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Pub101 is a free, informal, online orientation to open textbook publishing. Youβll hear from your OEN colleagues who have worked on open textbook publishing projects and what theyβve learned. In this 2024 initial session, OEN Senior Director, Publishing, Karen Lauritsen provides foundation setting and facilitates discussion with guests Gabby Hernandez and Sunyeen Pai on how to get started with publishing.
Watch the video recording of this session or keep reading for a full transcript. For those interested in reading the conversation that took place among participants and the resources shared, the chat transcript is also available below.
Note: If your comments appear in the transcripts and you would like your name or other identifying information removed, please contact Tonia.
Speakers:
Karen: It's official, we have kicked off Pub101 in 2024. Welcome everyone. We are very glad that you are here and look forward to spending the next several weeks with you. So briefly, my name is Karen Lauritsen. I'm Senior Director, Publishing, with the Open Education Network. We are based at the University of Minnesota, but I am based in California, which is where I work from remotely. When I am not working on the Open Textbook Library or supporting open textbook publishing, I love to create wildlife habitat gardens. So I'm particularly excited that it's spring. We've had a fairly wet winter in California and the garden is coming alive.
I would also like to welcome all of you on behalf of the Pub101 Committee. This is a group of people who have been working on improving and maintaining the Pub101 curriculum, as well as these live experiences that we offer annually. I would also like to acknowledge Amanda Larson, who's the Pub101 Chair. She will be managing chat today, and all of these people are very invested in your success and they also want you to know that you are not alone. All of us started somewhere, at square one, with OER publishing and it can be a bit daunting, but there is a community here to support you, and I hope that Pub101 gives you the opportunity to get to know many in the community and there will be ways for us to stay in touch after this experience. So, that is our hope for all of you.
In terms of our time together today, I'm going to spend a few moments setting the scene in terms of what is Pub101, some general housekeeping, reflecting together on whether this is the right place for you. The short answer is yes, of course. If you're interested, we want you here. But if you're totally new to OER, you may want to start somewhere else, because publishing can be hard. We're going to talk about what is Pub101, and we're going to do a Q&A with our very special guests, Gabby and Sunny and hear firsthand from them about what it was like getting started with their publishing program. So, I will introduce Gabby and Sunny shortly.
Setting the scene. So, thanks to those of you who are saying hello in the chat, please continue to do so. I'm going to basically say hello on behalf of the Open Education Network. I know that many of you may be joining us for the first time, because the invitation to Pub101 is sent to the OEN Google Group as well as to all of the institutions that are members of the OEN through their consortium. So, that means that some of you are having your first-hand experience with us and we're thrilled to be able to welcome you.
Very briefly, we have some guiding principles that direct our work in the Open Education Network. We are a community of people who are working to make education more equitable, more accessible, and the common good, our work towards the common good is partly what guides us, as well as our commitment to equity, inclusivity, action, our shared humanity, we are not just people doing a job, but we are whole and complete people. And we work with integrity and we also can celebrate and share in our abundance, which is part of what Pub101 is about. There are many templates and resources that have already been created that you can take and adapt for your situation. And so together, by sharing, we can celebrate the abundance that we have through the work that we do together. So I hope that this very briefly provides a snapshot of the OEN and a little bit of our personality, if you will, and our values.
In terms of Pub101, this is really designed to be a friendly, informal orientation, a chance for you to consider your vision and capacity for supporting open publishing at your campus. It might be different depending on where you are, and so by no means do we ever mean to suggest there is a right way to do this or you should be doing it this way. We really want to put forth a buffet for you to consider and for you to make a nutritious meal, if you will, based on what is out there. We will highlight the adaptable resources that are available to you in the Pub101 curriculum, and a lot of the work that we'll do together is help you anticipate common issues to look ahead. If you're just thinking about starting out, supporting a project or a program, we want to help you anticipate some things that commonly come up.
And Pub101 is also here to help you lay the foundation of knowledge, regardless of what publishing tool you're using. So, we're not going to get into the nitty-gritty of how to use Pressbooks, or Manifold, or LaTeX, we're really going to focus on the bigger picture or the more administrative questions, all the while focusing on how you can maintain your professional and personal health, if you will, your self-care, because there's something about making a book that can be emotionally intense, and so just remembering to make some space and think about what your capacity is and what you're in a position to do as you support faculty authors with that.
