OER at City Tech

Tag: Manifold

11/17 – Manifold Workshop and Drop-in Office Hour

Curious about the free digital publishing platform Manifold available for the entire CUNY community? Join Robin Miller, Open Educational Technologist at The Graduate Center, next week for the last Manifold Workshop and Drop-in Office Hour of 2025!

Introduction to Manifold Workshop

Date: Monday, 11/17/2025 

Time: 11 AM-12:30 PM

Registration Link: https://gc-cuny-edu.zoom.us/meeting/register/ZnSmy2MuRGSkndKRUj17tw

Please join us for a 1.5-hour Introduction to Manifold workshop. In the first part of the workshop we will provide an overview of the Manifold digital publishing platform and explore how it is being used at CUNY to create beautiful, dynamic, multimedia digital projects and Open Educational Resources (OER) such as custom versions of public domain texts, multi-text course readers, class projects, and journals. In the second part of the workshop participants will create their own Manifold Project, learn how to customize the layout of their Project, add Texts and Resources, and use Manifold’s built-in Social Annotation. 

Manifold Drop-in Office Hour

Date: Wednesday, 11/19/2025

Time: 2-3 PM

Zoom Link: https://gc-cuny-edu.zoom.us/j/83353767360?pwd=AfytL2IHKQ9sKKErtW4qrhmEqBNQAp.1

Do you have a question about using Manifold? Then join us for our November drop-in office hour! This is an informal way for you to meet with the CUNY Manifold team and ask a question, no registration necessary.

Manifold Spring Semester 2025 Events

We’re excited to share the Spring 2025 schedule of workshops, community events, and drop-in co-working sessions for theĀ CUNY Manifold digital publishing platform, presented by Robin Miller, Open Educational Technologist for Digital Initiatives at the Graduate Center. Below are the details for each event:

WORKSHOPS

Introduction to Manifold

February 14, 2025, 12–2 PM

February 14 registration link

March 14, 2025, 12–2 PM 

March 14 registration link

Please join us for a 2-hour workshop. In the first hour, we will provide an overview of the Manifold digital publishing platform and explore how it is being used at CUNY to create beautiful, dynamic, multimedia digital projects and Open Educational Resources (OER) such asĀ custom versions of public domain texts,Ā multi-text course readers,Ā class projects, andĀ journals.Ā The second hour of the workshop will be hands-on, and participants will create their own Manifold projects, learn how to customize the landing page layout, add text, and create a resource. We will provide all the digital materials needed but participants are welcome to use their own EPUBS, Word (.docx) files, Google docs, images, YouTube videos, etc.Ā No prior experience with digital publishing is required.Ā A Manifold Project Creator account is required for this workshop.Ā Please sign up for a Manifold Reader account first (click the SIGN UP link)Ā andĀ then request to become a Project Creator (click the Project Creator Request link) on the CUNY Manifold home pageĀ beforeĀ you register for this workshop.

Customizing Your Manifold Project Layout with Markdown Content Blocks

February 19, 2025, 12–1:30 PM

February 19 registration link

Level up your Manifold game with Markdown Content Blocks! Join the Manifold Team for a 1.5-hour workshop where we will show you how to use Markdown and a little bit of HTML to add content to your Manifold Project home page, including adding images, audio, video, lists (bullets and numbers), bold, italic, and URLs. Prior attendance in an Introduction to Manifold workshop and experience creating a Manifold Project are strongly encouraged.  

A Manifold Project Creator account is required for this workshop.Ā Please sign up for a Manifold Reader account first (click the SIGN UP link)Ā andĀ then request to become a Project Creator (click the Project Creator Request link) on the CUNY Manifold home pageĀ beforeĀ you register for this workshop.

Teaching with Manifold: An Overview

March 17, 2025, 11 AM–12:30 PM 

March 17 Registration link

Discover the possibilities of teaching with Manifold! This workshop will provide an overview of how Manifold has been used in the classroom, featuring examples that cover creating syllabi and course readers; building course readers with existing projects; utilizing Manifold’s annotation tools and reading groups; designing assignments around resource collection; and publishing students’ work on the platform. 

