Creating, Licensing, and Publishing OER
Empire State College
Amanda Barnett
CC0
CHECKLIST 1: Look Before You Write
Before you begin, ask yourself these questions to make sure you understand and are prepared for the task ahead. Look for resources that might help answer your questions and record your thoughts as you conduct this research
| Completed | Initial Questions to Ask |
| What are the differences between an open and standard textbook? | |
| What is my writing experience? Make a list.
Where might I need help with a textbook? |
|
| Do I have concerns about releasing my textbook with an open-copyright license?
What are they? (Money? Loss of control of content? Won’t contribute to my professional development, advancement, and tenure?) |
|
| Do I fully understand how open-copyright licenses work?
Can I explain them to someone else? Do I have any concerns about using one? |
|
| Do I understand how plagiarism relates to an open textbook?
Can I explain this to someone else? |
|
| Do I understand all aspects of quality that affect a textbook?
Am I prepared to take all steps that ensure my textbook will be high quality? |
CHECKLIST 2: Prepare to Write
| Completed | Task | Details |
| Payment | What will your funding sources be?
What expenses will you incur during the process? |
|
| Copyright ownership | Who will have ownership of each piece of the OER? Text? Videos? Images? If you are working with others, be sure they are aware of creative commons licensing practices. | |
| License | Do research on creative commons license types so that you are aware of how you can use other’s work and how you want to share your own. | |
| Research | spend time researching your topic to be sure there aren’t other OERs that could be adapted to your purposes. | |
| Contributors | Authors?
Illustrators? Others? |
|
| Identify Support | Who can support you in this project? Educational technologists? Instructional designers? Librarians? | |
| Project Timeline | Create a timeline from initial questions through to publication | |
| Technology | Research and decide on an authoring platform, graphic-design software, and multimedia software.
Research Open Textbook Formats and decide which will work best for your writing, editing, and publishing needs. |
CHECKLIST 3: Plan
| Completed | Task |
| Learn and follow the Five Rules of Textbook Development | |
| Consider Accessibility and Inclusion and build both into your outline. | |
| Create an Outline | |
| List out each Element of the resource | |
| Create Style Sheet and update as you write |
CHECKLIST 4: Write and More
| Completed | Task | Details |
| Research | Using interviews, journal, books websites etc., do the research necessary to gather information for your resource | |
| Write | Using your outline, element list, style sheet, and timeline, write the OER resource | |
| Resources | Find resources (images, multimedia), Ensure all resources are open | |
| Citations and attributions | Using the style sheet be sure that all ideas, images, videos, etc are properly cited and attributed as necessary based on their copyright |
CHECKLIST 5: Edit and Review
| Completed | Task | Details |
| Peer review | Identify Subject-matter experts and ask them to review your resource. | |
| Copy editing | Find copy editors for your resource | |
| Proofreading | Identify final proofreaders for the project. |
CHECKLIST 6: Pre-publication
| Completed | Task | Details |
| Final check | For errors, accessibility, openness | |
| Textbook cover | Find designer for cover art | |
| Editable files | Make sure text and multimedia are editable | |
| Communications/marketing | Use Colleagues, Institutional contacts, Projects and organizations, and Repositories |
CHECKLIST 7: Post-publication
| Completed | Task | Details |
| Textbook maintenance | Develop a Maintenance Plan for
1. Feedback 2. Errors 3. Revisions and updates |
|
| Adoption tracking | Plan:
Record-keeping system: Comments: Reports: Analysis: |
|
| Textbook reviews | Create Rubric. Identify Potential reviewers. Process reviews:
1. Responding to reviewer 2. Posting 3. Addressing problems |
Adapted From: The BCcampus Open Education Self-Publishing Guide by Lauri M. Aesoph is used under a CC BY 4.0 International License.
Download this book for free at http://open.bccampus.ca
