This is my submission to the TLT 2018 Open Innovation Challenge.

We have amazing capabilities and solutions available to us as an R1 research institution. But like many of fellow institutions, we suffer from the scale of our own success. The recent IT Transformation audit highlighted a duplication of efforts and lack of cohesive user experience that arises from us have many systems bought and built for serving faculty and student needs.

That is why I am proposing we develop a desktop app version of a technology we call HAX.

HAX, short for Headless Authoring Experience, is an authoring solution that can bridges platforms in order create a pathway toward a more sustainable, cohesive user experience in a platform agnostic manner. Imagine the best features of Canvas, Drupal, ELMS, Plone, Pressbooks, Evolution and more but available to anyone to use regardless of access to those platforms. It may sound pie in the sky, but HAX is illustrating this possibility already in College of Arts and Architecture and Eberly College of Science.

HAX also creates a unified way to find, create, remix and distribute content. It is currently implemented into 7 different platforms and can do in-place searching of YouTube, NASA Images, Wikipedia, Google Poly and more. HAX's ability to integrate remote content sources inline could allow faculty to search Kaltura, Office 365 and anything else through one consistent interface.

By creating an authoring solution that works anywhere, via the new mobile / desktop app, we could democratize the production of OER and closed course content while radically improving quality and experience.