Welcome to a new season of the Travels with Terence series! We pick up following our digital projects editor as he tours the country, conducting in-person training for the Manifold pilot program.

Terence kicked off the trainings for the second-round pilots in Washington, DC, at the Masters of Professional Studies in Publishing, College of Professional Studies, George Washington University, headed up by John Warren. The program prepares people for careers at the forefront of the profession, training students in hybrid technologies of print and digital publishing. With their ongoing professional training in the midst of the rapid economic and technological changes to production, distribution, and consumption of texts, the GW program brings a different perspective to Manifold.

John and Terence began planning for this meeting back in June when they had the opportunity to meet up at the annual AUPresses meeting in Detroit. They structured their time last week around building a solid foundation for how the platform works and understanding its full potential in the classroom. Moving forward, they’ll be engaging with teachers and students on a more granular level as they begin to use the system to structure and conduct their studies. As they talked about upcoming features, one in particular garnered significant interest: reading and annotation groups, debuting in a few weeks time with the release of Manifold version 4.0. With reading and annotation groups, users will be able to create and curate custom public or private groups as a means to collectively engage with materials in the Manifold reader, either for classroom or peer-review purposes. Being able to create those groups and foster a commenting community was something the GW team sees as being valuable both in their program and, potentially, across the university.

Beautiful morning here in DC. It was a treat run around the Capitol and Lincoln Memorial in the first light of the day. Though the spell was broken a bit when a duck almost flew into my face. Never had one fly straight at me before. Too funny!

— Terence Smyre (@tremayning) August 29, 2019

Manifold’s commitment to openness also aligns with the program’s mission. Manifold’s flexibility on top of structural integrity suits it to a variety of publishing outcomes; aspiring publishing professionals have a chance to work through the theoretical questions and practical concerns within an open source platform.

John Warren commented:

The Masters in Publishing program at George Washington University has always had a strong technology component. We are very interested in developments in open source monograph publishing. Manifold will offer students in the program, both in-person and online, invaluable hands-on experience with an exciting digital tool that truly extends what a book is and can be. Our vision is that Manifold will also help enable our program to become a vital publisher and press.

Following their last training session, Terence remarked:

It was an absolute pleasure to spend the last two days with @john_w_warren and the @gwpubs team. I can't wait to hear what your students think of @ManifoldScholar and see the exciting projects they create!

— Terence Smyre (@tremayning) August 29, 2019

The George Washington University Publishing Master of Professional Studies Program was designed to help current and aspiring professionals “master the skills required for traditional print publishing as well as online and electronic publishing.” Read more on their website, or connect with them on Twitter or Facebook.

• Miles Travelled: 929
• Culinary highlights: For lunch on the second day, John and Terence found their way to Founding Farmers, where Terence had his first opportunity to try an Impossible Burger—guilt free and yummy. Pairing it with fresh greens was unexpectedly delightful.
• On the Run: DC has a fantastic running community. Terence was excited to tap into that energy and get in a few runs around all the government buildings and monuments. And because he’s a huge nerd, Terence couldn’t not think of the X-Files as he ran past the J. Edgar Hoover Building.

Thanks for reading! Feel free to reach out on the community Slack channel, tweet us at @manifoldscholar, and follow along on Github for more details and to request features.