Dear Pressbooks User,
Today's scheduled upgrade has been postponed until further notice. When preparing for the upgrade, we encountered a number of issues that need to be addressed before we can ensure that the upgrade will go forward with minimal disruption. We will send out a notice once we determine a new upgrade date.
Sincerely,
The BCcampus Open Education Team and IT Support
BCcampus IT Support
BCcampus | Learning. Doing. Leading.
support(a)bccampus.ca | www.bccampus.ca<http://www.bccampus.ca/>
Dear Pressbooks User,
As a Pressbooks account holder in pressbooks.bccampus.ca, you have been placed on a mailing list to receive notifications about upgrades, service outages, and other events that affect your Pressbooks account. These outages will also affect open textbooks in the B.C. Open Textbook Collection that are hosted in BCcampus' internal instance of Pressbooks (opentextbc.ca).
UPGRADE NOTICE
On the morning of Wednesday, August 28, 2019, between 8:00 AM and 11:30 AM Pacific time, Pressbooks (pressbooks.bccampus.ca) will be upgraded to version 5.9.0. Your account will be unavailable during this time.
Open Textbooks Theme
With this upgrade, the Open Textbooks theme will officially be removed from pressbooks.bccampus.ca. If you have not already done so, please switch your books to one of the other themes. Clarke is the theme most similar to the Open Textbooks theme, but McLuhan is also a good option. For more information, see Retiring the Open Textbook Theme<https://open.bccampus.ca/pressbooks-updates/#theme>.
New Features
* New admin colour scheme: You can now select a colour scheme that increases accessibility of the Pressbooks Admin interface. This colour scheme increases the colour contrast and underlines all links in the Pressbooks Admin interface. This will not affect the webbook or export files. To enable, navigate to your profile in Pressbooks. Under "Admin Colour Scheme" select "Pressbooks a11y."
* Redesigned exports page: The exports page has been updated to make it easier to manage your exported files. Pressbooks will now store the last three exports of each file format. You can also now sort exports by file format, size, and date exported. You can also "pin" any files that you do not want to be deleted.
* Progress bars: Pressbooks will now display a progress bar when importing, exporting, cloning, and generating a cover.
* Clone h5p activities: H5P activities within books will now make it through the cloning process.
* MathJax Support: MathJax is a JavaScript display engine that translates mathematical markup into high resolution, accessible equations that can render in any supported book format on Pressbooks.
Bug Fixes and Changes:
* The "Import" tab is no longer accessed from the Dashboard Menu. You can find it under "Tools."
* "LO" KT" and "EX" buttons will no longer appear in Visual Editor toolbar, but those special textboxes can still be inserted from the "Textboxes" drop-down menu.
* A number of updates to increase the accessibility of the Pressbooks admin interface, Digital PDFs, and footnotes.
* Improvements to glossary tooltips. Definitions can now include links and bold and italic text.
* There is a new "Publish" tab in the Dashboard Menu where you can add links to where people can purchase POD versions of a book.
* Glossary terms will now alphabetize correctly
* Licences on chapters in the webbook will now list the book title rather than the chapter title, unless the chapter is under a different licence from the rest of the book.
* Additional table classes available from the visual editor.
* Unnecessary alert when saving parts will no longer pop up.
Sincerely,
The BCcampus Open Education Team and IT Support
BCcampus | Learning. Doing. Leading.
support(a)bccampus.ca<mailto:support@bccampus.ca> | www.bccampus.ca<http://www.bccampus.ca>
Hello Everyone,
Below is a list of the latest at BCcampus OpenEd.
New books added to the B.C. Open Textbook Collection
* Technical Writing Essentials<https://open.bccampus.ca/browse-our-collection/find-open-textbooks/?uuid=83…> by University of Victoria professor, Suzan Last, is designed to introduce readers to the basics of professional communications in technical fields: audience and task analysis in workplace contexts, clear and concise communications style, effective document design, teamwork and collaboration, and fundamental research skills.
* Introduction to Psychology (University of Saskatchewan)<https://open.bccampus.ca/browse-our-collection/find-open-textbooks/?uuid=9e…> by Jorden Cummings and Lee Sanders, is a combination of original content and materials compiled and adapted from a number of open textbooks. This new version includes a Key Terms list for each chapter, an expanded glossary, and H5P chapter self-tests.
Support resource update
* The Post-Secondary Directory<https://opentextbc.ca/postsecondary/> now includes a section on open education in all provinces and territories in Canada
We are looking for Subject Matter Experts (SME) from B.C. or other parts of Canada to review textbooks being considered for the B.C. Open Textbook Collection<https://open.bccampus.ca/find-open-textbooks/>. See the list of Books open for review by Canadian faculty<https://opentextbc.ca/oerdiscipline/front-matter/b-c-open-textbook-collecti…>. Contact bookreviews(a)bccampus.ca if you are interested in providing an SME review.
Help us identify the gaps
Contact opentext(a)bccampus.ca if you would like to see open textbooks made available for specific subject areas in the B.C. Open Textbook Collection<https://open.bccampus.ca/find-open-textbooks/>. In particular, we'd like to hear of topics in these areas: business, early childhood education (ECE), health, STEM (science, technology, engineering, math), and trades.
For the most current open education information, look at these continuously updated directories.
* Information Directory<https://opentextbc.ca/openedinfo/> - Research, articles, blogs, and books related to open education in Canada, the U.S., and Global North, and Global South regions
* OER by Discipline Directory<https://opentextbc.ca/oerdiscipline/> - Lists a wide range of OER by discipline. It acts as a referatory with the resource name and link, its licence, and a short description. Discipline-specific collections are also included.
* Post-Secondary Directory<https://opentextbc.ca/postsecondary/> - An inventory of all things open for each post-secondary institution in B.C., and the provinces and territories in Canada
Best regards,
The OpenEd team at BCcampus
Lauri Aesoph
Manager, Open Education
[https://bccampus.ca/files/2018/10/dotted-line.jpg]
Cell: 250-893-0258 • Email: laesoph(a)bccampus.ca<mailto:laesoph@bccampus.ca>
Twitter: @lauriaesoph<https://twitter.com/lauriaesoph> • Skype: lauri.aesoph • LinkedIn: lauri.aesoph<https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauri.aesoph/>
BCcampus.ca<https://bccampus.ca/> • @BCcampus<https://twitter.com/BCcampus> • #BCcampus<https://twitter.com/hashtag/BCcampus?src=hash>
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