This week marks an exciting moment in the history and future of Rebus Community. Even as we re-launch our open textbook publishing platform today, we’re working on future changes that will make it ever more robust, inclusive, and dynamic. We want it to be both useful and inspirational, a landing pad and a launch pad at once. We want new ideas about OER to emerge from here, as well as great textbooks that generate ideas about all sorts of other themes, evolutions, and revolutions. And of course, we also want the Rebus Community to grow, and for its members to become ever more interconnected.
In addition to the new features of our renovated discussion space, we have refreshed the Rebus visual identity. This includes a stylized version of our logo (the “incuse” or imprinted coin image), a couple of very readable and attractive fonts, and some new colours and graphics. The different parts of our platform share these elements, and we hope it creates a more unified feel.
Over the coming weeks, we have planned a number of events to share both the highlights and quiet corners of the Rebus Community. These activities are listed below, and we’ll keep sharing details about them through our newsletter and Twitter feed.
Through these events, we hope you’ll get to know the new spaces of the platform and make them yours. And then invite your friends and colleagues to get to know them too! Join us, read our posts and updates, and keep telling us what you need and want. This is all about making a platform that helps you make great things happen.
Here’s what we have planned:
- March 26: the Rebus Community platform re-launch—create a profile and poke around!
- March 28: a new blog post from Rebus founder Hugh McGuire—focused on the importance of people when making change.
- March 28: a video tour of the platform with Apurva Ashok—find out where to start and how to find your way around.
- April 2: our online housewarming party!
- two “feedback-a-thons” with the Rebus team at 10:00 am EDT / 2:00 pm UTC and 3:00 pm EDT / 7:00 pm UTC: bring your project ideas and we’ll give you recommendations on how to move them forward.
- “After Hours” with Hugh at 4:30 pm EDT / 8:30 pm UTC: an informal chat about books, the open web, and building community through collaboration.
- Ongoing: videos, blog posts, and Twitterage
- our “Making Open Textbooks” video series, with fortnightly updates
- our “People of Rebus” blog series, with posts from the team