2: Building Remixing Maps
- Page ID
- 484082
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\(\newcommand{\avec}{\mathbf a}\) \(\newcommand{\bvec}{\mathbf b}\) \(\newcommand{\cvec}{\mathbf c}\) \(\newcommand{\dvec}{\mathbf d}\) \(\newcommand{\dtil}{\widetilde{\mathbf d}}\) \(\newcommand{\evec}{\mathbf e}\) \(\newcommand{\fvec}{\mathbf f}\) \(\newcommand{\nvec}{\mathbf n}\) \(\newcommand{\pvec}{\mathbf p}\) \(\newcommand{\qvec}{\mathbf q}\) \(\newcommand{\svec}{\mathbf s}\) \(\newcommand{\tvec}{\mathbf t}\) \(\newcommand{\uvec}{\mathbf u}\) \(\newcommand{\vvec}{\mathbf v}\) \(\newcommand{\wvec}{\mathbf w}\) \(\newcommand{\xvec}{\mathbf x}\) \(\newcommand{\yvec}{\mathbf y}\) \(\newcommand{\zvec}{\mathbf z}\) \(\newcommand{\rvec}{\mathbf r}\) \(\newcommand{\mvec}{\mathbf m}\) \(\newcommand{\zerovec}{\mathbf 0}\) \(\newcommand{\onevec}{\mathbf 1}\) \(\newcommand{\real}{\mathbb R}\) \(\newcommand{\twovec}[2]{\left[\begin{array}{r}#1 \\ #2 \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\ctwovec}[2]{\left[\begin{array}{c}#1 \\ #2 \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\threevec}[3]{\left[\begin{array}{r}#1 \\ #2 \\ #3 \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\cthreevec}[3]{\left[\begin{array}{c}#1 \\ #2 \\ #3 \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\fourvec}[4]{\left[\begin{array}{r}#1 \\ #2 \\ #3 \\ #4 \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\cfourvec}[4]{\left[\begin{array}{c}#1 \\ #2 \\ #3 \\ #4 \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\fivevec}[5]{\left[\begin{array}{r}#1 \\ #2 \\ #3 \\ #4 \\ #5 \\ \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\cfivevec}[5]{\left[\begin{array}{c}#1 \\ #2 \\ #3 \\ #4 \\ #5 \\ \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\mattwo}[4]{\left[\begin{array}{rr}#1 \amp #2 \\ #3 \amp #4 \\ \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\laspan}[1]{\text{Span}\{#1\}}\) \(\newcommand{\bcal}{\cal B}\) \(\newcommand{\ccal}{\cal C}\) \(\newcommand{\scal}{\cal S}\) \(\newcommand{\wcal}{\cal W}\) \(\newcommand{\ecal}{\cal E}\) \(\newcommand{\coords}[2]{\left\{#1\right\}_{#2}}\) \(\newcommand{\gray}[1]{\color{gray}{#1}}\) \(\newcommand{\lgray}[1]{\color{lightgray}{#1}}\) \(\newcommand{\rank}{\operatorname{rank}}\) \(\newcommand{\row}{\text{Row}}\) \(\newcommand{\col}{\text{Col}}\) \(\renewcommand{\row}{\text{Row}}\) \(\newcommand{\nul}{\text{Nul}}\) \(\newcommand{\var}{\text{Var}}\) \(\newcommand{\corr}{\text{corr}}\) \(\newcommand{\len}[1]{\left|#1\right|}\) \(\newcommand{\bbar}{\overline{\bvec}}\) \(\newcommand{\bhat}{\widehat{\bvec}}\) \(\newcommand{\bperp}{\bvec^\perp}\) \(\newcommand{\xhat}{\widehat{\xvec}}\) \(\newcommand{\vhat}{\widehat{\vvec}}\) \(\newcommand{\uhat}{\widehat{\uvec}}\) \(\newcommand{\what}{\widehat{\wvec}}\) \(\newcommand{\Sighat}{\widehat{\Sigma}}\) \(\newcommand{\lt}{<}\) \(\newcommand{\gt}{>}\) \(\newcommand{\amp}{&}\) \(\definecolor{fillinmathshade}{gray}{0.9}\)Before using the OER Remixer, it is important to construct a Remixing Map. This can take many forms and does not need to be constructed online. In essence it is a table of contents for your remix and a good place to start would be the ToC of a textbook that you like.
