Digital publishing platforms can create multiple pathways for knowledge equity, students as creators, and engagement with readers. At the City University of New York (CUNY), we have worked with our partners at the University of Minnesota Press and Cast Iron Coding, to create Manifold, a free, collaborative, open-source digital publishing platform that is used across the 25 campus CUNY community (and the world) to create and teach with dynamic digital projects. Access to this open publishing platform has opened new possibilities within the OER initiative at CUNY to create digital projects to house custom classroom versions of texts that are in the public domain or openly licensed, written by faculty and students, including journals, capstones and theses, and faculty scholarship.
Using Manifold’s built-in social annotation feature, CUNY instructors find creative ways to help students develop critical reading skills, empower students as co-creators, help students see that reading and writing are never solitary activities, and teach important digital literacy and civic engagement. The CUNY community uses Manifold reading groups to create public, private, and anonymous annotation groups where they can work together to annotate texts and project resources, conduct peer review, study course assignments, and create custom course readers. Unlike other social annotation tools, Manifold@CUNY is both open-source and free to all users.
In this presentation, a librarian at a CUNY four-year college, a teaching faculty member at a CUNY two-year college, and the Manifold Open Educational Technology Specialist will discuss projects that they have created, facilitated, and/or adapted on the platform and their experiences managing projects and working with students as open knowledge creators. The projects include My Slipper Floated Away: New American Memoirs, the OER Starter Kit Workbook, the special issue of the Journal for Multicultural Education on the intersections of Open Educational Practices and Equity Pedagogy, Introduction to American Government, HUM 1: Modern Humanities, and more. Several of these projects have received recognition as OE Global Award winners, as has the Manifold platform itself. The presenters will offer their experiences with Manifold, including selecting Manifold as the platform for the project, the creation process, engaging readers, and updating materials.
As we discuss the ways we and other members of the CUNY community have used Manifold, we will foreground the fact that Manifold is open to the wider community in multiple ways. First, anyone from anywhere is able to create a reader account on CUNY’s installation of Manifold - they need not be a member of the CUNY community to use any of the annotation features, so instructors at other institutions and individual learners all have access as readers to all of the projects on CUNY’s Manifold. Second, and more importantly, Manifold is free and open source, meaning that anyone anywhere can set up an installation. We will conclude by discussing the potential challenges and expenses, such as hosting and support that make Manifold free like a puppy. But just like a puppy, Manifold is more than worth the trouble.
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[Session 10C]: Practice in OEAuthor Keywordsopen educational practices, open textbooks, social justice
