UF’s size can make it hard to connect with the right experts on campus, but the Affordable UF team has been working hard over the past several years to build up an affordable textbook creation and publishing program driven by instructors in partnership with librarians, instructional designers, and publishers. Two books from the College of Engineering are nearing completion. We spoke to instructors and students about these projects during Giving Day 2021.
Impact of Materials on Society
This interdisciplinary course draws on scholarship in the humanities—from history, anthropology, classics, and other disciplines—to explore the cultural significance of materials such as clay, steel, and plastic.
Engineering Capstone Design
An important attribute of the OER text is emphasis on engineering design case studies borrowed from real capstone projects as opposed to examples taken from industry. This emphasis, unique among engineering design texts, is intended to improve the content’s intellectual accessibility for students by framing design problems in contexts relevant to their experience.
This builds on expertise from the Libraries, including the LibraryPress@UF publishing imprint, the Center for Teaching Excellence, the Center for Instructional Training and Technology, the University Press of Florida, and many academic departments invested in this issue.