A little bit more information about what Pub101 is about. Again, we're inclusive of all publishing support types, so as we move through the weeks, we'll talk about some of those publishing support types. It might be very light touch, it might be really intense. You're providing editorial services, for example, to your authors, or doing different things in between. Again, there is not judgment here or expectation about what we think you should be doing. We are inclusive of all of the different publishing support that may be on offer. Or, you may decide, "We don't want to go here," and that's welcome too. You do not need to meet a particular definition or level of publishing to be a part of our community. It may simply be something that you're interested in someday. That is all it takes to join us. Our goal is for you to consider what publishing means to you and your organization. Publishing is actually a pretty tough word to define, and so the work for you to do is to figure out, "Well, how are we going to define publishing in our institution?" And then, once you've figured that out, we're going to emphasize that it's very important to communicate that definition of publishing or that vision of publishing to your authors and collaborators, since publishing can mean many different things to many people. And so we'll spend a lot of time breaking that down together.
So you may recall when you registered for Pub101, we had a question in the Zoom registration form about what you hope to learn. I have selected some of your responses, just as a sampling of what all of you hope to learn. So, "Where to start." That is perfect. That is why Pub101 is here. Whoever wrote, "Where to start," we're with you. "Getting insight from other colleagues." Yes, we're going to start today with Gabby and Sunny. "Hoping to participate in discussion and learn from peers at other institutions," absolutely. I would like to emphasize that while each Pub101 session will have a guest and a host from the Pub101 Committee, many of you may be bringing experience to this, and we invite all of you to share your experience. There will always be an opportunity to chime in, so that people can learn from you and you can learn from one another.
We are going to talk a lot about how you might be able to best support faculty that are interested in publishing, considering your local context. Sometimes it can be easy to get into a comparison game in life and feel like, "Oh, I should be offering this, or I should be offering that," but we're really going to emphasize what you're in a position to offer. There are many options. We are going to talk about what's out there, the pathway to getting started, and again, helping you anticipate those challenges. So all of this, it sounds like you're in the right place. I would really like to highlight this last comment, "How to get started with helping faculty and authors of OER textbooks with very limited resources." We hear you, and this has been the focus of the Pub101 Committee for the last couple of years, and again, it's part of why we're really trying to offer options to you. And so if, as we're going along, you're thinking to yourself, "Okay, these options are not realistic in my environment," please say something, speak up and we can brainstorm together about what may or may not work.
Okay, a few more. "How does AI affect OER development?" This is the question of the hour, and we may or may not be able to cover this during Pub101, but I assure you, it is on all of our minds and we have a couple of different publishing advisory groups, the Pub101 Committee, that are actively looking at ways to lead these conversations in our community. So, if we don't get to it in Pub101, there are other opportunities to think about this together, because it's a huge question and it really is something that we want to figure out together. "More information about the evaluation of OER to use as talking points with faculty." This, of course, is really critical as you develop your OER program. It's not the emphasis of Pub101. This is more the emphasis of adoption programs that we offer and other support. So, in the next slide or two, I'll talk about options. If you're really at the first step of your OER program, you may want to start with some of these talking points, like you said, how to build buy-in, how to introduce the idea of evaluation and adoption of OER, and then saving publishing for a bit later.
"Legal requirements for OER." Now, I'm not sure what this respondent meant. We are going to be talking about memorandums of understanding and working with general counsel on intellectual property considerations when developing OER. We'll talk briefly about Creative Commons licenses, but there could be other considerations here that may or may not be covered in Pub101, but please let us know what your specific questions are. "Workflows for creating OER, comparisons of publishing platforms," these do exist out there. We're not going to spend a lot of time on publishing platforms, but we can point you to different resources that exist, so that you can share them with faculty and get a broad overview yourself. "Strengthen understanding of specifics around publishing tools, practicalities of open pedagogy, and how to support faculty." There's a lot there. If you're interested in open pedagogy, we have a separate certificate program and learning circles, and I would be happy to share information with you around that. We touch on it briefly in Pub101, because of course, involving students in the creation of OER is an important part of publishing. But if you want to go deeper with that, I can point you in other directions.
So, with that snapshot of what you hope to get out of Pub101, you may be asking yourself, "Am I in the right place?" And again, I will answer, yes. If you want to be here, we're thrilled to have you. If you're a very new practitioner, one of these other areas may be a better fit for you. The Creative Commons Certificate. We have a certificate in OER Librarianship, and there's a couple of other resources here that you can access when I share the slides. I will be sharing these slides, of course. That'll all be covered in a few moments in terms of our documentation and sharing out of all these things. So, fear not, these resources will be made available.
