Dear EdTech Books Authors (including those on EquityPress and institutional sites),

Thanks for all of your work in providing free resources to students over the past few years!

As we're now coming to the 5th year of the existence of our platform, the time has come to make some long-necessary updates and changes to the system. I started building EdTech Books as a side project in 2018 and gradually added new features and functionality over time. As time has gone on, technologies have changed to the point that for the longevity of the platform, a massive update has been needed to ensure ongoing security, stability, and extended development.

Over the last few months, I have not made any updates to the EdTech Books platform (which I informally dubbed version 2.0), because I've been focusing all of my efforts on building the next generation of the platform: version 3.0. As I've developed 3.0, I've been caught between the tension of giving users the most up-to-date version of the system (that may still have bugs and limited functionality) or to leave them with the old system, which is no longer being updated. For this reason, I've waited to release version 3.0 until I felt it had all of the core functionality necessary for readers to access the content that we all have come to rely on, but this also comes with the reality that the newest version may not have every editing feature provided in the previous.

I've learned a lot with all of you over the past 5 years about what makes a good open publishing platform, and my goal is to incorporate all of these experiences into the new 3.0 version. Most of the changes in 3.0 are on the back-end and will be invisible to users. Though I am using some new interface libraries (e.g., Bootstrap 5.3) to make the experience better for everyone, the overall structure of the platform remains about the same.

What Is Staying the Same

All core content access and navigation is staying the same. This means that your links should all still work and that readers will be able to access your content as they always have.

What May Be (Temporarily) Missing

Some non-core features will be added gradually as I finish bug-testing them and transferring them to version 3.0. The anticipation, however, is that all valuable features of version 2.0 will be available in 3.0 by August 2023, accompanied by new version 3.0 features as well. Some of these features include the following:

• The Review tab
• Translations
• Audio generation
  
• URL Shortening
• Local saving of images

What Is Permanently Changing

In this shift, some features that were not heavily used in 2.0 will be removed, and some approaches will be updated. Here is a list of changes to expect:

• The classic editor and proofing tool are going away in favor of an updated Tiny inline editor. This will bring the best of all worlds by making editing both intuitive and powerful.
• Flights will be removed. This was a great idea, but it had limited use and caused more problems than it solved.
• Library navigation has been improved to provide more options.
• Language throughout the platform has shifted from referring to "Books" and "Chapters" to "Publications" and "Content" to be more inclusive of other formats.
• Autosaving has been added to the editor.

What Is Coming in the Future

One of the reasons for such a massive shift is that it allows us to plan better for the future and to add even greater features moving forward. Some of these features will include the following:

• Improved performance and speed
• ePub generation
• Offline access
• Additional login options

Let Me Know What You Need

As with any massive change, however, there may be growing pains. As you find things that are broken or features that you need, please log them on the EdTech Books Version 3.0 Feature Requests and Fixes document. This will cut down on emails and also allow everyone interested to see how things are progressing.

Feature Requests and Fixes Form

All the best,

Royce Kimmons
Founder, EdTech Books