zyBooks

zyBooks publishes interactive textbooks that utilizes animations and embedded tools.

zyBooks was started in 2012 by Smita Bakshi and Frank Vahid. Frank is a Computer Science and Engineering professor at the University of California, Riverside, and Smita, prior to her 10 years in the high-tech industry, and was a UC Davis Electrical Computer Engineering professor.We started zyBooks to help college STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) students graduate. More than half of STEM students don't achieve their STEM degrees, and many students are tripped up by their early STEM classes. Part of the problem is the huge mismatch between today's students and traditional (and increasingly expensive and bloated) textbooks, forcing instructors to teach with one hand tied behind their back. Meanwhile, the real power of the web for learning—interactivity—has barely been tapped. So, we started creating zyBooks—STEM material native for the web—using 'less text, more action.' zyBooks have minimal text, and instead consist of question sets, animations, interactive tools, and embedded homework, so students can learn by doing. We developed a platform to author, deliver, and continually support and improve zyBooks, vowing to always do right by the student and instructor. We keep prices as low as possible, provide the best support we can, and make the zyBook platform easy to use for students and instructors. zyBooks are collaboratively authored by talented teams of professors, content developers and software engineers. Professors include Roman Lysecky (University of Arizona), Sandy Irani (UC Irvine), and Andre Knoesen & Raj Amirtharajah (UC Davis). Starting with just a handful of universities in 2012, our computer science and engineering zyBooks are now used at over 200 colleges and universities and a few dozen high schools.