Okay. That concludes my introductories so far. Now I want to briefly launch a poll and find out how many of you are interested or likely to launch a publishing program at your institution or consortium in 2024 or 2025? So this year or next year. Pick one, just whatever's closest to your current situation. Maybe it's already happening. You are publishing, you have experiences that you can share. That's wonderful. Perhaps you're right on the cusp, "We're ready to go. We've been thinking about it, but we haven't yet launched a call for proposals." Or, you might be more ambivalent, "Maybe one day, slow down. We don't know." And some of you might be thinking, "I want to learn about the landscape here, but I can't imagine doing this at my current institution." Those are your four options. I will give you another few seconds and then we can see where we're all at. Okay, I'm going to end the poll. 98 participation, 98% participation, which is thrilling. And many of you are in the maybe one-day category, and so this is a great place to explore that question. Again, thrilled to have all of you here regardless of what you're thinking about a publishing program. Thank you very much for your responses.
Okay, a couple more words about the Pub101 spirit. We are going to emphasize, time and again, while it may be obvious, it's easy to forget, we are human beings and not publishing machines. You're not alone. There are many people who are here to help you and support you, and there are many ways to publish, and we're just going to share some of many options. Anytime along the way, let us know what you need. You can let us know in the chat. You can reach out to me via email, which I'll share at the end of these slides. But truly, all of us are very interested in creating a meaningful and useful experience for you. So if we're not hitting the mark, let us know.
As I mentioned earlier, this is a rather informal experience. It's not a class. There's no grades. We welcome you, come when you can. I've heard from some of you, you might have a conflict and you can't make a particular meeting. Totally understand. We record these sessions and do our very best to share them in advance of the next session, so that you can watch it before our next session, catch up on what you missed. We try to have some fun. It's always evolving. We are every year making improvements and changes, and really this is just a beginning. So hopefully we'll have the chance to continue to grow together as a community following Pub101.
My last note before we meet Gabby and Sunny, there is a curriculum associated with Pub101. It is built in Canvas and we are not teaching to the curriculum. We're not going through unit by unit, as you may find in a certificate course or a more formal environment. We're complementing the curriculum by speaking thematically about some of the things that are covered. But I do want to highlight that much of what we'll cover and talk about is included in the curriculum. So if you're wondering about an MOU template, if you're wondering about examples from other institutions, that's where you'll find them, is in the Canvas curriculum, along with a lot of helpful tips.
We have taken lots of care to make the units straightforward and supportive. If you want to see for yourself, this curriculum right here and now, it's at z.umn.edu/oen-pub101. However, Amanda will be sharing a link with all the links, so that you can access this at your leisure. If you have not yet had a chance to look at unit one, very briefly, it covers the fact that we're talking about open textbooks, specifically, although many of what we'll cover in our publishing conversations can be applied to other OER. We are focused on open textbooks, which are free to the end user, the student of course, and give permissions, typically Creative Common licenses, for editing. Now, important to know about textbooks, because it often plays into the process of supporting authors and developing them, is textbooks, they have structure. We're all familiar with it. We've all opened up a textbook and seen the pedagogical elements that are inside, that organize information hierarchically, that make them different from monographs, which are much more blocks of text. And that structure and that hierarchy are very important to informing accessibility. And we're really going to talk about accessibility and inclusion right at the beginning, so that it can be at the forefront of your mind and your author's minds as you begin the projects, rather than thinking about it as something to remediate at the end or something to go through a checklist at the end. It's really important, I think, to embrace those goals right at the forefront.
Okay. Without further ado, I am delighted to welcome Gabby Hernandez, who is the Open Education Librarian at the University of Texas, Rio Grande Valley, as well as Sunny Pai, who is Digital Initiatives Librarian, OER University of Hawaii Community Colleges and Campus Co-lead at Kapiolani Community College. Thank you Gabby and Sunny for joining us. Really, I've invited both of you here today to welcome this group and to talk a little bit about your experience as people who offer publishing support, run publishing programs, have worked on publishing projects, all the things. And so Gabby, if we could start with you, how would you describe your publishing experience and what was your starting point?