Two words of warning before you get started
- The largest book that the LibreTexts online bookstore can provide a hard copy of is 800 pages.
- Some people have tried to build books which were piles of books. This can be done, but at some point the system chokes and no pdfs can be provided at all.
In both cases the solution may be to remix several books.
Book Structure
It is best to have a flat structure
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and not something with sub sub sub pages which can get lost if moved in re-remixing and other bad things, besides looking ugly on a table of contents.
Finding Open Materials for Building Your Book
Among the largest barriers to adopting OER is the difficulty of finding what you want and the belief that there are no resources for your subject. If you are using LibreTexts there is the additional issue of finding material that you can remix from in LibreTexts (LibreTexts has over 500,000 pages to search through and there are probably several million open pages that could be used). Finding the material on LibreTexts makes remixing much easier but we have teams and automated software that can help you bring in materials that LibreTexts does not have. That is, of course, one of the ways that LibreTexts has grown.
Building a Remixing Map starts with identifying what you need. That could be a table of contents is a book you like, or one in a LibreTexts Library.
There are two ways to search for materials in LibreTexts. The first is to use the search box at the top of every LibreTexts page. This has the advantage that it searches not only the Campus Bookshelves and the community Bookshelves, but also books that are under construction in the Workbench and those that have been delisted as newer editions came on line.
The other is to insert site:libretexts.org into a search string on your favorite browser. This is useful if, for example, you have found some OER materials and want to see whether they have been brought into LibreTexts. You can take a sentence or phrase out of the book you are interested in, enclose it in quotes and add the site tag. Your search string would look like this
site:libretexts.org "One of our main goals in mathematics is to model the real world with mathematical functions"
If there is nothing in LibreTexts you want use or you want to see if there is additional open material you can use one of the OER finders.
Your favorite librarian probably has (online) a library guide (and expertise) to help you.
A useful tactic is to insert CC-BY and CC0 into your search string. Any page that carries a Creative Commons license and your search string will be found. While there are other open licenses, such as the GNU public license, Creative Commons is today the most usual one and almost all CC licenses start with CC-BY.
CC-BY CC0 "A function is a rule for a relationship between an input, or independent, quantity and an output"
Of course, you may have your own open materials that can be included in the book. Having identified the sources for your LibreTexts you are ready to build the remixing map
Remixing Maps
Remixing maps are best assembled in a spreadsheet, for example
or
Lubbock Christian University created an excellent excel sheet to help out in this procedure for their general chemistry course and an image of this excel sheet is shown below. The gist of this map is to identify the content in the libraries (green) that will map into the organization of the new remix (yellow). This requires faculty/instructional designers to explicitly peruse the Bookshelves of Source texts and of other Course Remixes to identify desired content.
Once remixed, these pages can be edited. The Remixing Map reflects only the initial organization of a custom remix. Notice the customized organization; there is no limit other than imagination and the size/makeup of the LibreTexts libraries. While the Remixing Map does not demonstrate it, it is possible to make placeholder pages in the Remixer if a gap exists in the libraries. New custom content can be added to these pages once the text is created or new open material brought into LibreTexts.
While it is easy to remix content that already is on LibreTexts, the LibreTexts team will bring in open material for you, although this may take some time, depending on the format of the materials and the amount of work that has to be done for such things as equations, images, accessibility issues, etc. Priority is given to materials for institutions that are members of the Libretexts Network. Requests can be made at https://harvest.libretexts.org.
Thumbnail is by Niwreg159 at Deviant Art CC-BY-ND 3.0