About Washington Open
Overview
Washington Open ProfTech is a statewide initiative dedicated to developing high-quality open textbooks for the in-demand professional and technical programs offered across Washington’s community and technical colleges. The project was initially awarded $1.8 million through the 2021 Open Textbook Pilot Grant from the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE), a program of the U.S. Department of Education. In 2023, it received an additional $2.1 million, supporting the project’s expansion and continued impact.
The initiative is producing a wide range of openly licensed textbooks to support workforce-aligned education in fields such as welding, machining, early childhood education, hospitality, public health, information technology, criminal justice, programming, cybersecurity, medical ethics, computer-aided design, and business math.
Since its launch in 2021, the Washington Open ProfTech project has been sustained by a dedicated team of educators, designers, and collaborators.
Project Leadership
Boyoung Chae — Project Director
Monique Belair — Project Manager for Grant 2
Ashley Montenegro-Ramirez — Project Manager for Grant 1
Kayley Cruz — Project Specialist
Instructional Design Team
Nicholas Taylor
Colleen Sanders
Quill West
OER & 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
Additional Project Support
Jonathan Poritz — Content Migration (Pressbooks)
Nicholas Malara — Illustration
Ezra Leigh — Graphic Design
Sally Hanson — Workforce Connections
Partners
Washington Skills Centers
Washington Centers of Excellence
Washington State Labor Council
Washington Workforce Training & Education Coordinating Board
Association of Washington Business
The Washington Open ProfTech project is committed to accessibility and to removing barriers that hinder student learning. All textbooks and digital learning materials are designed following best practices in accessible web design, conforming to the W3C-WAI Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 at Level AA.
To support this commitment, the project uses Pressbooks as its primary publication platform (see current VPATs for both Reading and Authoring platforms). An internally developed Accessibility Checklist also guides authors and editors in producing inclusive, accessible content.
Our Accessibility Measures
Measure 1 — Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt.
Measure 2 — Uelet laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat.
Measure 3 — Ut wisi Fenim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
Measure 4 — Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat.
Unless otherwise noted, all textbooks and accompanying materials created under the Washington Open ProfTech project are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license. This allows for free use, adaptation, and redistribution, provided appropriate attribution is given.
Some textbooks may include content under different licensing terms, including all-rights-reserved materials used with permission. In such cases, users should contact the original authors for adaptation requests. Additionally, certain resources may carry more restrictive open licenses—please follow the specific terms indicated within each resource.
Attribution Example
Below is the preferred attribution format for using or adapting content from Washington Open ProfTech textbooks. For academic citations (e.g., in journals or textbooks), please follow the appropriate citation style (APA, MLA, etc.).
1.1 What is Machining? from Introduction to Machining by Jennings et al. sponsored by WA Open ProfTech, SBCTC, CC BY 4.0.
