Advanced Content Authoring and Reporting - Getting Started with Pressbooks to author interactive modules
Pressbooks can be used to author and host basic course content with interactivity as well as more advanced content authoring and reporting (ACAR) features (such as H5P activities, Hypothes.is annotations and reporting).
These ACAR features are only recommended for technically advanced instructors or instructors with additional support. If you are interested in these more advanced features, please request a consultation from Learn@UW-Madison.
This document outlines steps needed to author interactive modules with Pressbooks and embed them in a Canvas course.
Pressbooks lets you author texts for both the web and also in formats like PDF, Mobi, and EPUB. UW-Madison has also invested in developing and integrating plugins with Pressbooks which allow users to create interactive modules with Pressbooks. This document contains an outline of the steps needed to author interactive modules with Pressbooks and embed those modules in a Canvas course. If you are more interested in using Pressbooks for its core book authoring capability please see Pressbooks - Overview (UW-Madison) .
Using Pressbooks to author interactive modules
While the features of Pressbooks allowing users to author texts, create interactive content, and embed that content into Canvas is fairly stable, the integration which allows grades to be sent to the Canvas gradebook (grade-passback) is not. To use grade-passback, users must do a fair amount of configuration and due to frequent updates to different pieces of software, it's possible for grade-passback to abruptly stop working.
Because of the complexity of the grade-passback functionality, we recommend that users new to Pressbooks request a consultation with the Learn@UW-Madison team via the DoIT Help Desk before embarking in the use of Pressbooks with these additional interactive features. KB documents loosely following common steps in the process are outlined in the steps below.
- Step 1: Request a Pressbooks account. To request a Pressbooks account, contact the DoIT Help Desk. Please include your netID and a brief description of how you plan to use Pressbooks. You will receive an email within 1-2 business day to reset your password for your new account. Once you have reset the password, you can sign into Pressbooks at wisc.pb.unizin.org.
- Step 2: Advanced Content Authoring and Reporting - How to create interactive content in Pressbooks with H5P
- Step 3: Advanced Content Authoring and Reporting - How to export a Pressbook as a Thin Common Cartridge for use in Canvas
- Step 4: Advanced Content Authoring and Reporting - Importing a Pressbooks Thin Common Cartridge file into your Canvas course
- Step 5: Advanced Content Authoring and Reporting - Configure Pressbooks and the Learning Locker Learning Record Store (LRS)
- Step 6: Advanced Content Authoring and Reporting - Manually pushing a grade from Pressbooks to the Canvas gradebook and setting up auto-sync
- Step 7: Advanced Content Authoring and Reporting - Requesting Student Activity Data From Pressbooks
If you have questions about the instructions in this document, please reach out to the DoIT Help Desk.