Gabby: Hi everybody. I'm so happy to be here. I am closer to where we're starting. We've done this for a couple of years, but we are a very small publishing institution. The things like, where do you start? How do you have, like, no funding? Things like that. Like, how do you keep that sustainable over years? And that's where we're at, to set the stage. So, we are really, in our publishing point at the moment, we are really in the part where faculty are adapting and editing and modifying resources that are in existence. We haven't quite hit that, "Okay, I'm a faculty author and I'm ready to start from scratch." So that's where we are. We want to support that, but we're trying to start small over time.
And in the last five years, our entire textbook affordability program has really focused on the OER adoption and professional development side of it, because we are a small program and by a small program, we started with just one scholarly communications librarian and a full-time open education librarian. So even some of you may say, "That's pretty big." Compared to other institutions that are publishing lots of resources, we're fairly small. And so, I've participated in a lot of those OER development programs that Karen was talking about earlier, and I highly, highly recommend them, because those programs are what really help me feel comfortable in the OER space and in the publishing space, and understand where to begin and how to scaffold it. And that's what we did. We were small. We knew we were only two people, and we wanted to, one day, have a publishing program at UTRGV, but we knew we weren't ready yet. So what we decided instead was we just started scaffolding. Like, what would it look like eventually if we did have a publishing program at UTRGV?
And we created little things here and there, which really came in handy, because out nowhere, it was like, "Hey, now you have Pressbooks. And we were like, "Yes, great, but we don't know if we have the staffing and we have zero funding to support publishing projects and all the things that go with it." So, thankfully we thought about it before we had it. So we already had a couple little documents made and it helped us. And the first thing we really, really wanted to do was make some sort of lib guide or page that showcased what are services that we provided, and even more importantly, what services we could not provide. Thinking about our sustainability and how many people we have and the other programs that we're running, yes, we'd like to do publishing support, but we wanted to be very clear on the yeses and the noes in the first conversation with faculty, so they knew exactly what to expect and if they wanted to continue.
And so two years later, after having Pressbooks, we now have six published titles and a couple of more in the works. So, we are really excited to have that number in our Pressbooks platform without any major funding for books. So we're happy there and I think it's important that you can also set, like in the chat, we can set our boundaries to what is a success at our campus and not always compare to what other campuses are doing. So that's where I'll start with our program.
Karen: Thank you, Gabby. Over to you, Sunny.
Sunny: Okay. Thanks, Gabby. That was really good to hear. And hello everybody. Well, I was in the 2019 cohort, so it feels like ancient history now. And starting up, and Karen, please keep an eye on my time. Starting up, I did have some previous experience with open access and open source content working for another library, so working with the DSpace and Plone, which were open systems, so I was a little familiar with that. To give you context, there are seven... I work in a system, and so I'm at Kapiolani Community College, we are one of seven community colleges in the University of Hawaii's system. We have seven community colleges and three four-year/graduate schools.
And at first, my approach was, "This is what I'm going to do for my college." Then it grew into, "This is what we're doing for our community college system," seven colleges, and then it grew into, "This is what we have to do for our 10 campuses." So, my frame is all over the place, so I get a little confused, but starting from the college perspective, I think my first project was an anatomy and physiology lab textbook, where I worked closely with a faculty member who found some materials. We found materials together and we basically had to develop it together. So that's from the community college perspective.
At the system level, we were fortunate to have a Pressbooks site that was supported by our top administration, and so that was established and they did provide us with somebody who would be managing the Pressbooks site. So we were able to work first with the original librarian and then now the OER technologist, Billy Meinke. And so we were able to go through the process of putting that together.
I was very fortunate, my first author was someone who had already published a commercial textbook. She was on her way to publish a second textbook and was in negotiations with her publishers. This is another textbook that she was working on, which is a sleep textbook. We happened to just have a very serendipitous conversation on the roadside, and she said, "My colleague, Amy, said that I need to talk to you." So we just started talking, and her first impression of OER was that it was a crazy idea and not worth looking into at all. I was fortunate to have that conversation with her, and she just really became very, very enthused about the idea, because two of her most core values is diversity and equity. So she saw OER as really a good way to express those ideals. And she has, working with her, basically she's published at least three works. The last work, it was a collaboration of the 10 campuses, with faculty from all 10 campuses.
So that's how I started. Pub101 really helped me. This was at the start of the sleep textbook. I'm so glad that Karen highlighted the difference between a monograph and a textbook. That was such a huge lesson for me, which I took away with. At the time, we were working with a publishing company, Scribe. I'm assuming that's still an option. And we had a very, very positive working relationship with Scribe. We worked with Scribe to produce the sleep textbook. In terms of publishing platforms, we work with all kinds of platforms. I've worked with LibreTexts. I have authors who are basically using GitHub, and there are also authors who have completely expanded the idea of a textbook. It's not necessarily a single entity, but they're developing open courses in our learning management systems. So again, I'm sorry, I'm all over the place.
