Publish Open Textbooks using Manifold at no additional cost
Anne Marie Gruber
Dear Iowa college & university colleagues,
Do you want to expand open educational practices on your campus? Have faculty who are interested in publishing or adapting open textbooks? Iowa OER can help make it happen.
Since all Iowa colleges & universities are consortial members of the Open Education Network (OEN), we can all access a publishing platform called Manifold. Anyone at our institutions can use Manifold to publish open textbooks with a Creative Commons license that allow for editing. This benefit is included with our statewide OEN membership at no additional cost.
About Manifold
Manifold is an open source publishing workflow, developed in collaboration between the CUNY Graduate Center, the University of Minnesota Press, and Cast Iron Coding. People use Manifold in a variety of ways, including to publish open educational resources, create open pedagogy projects, and as an open repository/curation tool. You can also form public and private reading groups.
Browse OEN community projects on Manifold to see how people are using the tool, including Iowa institutions like Dordt and UNI. Note that projects are grouped into Collections. Our consortium has its own dedicated Collection, the Iowa Colleges & Universities Collection.
How to Sign Up for Mediated (no-cost) Access
I am the Project Creator for our consortium, which means 1) I can initiate projects and 2) generate access for project authors and editors. To get started, tell me about your open education project by completing the Iowa Manifold Project Request Form. I will follow up with further information and provide support as needed.
What if we want to Create our own Projects and have our own Collection?
Iowa institutions wishing to have their own Collection in Manifold and have their OER leaders or authors create projects should still upgrade their OEN membership to Institutional level ($638/yr Reduced Rate for institutions like ours that are already Consortial members; 2026-27 rates will be announced soon). More information about OEN membership types is available in the Membership Types section of OEN's Join Us webpage.
Questions? See this OEN Manifold FAQ. For other questions, please reply and let me know, or reach out to schedule a one-on-one meeting with me.
Thank you for your commitment to your students! I look forward to supporting your open education projects in Manifold.
Best,
AM
Liaison & Textbook Equity Librarian
Associate Professor of Library Services
University of Northern Iowa, Rod Library
319-273-3711 / anne....@uni.edu
LIB 381 / Cedar Falls, IA 50614
Students, meet with me: https://uni.libcal.com/appointments/AMG
Free/affordable textbooks: https://guides.lib.uni.edu/oer
I can help you & your students share your work under flexible usage rights.
