Open Educational Resources (OER) & Textbook Equity

Manifold is a free, open-source software that allows for formatting existing or new content (openly-licensed and/or public domain) into ebook format that is easy to navigate and accessible. There are social annotation and reader engagement features built in that can be used in courses. It also supports media such as images and video, linking supporting resources to a text, and creating resource collections.

UNI, through our membership in the Open Education Network, has access to a hosted instance of Manifold that is fully web-based and free to current UNI faculty, staff, and students.

Instructors, staff, and students can use Manifold to:

• Formalize course notes to provide electronically to students
• Beautify a course "packet"
• Customize public domain material
• Adapt and/or combine existing material, as long as licensing allows
• Improve accessibility of existing material, as long as licensing allows
• Create free content from scratch, such as a textbook, handbook, procedures manual, etc.
• Engage students in creating and sharing free, openly-licensed content as part of a course (Open Pedagogy)

See Manifold projects already published by UNI authors/editors. More examples are linked on this guide.

Rod Library currently provides the following services for UNI OER authors:

• Project management support

• Assistance with determining and documenting fair use of copyrighted materials

• Guidance about adapting openly-licensed work

• Assistance considering accessibility best practices

• Guidance about licensing options for the final free work

• Assistance for using the Manifold software for publishing free, openly-licensed ebooks

• Assistance facilitating peer review for open textbooks

• Archiving final works in UNI ScholarWorks & assistance with publicizing

• Providing resources for faculty to advocate that OER-related work “count” for promotion, tenure, and faculty evaluation

• Advocacy for consistent funding to support faculty author time and labor

  • UNI OER authors have been compensated more than $100,000 since 2021. Only $15,000 of that was university funds & the remainder was CARES Act funding distributed by the Iowa Dept. of Education through the Governor's Emergency Education Relief (GEER) Fund.

We do not currently provide:

• Support for publishing commercial materials. You cannot publish in Manifold and charge for the material.
• Support for publishing projects that will not bear a Creative Commons (CC) license.
  • Note we do archive projects of all types in UNI ScholarWorks (CC license not required).
• Copyediting
  • Note that Research & Sponsored Programs may maintain a list of freelance editors; we can also provide referrals to outside companies that provide high-quality publishing support on a paid basis.
• Extensive work with copyright permissions.