Karen: Well, Sunny, thank you. And thank you, Gabby, again. I think it reflects the reality oftentimes of supporting publishing. It's like, "I've got this project over here, and then I had this conversation and that relationship evolved, and then it turned out we got a Pressbooks platform." So it can really be like that. I see, Gabby, you're nodding too.
Sunny: Yeah, I think what I had to learn was just to be really agile. Because I was trying... And maybe this was wrong or not, because I feel spread a little thin, but I felt like I needed to meet the faculty where they were. So, the person who's on GitHub is basically, she's a programmer, she's a computer science professor. She had just finished her PhD, so it was just so much easier for her just to forget Pressbooks and just go straight to LaTeX and do all her programming and publishing from her own... At first, it was her own server. My job at that point was to help her get a server, and then she eventually decided, "Okay, let's migrate this to GitHub," because our campus servers were not reliable. So, I was just trying to be there where the instructors were.
Karen: Yeah, I appreciate that comment about agility, and I think it connects also with the comment in the chat about setting boundaries, figuring out; what am I in a position to offer? Oh, I can help with the server. This is a discreet thing that I can do to make this project happen, which is fantastic. And I think too that you're highlighting how sometimes the platform can drive the project as well. And so this is something that we'll continue talking about as the weeks go by. We've already heard so many different publishing tools mentioned, and a lot of the consideration on your end will be, "Do I want to basically say to faculty, 'Hey, whatever works for you, but I don't know GitHub.' I'm not in a position to support GitHub.'" These are all the things that you may find yourself negotiating. And so if it sounds overwhelming right now, just with this first question, please know that we'll continue talking about these questions as the weeks go on. So, Gabby and Sunny, you've both talked a little bit about what you've learned so far. Any other lessons that you think are particularly useful or that stand out and guide you as you move forward?
Gabby: Yeah, I'll go ahead and start again. So one of my main lessons, and I'm sure y'all all know this, is that this process just takes so much time. It's a lot. There's time to build up the infrastructure itself, before you even say yes to a project. Like, what are you even going to offer? Time, even like this to participate in professional development opportunities to understand what even we're getting into, it takes time to get the word out that the service even exists. I know that was a big thing on our campus that OER was brand new. Faculty didn't know, my position was new. So it was lots and lots of marketing and getting the word out, talking to faculty and having them understand what this is.
And it's also taken us a lot of time to advocate for internal funding and apply for external funding grants to try to compensate our faculty for the amount of work that goes into this. We haven't yet been able to accomplish that, but I'm still hopeful. It's there. It's so close. We feel like it's right in our reach, but it hasn't dropped in the line yet. So, all of this takes time, apart from the time it actually takes to then create a resource.
So at UTRGV, we definitely have faculty interest, especially those who have gone through our professional development programs. I'm seeing that transition. We really focused, in the beginning, on just what is OER, just adopt it as is. It's a free resource, and that's where we started, and now we're able to make that transition. Now that they know what this definition is, now, what can OER truly do, which is all the pedagogical practices and the adoption and creating resources that reflect your student population and that fit your unique region, or goals, or area.
And so, our faculty are now understanding that piece and are really engaged and really interested in it. And so, what I've learned a lot with it takes time, is that also projects can take many forms. So some of the things that's happening at UTRGV, again, without traditional funding, because if we did have traditional funding, we'd be able to say, "Okay, we're going to build textbooks and this is what it's going to look like." But since we don't have that yet, we wanted to make sure that our Pressbooks subscription was being used and we could see that resources were being in there. So it wasn't, "Hey, we gave you this thing and now you haven't been able to do anything with it." So some of the stuff that we've been able to add has been a course reader that one of our faculty is like, "Hey, I have all these public domain resources that I've used over the years. Do you have a nice... And I heard you have a platform where I could put this. Can I do that?" And it was like, "Absolutely." So it was something that was just in a Word document that we were able to put into Pressbooks to give it that really nice readability.
