Publishing

A supportive group of people in the Open Education Network (OEN) have been experimenting with Ketty, a web-based, open-source book production platform designed to support collaborative authoring, editing, and publishing. 

Our goal was to test and shape the open-source tool for open textbook production, and consider how it may become part of our shared infrastructure. Now at a crossroads, I’d like to look back at what we’ve accomplished and where we may go from here. 

The Open Education Network (OEN) is pleased to share the Guide to Open Textbook Essential and Exemplary Features, a new, openly licensed resource available on OEN’s Manifold. The Guide is designed to help authors, librarians, instructional designers and faculty select and develop open textbooks.

Past Makes Perfect: A Mini Handbook for Student Historians is an openly licensed textbook written and published in 2025 by Melissa Chim, Scholarly Communications Librarian at Excelsior University in Albany, New York. An avid history enthusiast and scholar, Melissa holds an MLIS from St. John’s University and an MA in History from Queen Mary University of London. 

We recently asked Melissa to share her experience authoring this new book, including her participation in the Open Education Network’s Ketty Pilot (formerly Ketida). 

In this Q and A, we ask N. Alexander Aguado, Ph.D., some questions about the writing and publication of his open textbook, Never Gonna Change? An Examination of the 1901 Alabama Constitution. Alex is Professor and Chair of Political Science in the Department of Politics, Justice, Law, & Philosophy at the University of North Alabama. 

At Open Education Week 2025, the Open Education Network (OEN) and MIT OpenCourseWare (MIT OCW) are partnering to discuss two open educational resources as a way to highlight their respective collections. The March 7 online event, In the Living Room with the Open Education Network and MIT OpenCourseWare – Two Highlighted Resources, will feature one open textbook from the OEN’s Open Textbook Library and one example of an open course offered by MIT OCW.

The Publishing Cooperative Advisory Group is a standing group created by the Open Education Network (OEN) in 2023 to support our community’s evolving interests and initiatives in publishing open educational resources. 

In its first two years, the eight-member Advisory Group has taken a visionary, strategic, and action-oriented approach to recognize the community’s publishing needs and develop pathways to address them together.

At the Open Education Network (OEN) community’s September Tea Time, the Publishing Cooperative Advisory Group announced it has completed revisions to the OER Publishing Toolkit. Since forming in 2023, the Advisory Group has been working to update and expand the existing toolkit into two new openly licensed toolkits, which are now available for those interested in publishing open educational resources (OER). 

This summer, the Open Education Network (OEN) is excited to launch its Ketida and Open Textbook Planner Pilot. The pilot will provide members with an opportunity to use the web-based book production platform to create new open textbooks and to share what they learn with the broader community. 

Host Karen Lauritsen of the Open Education Network is joined by Christina Tromp, Coko Foundation project manager, to review and discuss the Open Textbook Planner and Ketida publishing tools.

Sheryl Shook's first openly licensed textbook features chapters she researched and wrote on sleep wellness, circadian rhythm, dreams, sleep disorders, and more. For each topic, she would start by thinking, what do I want my students to learn? What do I want my students to be able to do when they’re done with this class?”