. Harvesting Team
Common format allows simple integration and modification

20. Step2: Use the Libretexts like a Storeroom of Educational Content
CC BY SA 3.0; unported; Tiia Monto
Swap “Weapons of Tooth Death” for
“Weapons of Education”

21. The OER Remixer
The OER Remixer is a self-service tool to rapidly assemble a LibreText from existing sources. This tutorial will include both an explanation of the User Interface as well as a walkthrough of how to do basic tasks.

22. How to Adopt a Libretext?
Identify what you want…
Does something identical exist in the Libraries already?
Copy, Paste, and Go
yes no
Does something similar exist in the Libraries already?
Copy, Paste, Edit, and Go
yes no

23. How to Adopt a Libretext?no
Does something similar exist outside the Libraries already?
Ask permission to integrate into LibreTexts
yes
Copy, Paste, Edit, and Go
yes no no
Copy, Paste, Edit, and Go
Construct from Scratch… involve faculty and students
yes
Integrate crystallography throughout content

24. Tracking Student Behavior to Optimize Pedagogy
Can extract information regarding student study habits.
Clear Cramming

25. Physical Textbooks

26. Future: Internet in a Box

27. Affordable Learning $olutions
Leslie Kennedy
AL$ - CSU
Gerry Hanley
CSU
Ralph Hexter
UCD Provost
MacKenzie Smith
Librarian

28. Contact us for more Details