Our College of Health Professions had a resource that they were working on, and it wasn't a traditional textbook, but it's something that they provide to all of their students, which is building your professional identity. So, it's a resource that introduces students to professionalism and soft skills. So it was, again, it's like, "This isn't a textbook, but we want all of our students to have easy access to it, we want to share." So those are some of the ideas to give you, what could publishing look like to have, "These are the resources that were created that faculty have already done. We have them in our platform." And then utilizing that to say, "I have 10 other faculty who have all of these projects that are ready and raring to go once you give us the funding to be able to do it."
So instead of asking for funding and waiting for the projects, I have been collecting all the projects over all the years and telling faculty, "This is a possibility. Can I use your project to advocate for you?" And so that's how we've decided to go, which has also given us the time to, again, think about our capacity, what could we possibly provide, and things like that. So it is a lot of here and there, taking it as it comes and deciding what you can and cannot provide.
Some other possible ideas is, I had a faculty member reach out to me who said... She is an educator. She teaches in the education field, and one of her class projects is her students create bilingual kids' stories, and she wants those to be in a volume, so that way teachers in the Valley and anywhere could teach them, because there's always a lack of bilingual resources. So those are the kind of things, the little projects that we've been pulling together to beef up our catalog of resources, things that are already happening on campus that we're putting together in a nice format. And then that gives examples to other faculty and they're like, "Oh, this is really nice. I want to be able to do that." And it's continuing that cycle. So, lessons learned, it comes and goes. Faculty may already have resources that they've created, and you can utilize that in to talk about what open publishing is. So, those are some of the things I've learned.
Sunny: Okay. Well, let's see. For me, I guess getting back to the working with Scribe, I guess I would describe them as a back-end publishing service, a very professional group. We relied on them heavily for their editing work. We just don't have the capacity to provide editing support. And although the book that we worked on, I thought, was well-written, they really were able to bring it up to a whole 'nother level of editing. And what I found interesting was she said her editing experience with Scribe was actually better than her editing experience with the commercial publisher. So, she was very impressed with their abilities. Plus another author, who also took a look at her first manuscript and then her second manuscript, as a copy editor, said that it was a considerable improvement. So that was good for me to hear.
The production process, working with Scribe, came out to, along with, quote-unquote, "heavy editing," came out to under $5,000, basically 4110. And what they offered was, they had a project coordinator who really helped us formulate the structuring and the process of the book production. They gave us advice about things like, "Well, you shouldn't use this chapter as an intro. You should make this the first chapter." Those kinds of things. They gave us a lot of expertise. We had more than 130 images. They gave us a lot of expertise on images, because this was a science textbook. And so they were very helpful with that. And my goal was I wanted something that would be easily printable. So I wanted a printable PDF, so that students could print out chapters one at a time, or even just a couple pages, but also would be readable online. So they were able to get, for us an EPUB and also a very nicely laid out, printable PDF, which requires... They worked in InDesign. So, they brought in a whole slew of expertise, which we just simply had no capacity for, and it would've taken my occasional student assistant position person six months to figure out how to do it. So it was much better to work with them.
Now, when I tried to justify the $4,000 bill with my head librarian and my colleagues, their immediate reaction was, "Oh my, this is expensive." So we're just so used to... Our mentality is we're so used to doing things on our own, as free as possible, and we do an okay job, but for the cost, I'm not sure whether it would cost the same today, but for the cost, we really got, I think, an excellent, professional job, and I learned a great deal during the process.
I guess what I'm trying to say is sometimes you just have to pay for the service if you just don't have that bandwidth, the capacity. An interesting anecdote was, about a year ago, this was The Science of Sleep textbook, an instructor on the mainland, continental U.S., basically contacted our DSpace administrator, because I have the textbook on DSpace, requesting an accessible version of the PDF. What I had saved up on DSpace was the printable PDF, which is very different from an accessible PDF. All the markup has to be for printing, not for accessibility. And I just didn't have that. I didn't make that connection, in the old days, when we were doing this. We had an EPUB, so what I had to do was I double checked with our administration, because I know that we have to provide, for all the materials we put online, we have to have an accessible version. I wanted to double check whether or not I had to provide both an accessible EPUB and also an accessible print PDF. I also had the Microsoft markup version. I know I'm getting really technical here.