No prior experience with digital publishing is required. Signing up for a Manifold Reader account prior to the workshop is strongly encouraged.  

Customizing your Manifold Text with Stylesheets

April 4, 2025, 12–2 PM

April 4 registration link

Have you created a Manifold Text and thought, some things look wonky, how can I make them look better? Are you curious about Microsoft Word Styles? Are you curious about how to use Microsoft Word Styles in Manifold? If the answer is yes to any of these questions, then this workshop is for you! Join us for a 2-hour workshop where we will teach you how to style your Manifold Text using Microsoft Word Styles and Manifold Stylesheets. Prior attendance in an Introduction to Manifold workshop and experience creating a Manifold Project and Text are strongly encouraged. 

A Manifold Project Creator account is required for this workshop.Ā Please sign up for a Manifold Reader account first (click the SIGN UP link)Ā andĀ then request to become a Project Creator (click the Project Creator Request link) on the CUNY Manifold home pageĀ beforeĀ you register for this workshop.Ā Ā 

LUNCHTIME COMMUNITY EVENTS 
Location: The CUNY Graduate Center, 5th Floor, Room 5307 (feel free to bring your lunch!)

February 5, 2025, 12–1 PM

Join the Lost & Found team to explore how they publish the CUNY Pedagogy Series on Manifold. Dr. Kendra Sullivan (Center for the Humanities, CUNY Graduate Center) and Roxanne Shirazi (Mina Rees Library & CUNY Digital History Archive) will share how they use Manifold to digitally preserve and share archival and teaching materials from Audre LordeJune JordanToni Cade Bambara, and Adrienne Rich. Explore how Manifold’s multimedia support and collaborative annotation features help sustain a ā€œliving archiveā€ and foster dialogues among poets, thinkers, and their broader historical and cultural contexts. 

March 5, 2025, 12–1PM 

Interested in publishing digital dissertations on Manifold? Join us for a community event with Dr. Wendy Barrales (NYU), a former Manifold Graduate Fellow and the author of the first digital dissertation published on Manifold, searching for mami and abuelita: reimagining ethnic studies praxis through women of color feminisms, art, and archiving. Wendy’s dissertation showcases new possibilities for how the Manifold platform can support academic, oral history, and archival work. Learn how Wendy used Manifold’s features to design a unique interface and structure for her dissertation, facilitate peer review, and engage with public audiences!

April 2, 2025, 12–1PM  

Curious about building resource-rich projects on Manifold? Stefano Morello (American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning, CUNY Graduate Center) will share insights from his work on two projects: Let My People Know and the Italian American Studies Open Syllabus. Discover the collaborative process behind these digital publications—from initial conception and curating materials to creating media-rich, interactive collections. Learn how Stefano leveraged Manifold’s features to bring these projects to life and gain actionable strategies to develop your own project!    

Note: These community events are open to all CUNY students, staff, and faculty.Ā If you’re not based at the Graduate Center, you’ll need to present a current ID at the security desk to enter the building.


MONTHLY MANIFOLDĀ CO-WORKING SESSIONS Ā 
Location:Ā The CUNY Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue, 5th Floor, Room 5307
February 21, 2025, 12–2 PM
March 21, 2025, 12–2 PM
April 25, 2025, 12–2 PM
May 16, 2025, 12–2 PMĀ 

Join us for monthly in-person co-working sessions! Whether you’re starting a new digital project and want to test out Manifold, need expert guidance to overcome roadblocks in an existing project, or simply want focused co-working time with opportunities to ask questions and share Markdown or CSS tips, these sessions are for you! Our CUNY Manifold team will be on hand to provide support, answer questions, and collaborate with you. Feel free to join for the full two hours or drop in when it best suits your schedule.  

