Research in progress: the institution as e-textbook publisher

The advent of e-book and open access publishing has not yet been as potent as some would hope (and others fear) in its disruption of commercial textbook publishing. However, universities are under increasing pressure to provide students with all the resources they need for their courses, without further cost to the student. Jisc is funding four teams to produce eight e-textbooks to test the processes, expertise required and outcomes when universities take on the job of publishing course texts themselves. With five books now published, and two years since the start of the project, some of the differences in the strategies adopted by the teams are starting to emerge. Teams have reflected on what they have learned and might change if they published more titles, and offer some advice for others considering similar projects.