What I learned was our system said, "You have to provide something accessible. You only have to provide one format." So we took the EPUB, went back to Scribe and said, "Can you do this? Can you enhance the accessibility?" And by then, it had been several years. So they did a total rescrub of the EPUB, and they ran it through accessibility tests. There were a couple of snags, because the accessibility software was asking, "Why don't you have an ISBN number?" But we got through the snags, and now I'm very confident we have an accessible EPUB. So we were able to get back to the instructor and say, "This is what we have for you. The PDF is really for printing, and it'll do a great job, I promise you, but we can provide you with an accessible EPUB, which your students can use online." So again, that's relying on expertise, when you have the funding to be able to do that. And I think the cost for that was about $240. To me, it was worth the time. Plus, they also updated some of the information in the edit process.
Karen: Thank you both.
Sunny: So that was one lesson I learned.
Karen: Yeah, well, that's a lot of lessons Sunny, and you're highlighting a lot of the technicalities, as you mentioned, and the desire that everyone shares to create accessible resources. And what sometimes is entailed in creating those resources. And I appreciate your point that if your budget allows, sometimes it is more economical to work with professionals who do this all the time, who can create a good working relationship with your author and do these things that would have a huge learning curve for someone in your department, if that is a possibility. What I'm hearing you say is, that can be a good path to follow. And Gabby, I really appreciate your comment about time and the building blocks of developing a publishing program and the opportunities that arise when you ask people or hear from people in terms of what they already have, what already exists, and that you may be able to help them provide.
So, it may not be something like, "Oh, please create this from scratch." Instead it's, "Oh, we can help you bring this to more students," or, "We can help you get this into an accessible format." And so thank you both for reflecting on the many things you've learned. It does sound like a lot. And so for any of you who are feeling overwhelmed or trying to find your way through those responses, we will continue to break down a lot of what they talked about as these weeks go on.
So briefly, as we start to wind down the hour, what would you recommend to people who are here, to someone who's just getting started? There's been a question in the chat about, "What's the right tool? I need a tool." What would you offer in terms of guidance for people just starting out?
Gabby: I touched on this a little bit with that I said earlier, but definitely creating a process that works for your institutional needs and departmental capacity. When looking at other open publishing programs and figuring out who you want to use as your model, remember, we're rarely comparing apples to apples. They may have different funding structures or more people, fewer people assigned to work on these projects. And then also thinking about their levels of faculty engagement and participation and interests. You could have the exact same model, but maybe it's not working, because your faculty are at a different interest level. So there's a whole host of things that could be different, but in saying that, you're in the right place, because there is an entire community of people that are here and ready to help you on this publishing journey. So definitely take a look at that departmental capacity and create a program that fits within those parameters. You can always start small and grow over time, and it's often harder to go backwards where you took on a whole bunch of projects and then realize, "Oh, we actually can't be there. We need to be here." And there'll be more guidance on this and more people and more conversations as you go through the Pub101 Program.
And the other quick little thing is just, I think it'd just be a safe space for faculty too. I honestly believe that as long as you promote your services and are openly available and also open with what you can and can't provide that, not that you're not willing, but there's not a possibility to, that it really helps. And my experience is that, at UTRGV, is that usually the faculty that want to openly publish are the same faculty that are engaged in a thousand other things on campus. So just they want to do it all, from the bottom of their heart, but they also may be overextended in their capacities.
So, those are some of the things I've learned. Even just today, I, right before this, I got a call from a faculty who's been engaged with our program for years, and he called and was like, "I think it's time. I think I can finally publish." And that came about, not because he didn't want to, but because there was a change in leadership in his department that's now allowing more diversity in the course material selection process. So there's just so many factors on campus that could be happening. So don't always say, "Oh, my program isn't successful." There could be other things that are helping. So just being a safe space for faculty to allow them to tell you their story and helping them where you can.
Sunny: Yeah, I like very much what Gabby said. If you're just starting with the program, first of all, you're making yourself, your work available and helping your faculty becoming aware of what's possible. Start small. Definitely start small. Start with maybe introduction to OER workshops. Start developing a following and awareness. I think the reason why we focused on, when we first started at the very, very beginning, even before thinking about publishing, just getting faculty aware of what OER is, that was our first hurdle, to get people talking about it. There has been so much really good research going on about the benefits of OER and the benefits of ZTC programs. Back in 2019, we didn't have that kind of data, those kind of studies to bring in when we were talking with our faculty.
Do a little bit of a research scan. There's a lot of material out there to help persuade both your administrators and your faculty, and different data will speak to each of those populations differently. So understand that you're going to be talking to at least three different kinds of populations: students, faculty, and your administration. And so build interest, build a sense of confidence that this is something that's really worth getting into. And you will find the early adopters, and they will step out first and perhaps grow with them slowly by introducing them to materials, well-constructed materials that are already out there, like open stacks, like some of the materials that you'll find at the Open Textbook Library. Start with adopting and then move into light modification, then more modification.
