What is this もの referring to?

Question

This sentence is found in the author's introduction to a Japanese listening study book.
本書「中～上級編」は、こうした学習者の会話能力の底上げのために日本語教室で５年以上にわたり、１０００人以上の学習者に使われてきたものを修正し改良を加えたものです。
My translation: "To help raise the conversational skills of these students, this intermediate~advanced edition is the result of correcting and improving more than 1000 students' _________ over more than 5 years in classrooms."
Is もの supposed to be referring to the classroom teaching materials? The homework? I'm not clear what it's referring to or how it became the origin of this book.

naruto · Answer

First, please check which is the relative clause that modifies the もの in question. The comma after わたり is part of the relative clause that modifies もの.

本書「中～上級編」は、（こうした学習者の会話能力の底上げのために日本語教室で５年以上にわたり、１０００人以上の学習者に使われてきた→）ものを修正し改良を加えたものです。
This Intermediate–Advanced Edition is a modified and improved version of もの (←which has been used for more than 5 years by more than 1000 learners to help raise the conversational skills of such learners).

So this もの refers to some learning material (教材) that has been used by the authors' institutes for a long time. It may or may not be previously published.

What is this もの referring to?

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