Pressbooks provides a platform for creating, publishing, and distributing open educational resources (OER), textbooks, and other academic materials. The Pressbook integration with Canvas @ Yale allows instructors to bring Pressbook materials directly into their Canvas course sites for students to read, complete formative interactive assessments that sync a grade back to Canvas, and collaboratively author texts.
Pressbooks is currently undergoing a multi-year pilot with Yale University and may only be available in select Canvas @ Yale courses.
Pressbooks is currently supported in different capacities by different groups at Yale University. Please direct your request for assistance to the appropriate group for support:
- Pressbooks authoring questions and requesting a book: [email protected] (Center for Language Studies)
- Pressbooks account and technical issues: [email protected]
- Pressbooks integration with Canvas @ Yale issues: [email protected]
Table of Contents
This article will address the following information:
Why Use Pressbooks?
Pressbooks offers instructors access to a large catalog of Open Educational Resources (OER), which can provide more equitable access for students to course materials, which can be integrated and embedded directly into Canvas.
Instructors are also able to author their own text on Pressbooks in collaboration with students through the integration with Canvas by giving students direct editing access—making students active generators of knowledge in the discipline.
Use Cases for Pressbooks
A non-exhaustive list outlining what instructors can use Pressbooks to facilitate include:
- Providing direct, equitable access to open educational resources
- Creating opportunities for students to engage in interactive formative assessments embedded in Pressbook materials that pushes a grade back to Canvas
- Cloning existing texts on Pressbooks to edit and customize for your own class
- Authoring open educational resource texts and textbooks to use in your class or share with the world
- Collaborating with students to author content that can be made available to the world
How do I get started with Pressbooks?
The Educational Technology team that supports Canvas @ Yale and manages the [email protected] / [email protected] emails for assistance do not provide support for authoring Pressbook content including:
- Best practices for creating open educational resources in your discipline
- Navigating and using the Pressbooks platform to find / author content
- Distribution / sharing permissions beyond Canvas @ Yale courses
- Technical issues with the Pressbooks platform and generating H5P interactive elements
At this time, direct support for using Pressbooks is limited to language faculty who are receiving support through the Center for Language Study. Please reach out to [email protected] with questions about using Pressbooks.
To learn more about how to use Pressbooks in Canvas @ Yale, please reference:
What will my students see?
When Pressbooks content has been shared in Canvas modules, students will be able to click on the individual chapters provided.
When viewing a chapter shared in the module, students can click the "Next" button to navigate to the subsequent chapter that has been added to the Canvas course site.
Additional Resources
Please review our short, curated support documentation to get your started using Pressbooks:
- Pressbooks User Guide (Vendor Resource)
- Pressbooks Guides and OER Resources (Vendor Resource)
For more help with Pressbooks, please reach out to the appropriate group for support:
- Pressbooks authoring questions and requesting a book: [email protected] (Center for Language Studies)
- Pressbooks account and technical issues: [email protected]
- Pressbooks integration with Canvas @ Yale issues: [email protected]