Note: If you’re not based at the Graduate Center, you’ll need to present a current ID at the security desk to enter the building.

Publishing with Manifold and Pressbooks at CUNY

On Wednesday January 26th, we heard presentations from our CUNY Libraries colleagues Robin Miller and Andrew McKinney on the digital publishing platforms Manifold and Pressbooks, respectively. Andy was joined by GSLIS fellows Elizabeth Arestyl and Rachel Nevins, who have been working together with Andy to help bring Pressbooks to CUNY.

Manifold

Robin started us off discussing Manifold, an online publishing platform that got its start in 2012, developed at the CUNY Graduate Center, in collaboration with the University of Minnesota Press and Cast Iron Coding.

It is a place to publish open electronic books, and soon journals, at CUNY.

Manifold can be used for:

  • Textbooks
  • Monographs
  • Student projects
    • Undergraduate work
    • Essay anthologies
  • Personal projects
  • Workbooks, manuals, and guides

Though it is not an editing platform, it’s possible to bring in many different types of resources to augment your Manifold book, such as:

  • Interactive Media
  • Data Visualizations
  • Video
  • Audio
  • Powerpoint presentations
  • Excel spreadsheets
  • PDFs

Manifold is also a responsive platform (as is the OpenLab), built for students, with accessibility in mind.

  • It is adaptable for phone, tablet, and laptop. Everything can be done on any of these devices.
  • Can be used with adaptive technologies

Projects on Manifold can be downloaded for offline use in the following formats:

  • EPUB
  • PDF

Many great projects on Manifold at CUNY include:

Support

Register for an account: Anyone with a CUNY affiliation can create projects on Manifold that can be shared around the world. You can collaborate with colleagues at other institutions and publish on Manifold, as long as one creator is connected to CUNY.

Robin Miller is available by email at rmiller2@gc.cuny.edu to set up meetings to discuss Manifold, answer questions, and work through ideas. She can also be available for presentations, workshops, and tutorials on Manifold.

PressBooks 

Next, we heard from the Pressbooks team which included Andrew McKinney, OER Coordinator at CUNY Office of Library Services, and Elizabeth Arestyl and Rachel Nevins, GSLIS fellows from Queens College. They introduced us to a new digital authoring and publishing platform at CUNY, Pressbooks, built on the popular WordPress platform.

As they are just getting started, the first publication for CUNY Pressbooks will be a how-to user guide for Pressbooks. Pressbooks, as a platform, spans a wide variety of resources across 112 networks. You can find open textbooks outside CUNY at the Pressbooks directory.

Pressbooks users can create a book, starting from scratch or importing an existing book. You can also clone a book from the Pressbooks network, to edit and customize to your teaching context. Editing and navigation of book content is through the WordPress editor and dashboard, so it will be familiar to those of you that have used the platform before. Two people can work on a book simultaneously, as long as it is not the same section.

Tools available on Pressbooks include:

  • H5P
    • Create interactive content such as quizzes and data visualizations

  • MathJax
    • Create and display mathematical equations within your text
    • Supports LaTeX, AsciiMath, and MathML
    • Use shortcodes to define LaTeX in the visual and text editors. MathJax does the rest.

  • Hypothes.is
    • An annotation tool for your textbook. Allows for instructors and students to include notes and highlights within a textbooks
    • Integrated into Pressbooks
    • Any users with Pressbooks account can add annotations
    • Annotations can be available for whole book or just parts of books
    • Can create private groups for just your class/students for annotations

Pressbooks can support LTI

  • There is an ability to have your Pressbooks book available on BlackBoard, though that functionality is not available yet
  • There is also a pilot for H5P tools to assess and push grading into BlackBoard

Support

Register for an account: Email Andy at andrew.mckinney@cuny.edu to create an account.

The Pressbooks User Guide is quite robust and can provide self-directed assistance.

If there are plug-ins that you need for your book that are not currently available, contact Andy McKinney who will discuss the possibility with PressBooks.