Pressbooks is the publishing tool that is used to create and publish open educational resources. Faculty and staff can use their WSU emails to access their free Pressbooks account. There are instructions below.

Key Features

Here are some features of Pressbooks that make it a great tool:

• Create a webbook, export to multiple formats (PDF and EPUB), and import into a learning management system (LMS).
• Able to create accessible and responsive content.
• Include text, images, video, and audio all in one spot.
• Import content from multiple sources.
• Create a glossary.
• Incorporate interactivity through H5P activities and web annotation (Hypothes.is plugin available in Pressbooks).

What is a “Webbook”?

Pressbooks webbooks are website versions of your book that can be distributed for free to the public. Many use Pressbooks webbooks to produce and distribute open educational resources (OER). Unlike PDFs and ebooks, webbooks are a live version of your book that doesn’t need to be exported or downloaded.

Pressbooks produces a web version of every book. You can view yours at any time by clicking the Visit Book link underneath the title of your book in the top menu.

How to Access Pressbooks

WSU access to Pressbooks is provided by the Utah Education Network (UEN). These instructions are specifically for WSU faculty and staff who intend to create or modify a book in Pressbooks. If you will be using a Pressbooks resource without plans to modify it, use the resource link as found in the Pressbooks Directory. This does not require logging in.

1. Visit the UEN Pressbooks page
2. Click Sign In, found in the top right corner. Do not click Sign Up.
3. Scroll down and choose to login with the Institutional Login and select or search for Weber State University.
4. Login using your WSU credentials and you will be taken to your Dashboard, where you can create or edit books in your collection.

Note: If you accidentally begin working in a new trial account or had a Pressbooks account prior to logging in to the WSU instance, you can still move your work to the WSU account using the Export option found in the left-hand menu while viewing a book.

Guides and Tutorials

The Pressbooks Guide is a good place to start. It covers all the basics of Pressbooks and links to many additional resources. This guide is maintained by BCcampus.

The Pressbooks Video Tutorial Series provides a complete walkthrough of everything you will need to know to get started with Pressbooks. All videos are short and organized into playlists to make it easy to find the specific information you need. These videos are maintained by BCcampus.

If you still can’t find the answer to your question or want to dig down into tricky formatting, check out the Pressbooks User Guide, which is maintained by Pressbooks (the company). It goes into a lot more detail, but keep in mind that not all of the information will be relevant to the WSU instance of Pressbooks. Library staff are also happy to answer questions or offer training. Reach out at oer@weber.edu.

Guidelines to Keep in Mind

• Always insert images full size into the media library first, and then you can insert them into a chapter and scale them down to the desired size. This ensures the image will display clearly in all export formats and that the metadata is properly carried over each time the image is used.
• Document the source (attribution information) of all openly licensed and public domain content you use, including both text and media content. Entering the attribution information when you upload an image to the media library will allow this. See the chapter on Caption, Citation and Attribution for more information.
• Preview your content in all formats often. This means reviewing the webbook view and exporting the PDF and EPUB files to see how things look. Occasionally, something that looks good in the webbook will not work in the PDF or will need extra CSS to make it work. If this is the case, it’s better to find the problem earlier rather than later so we can figure out how to fix it.
• Keep accessibility in mind as you work. This will make the project go smoother rather than trying to fix accessibility at the end. At the very least, make sure you are describing images as you go. See the chapter on Accessibility for more information.

Examples of Books Published in Pressbooks

It can be helpful to look at published books to see what is possible. Here are some other books published in Pressbooks to explore:

• Math for Trades: Volume 2
• Barbering Techniques for Hairstylists
• Student Success
• Interpersonal & Small Group Communication
• Medical English

H5P for Interactive Material

The H5P plugin allows Pressbooks users to create interactive material, such as quizzes, timelines, drag-and-drop questions, and more. This free and open-source technology was first released in 2013.^[1] For more information, visit the H5P website.

For those who choose to use this plugin in a book, be aware that it is not meant to replace a graded or summative test. Instead, H5P activities are most useful for formative assessment, student self-quizzing, and encouraging interaction with content.

Once this plugin is activated, two new tabs will be added to the book’s Dashboard: the H5P Content tab and the H5P link under the Settings tab.

Settings for H5P range from how the toolbar is controlled to whether to automatically share usage statistics with the H5P developers. Click “Save Changes” at the bottom of this page if you make any changes.

The H5P Content tab is where you can create new H5P activities and manage activities that you created previously.

When you clone a book in Pressbooks that has H5P activities, the activities will also appear in the cloned version.

For more information, see Create Interactive Content with H5P, Display Embedded Media, and Using Math in H5P Activities in the Pressbooks User Guide.

For information on the accessibility of H5P activities, see Accessibility by H5P Activity.