Getting Started with Pressbooks
URI is a member of Pressbooks. Available to all URI faculty, staff, and students, this open book creation platform lets you create and edit your own digital texts -- such as textbooks, open educational resources, scholarly publications, reports, accessible PDFs, and more! For inspiration and examples of what you can do with Pressbooks, check out existing publications in the Pressbooks Directory.
To get started, head to https://uri.pressbooks.pub/. Click "Sign in." If prompted, enter your URI single sign-on username and password.
Your username is your URI email address (@uri.edu domain) and your password is your URI SSO credentials. This is the same password you would use to access https://myapps.microsoft.com. Note that you must have an @uri.edu domain email address to access the platform. Access to non-URI users is available if co-authoring a book with a URI author (contact Julia Lovett, jalovett@uri.edu for assistance).
Resources for learning Pressbooks:
- Webinar: Creating Open Books with URI Pressbooks (Zoom recording), October 30, 2024
- Presenters: Julia Lovett (University Libraries), Christopher Knowlton (Inner Space Center, GSO), and Roxanne Beinart (GSO)
- Pressbooks User Guide
- Pressbooks Simple 5-Step Guide to creating a book.
- Pressbooks Live Webinars - Registration required! Two webinars given by Pressbooks staff per month; one "getting started" and one advanced features
- Pressbooks Youtube Channel - Features video tutorials, past trainings, and more
- Pressbooks User Community Forum
Book creation FAQ:
How can I get a DOI for my book?
The URI Libraries is a member of Crossref and can register a DOI for you. Contact Julia Lovett at jalovett@uri.edu.
Who is the copyright holder of a Pressbooks book?
By default, if a URI faculty member, staff member, or student creates a new book, the copyright in the book belongs to the author(s).
What copyright licenses are available?
The author can choose to designate a book as All Rights Reserved, or apply a a Creative Commons license. Note that Open Educational Resources are free to read and to re-use. See here for more information about the Creative Commons licenses, which allow for "some rights reserved". The most open of all of the licenses is CC-BY.
How can I adapt an existing book?
From the main dashboard, click "Clone a Book". From here you can enter the source book URL and a new book URL. To find openly licensed books, you can search from here. You can also visit the Pressbooks Directory directly, and filter search results by a specific Creative Commons license type.
