About the Washington Open ProfTech Project

The Washington Open ProfTech project aims to build high-quality open textbooks for the in-demand professional technical programs of the Washington Community and Technical Colleges. The project was awarded $1.8 million from the 2021 Open Textbook Pilot Grant from the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE), a U.S. Department of Education program. The project received additional funding of $2.1 million through the 2023 Open Textbook Pilot grant expanding the project. The project is developing a wide range of open textbooks for professional technical programs, including welding, machining, early childhood education, hospitality, public health, information technology, criminal justice, programming, cybersecurity, medical ethics, computer-aided design, and business math.

Members

The Washington Open ProfTech project has been established, maintained, and supported by the dedication of an incredible team and partners since 2021.

Project Leadership

• Boyoung Chae, Project Director | Monique Belair, Project Manager | Ashley Montenegro-Ramirez, Project Manager

Project Support Team

• Instructional Designers
  Nicholas Taylor | Colleen Sanders | Quill West
• Open Educational Resources (OER) and Copyright Support
  Katherine Kelley | Jennifer Snoek-Brown | Rowena McKernan | Di Zhang
• Accessibility Support
  Debbie Kuhlmann | Sheila Northrop
• Final Revision Support
  Kathy Chatfield | Shasta Pettijohn | Bobi Foster-Grahler

Project Support Team

• Jonathan Poritz (Content migration to Pressbooks) | Nicholas Malara (Illustration) | Ezra Leigh (Graphic Design) | Sally Hanson (Workforce connection)

Partners

• Washington Skills Centers | Washington Centers of Excellence | Washington State Labor Council | Washington Workforce Training & Education Coordinating Board | Association of Washington Business

Accessibility Statement

The Washington Open ProfTech Project is committed to accessibility and believes in eliminating barriers that hinder students’ learning. All textbooks and web versions of our learning materials follow accessible web design best practices to meet the W3C-WAI Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 at Level AA. To achieve this goal, we have intentionally selected Pressbooks as our publication platform (See the latest VPATs for Reading and Authoring platforms). The project has also developed and implemented an Accessibility Checklist to assist authors in creating accessible content.

Inclusivity Statement

The Washington Open profTech Project is committed to developing our textbooks free of bias and perpetuating prejudicial beliefs or demeaning attitudes. To ensure this goal, the project actively employs the Bias-Free Language guidelines by APA through training, communication, and peer review. Through this guideline, we will ensure that authors will (1) clearly recognize individual characteristics to be mindful of, including age, disability, gender, racial, and ethnic identity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, and intersectionality, (2) identify and replace biased language with inclusive alternatives, and (3) recognize and address unconscious biases that may influence language use.

Terms of Use

Unless noted otherwise, all textbooks and ancillary materials created for the Washington Open ProfTech project are released under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license, which allows free public access and repurposing. Please note that some textbooks may include all-rights-reserved copyrighted resources used with permission; in such cases, you should contact the original authors if you wish to adapt their works. Additionally, textbooks may include openly licensed resources with stricter terms. Please respect and comply with the copyright terms of individual resources, as noted separately.

Below is our preferred attribution notice for adopting content from the Washington Open ProfTech textbooks. If you are citing it for scholarly works such as journals or textbooks, please feel free to follow the designated style guide, such as APA or MLA.

1.1 A (Very) Brief History of Welding from Introduction to Welding by Kjeldgaard et al. Sponsored by WA Open ProfTech, SBCTC, CC BY 4.0.