Ximera is a free and open-source platform for creating and sharing interactive online course materials.

The Ximera Project (pronounced chimera, with a Greek chi) is a free and open-source platform for creating and sharing interactive online course materials. The goal of Ximera is to make it easier for authors familiar with LaTeX to create interactive online content and to provide educators and researchers with quantitative data on student performance and involvement.

Key features of our platform include

  • A content conversion tool and LaTeX document class. Ximera gives authors the ability to create a single LaTeX document that can be compiled as both a PDF and an HTML file. This allows authors to create course materials that can be used as handouts or as interactive webpages.
  • Web hosting and content repository. All online content generated using Ximera will be hosted for free. In doing so, the goal is to encourage the creation of a large community of active authors that can generate and share course materials without the worry of more technical issues.
  • A JavaScript library. Having created quite a few interactive elements already with JavaScript, Ximera also acts as a library providing common functionality that can be used to produce virtual manipulatives. Authors can contribute to the library or borrow from it to enhance their own course materials.
  • Modular content. Ximera gives educators the ability to pick and choose from the course materials available online, allowing for the construction of custom courses.
  • Feedback through data analysis. Ximera does more than just act as a hosting site for authors and educators, it also has a powerful backend that collects data and analyses how students interact with the content. Educators and researchers can receive feedback from students on a variety of different statistics, from basic mean computations on a set of questions to the amount of time students spend interacting with a particular manipulative.
Support Ximera

Building the backend technology, providing the servers, and handling the technical issues for our educators all require the work of many people---all that ultimately means that Ximera depends on you. If you are interested in partnering with Ximera to provide education technology to the world, please contact us.

To get involved right away, there are several simple things you can do.

  • Download our LaTeX tools from GitHub and use them to write a LaTeX document and try our conversion process.
  • Write JavaScript interactive elements and share them with others.
  • Download our source code from GitHub and contribute to the content conversion tool.