And then at that point, you'll have some expertise under your belt and some of the problems that come up, including funding, including technical skill, that might help you to slowly evolve into a little bit more publishing. We work closely with a few instructional designers, a lot of people are just more comfortable working from within their LMSs. So, what's the definition of a textbook? I don't want to make this too crazy, but we have a lot of people who are taking their course materials that they've already created and they're building from within their LMSs, OER courses, and then referring out to materials, OER materials, or modifying and supplying them. So just be open to what faculty are comfortable with, because a huge challenge is their technical ability.
Karen: That's true. Sorry, I'm going to interrupt you, Sunny.
Sunny: That's fine.
Karen: But I can really appreciate what you're saying about see what people are open to and find those connections, those people who will become your advocate. It makes a huge difference as you build your programs. Now, I know we only have a few minutes left, but I'm going to fit in a few more things before we adjourn. Thank you for the questions you've been posing in the chat as we've been going along. I will emphasize what you've been hearing us say is you're not alone and everyone here has something to contribute. We are going to do this work together.
Amanda has already dropped in the link tree. I just want to highlight that all the different documents that you'll need for Pub101, you can find in that link tree. That includes the orientation document, where the slides will be linked from, the Canvas curriculum, our YouTube playlist, where we will post all the videos, transcripts, and unit feedback. So, please do make a note of that link.
The orientation document is sometimes referred to as the one-stop doc. It will be updated weekly. And if you would like to know the very moment that the videos become available, you can subscribe to our YouTube channel and it will notify you. Now, we've been talking a lot about faculty, and both Gabby and Sunny mentioned how important it is to build those relationships. The Pub101 Committee is working on adapting this very experience for a faculty audience, so that in the future, particularly if you're at a less-resourced institution, you don't have the time, you can send your faculty to the Pub101 experience designed especially for them. But we will need your help. And so every week we're going to ask you what it is that you want faculty to know about what we've covered that week. And so this week, we ask what you want faculty to know about working with you as you make open textbooks with them. So Amanda just dropped the Padlet into the chat, and we do have a couple moments. If you could please follow that link and you should be able to make a note. Amanda, would you like to provide any guidance?
Amanda: Sure thing. When you load the site, there is a plus sign in a round button at the very bottom right of the page. You can click that to open a note, or you can use the plus sign next to the session title. So session one kickoff, April 10, there's a plus there, and that will also open up a note. You can write a fantastic little message there. And at the bottom, if you care about aesthetics, I do, you can change the color from black to a different color and then click publish and your... I guess the sticky notes will show up in the session one heading.
Karen: Thanks, Amanda. We're using Padlet, so that as a committee, we're gathering all of your input in one place. You'll be able to see it, we'll be able to see it, and it will offer us guidance as we make these revisions for our faculty audience. So, please take a moment and share your reflections with us. Knowing that many of you are beginners, I wanted to create a question this week that was broad enough. So if you feel like you're a beginner, maybe your answer to this question is, "I want faculty to know that I'm doing this for the first time." That was something someone mentioned in the chat. Like, maybe find someone who you enjoy working with and reveal to them, "I'm figuring this out as I go, and that's what I want you to know." So please do contribute.
As you do that, I will preview next week's topic. We are going to be covering accessibility. We will be joined by Jacqueline Frank, who is the Instruction and Accessibility Librarian at Montana State University. That session will be hosted by our Pub101 Committee Member Heather Caprette, who is Senior Media Developer and Instructional Designer at Cleveland State University. So, you'll be hearing from new folks next week.
In anticipation of that accessibility session. You can choose to do some homework if you wish. Go to the orientation one-stop doc, the link of which you can find in the link tree. You'll look for homework listed under week one. And then there is a link to an open textbook that has been created in a Google Doc, which is a very fine way to make a textbook. You can use Google Docs and please post your description or alt tags as a comment. And Jackie has agreed to review your alt tags and provide feedback. So it's a great way to give it a go and get some feedback from someone with expertise in that area.
Please join me in thanking Gabby and Sunny for joining us and sharing the many things that they have learned so far. I would like to thank all of you as well for your commitment to student success, your willingness to learn more with us, your interest in joining us, and your engagement in the process. You have a lot on your plate. I know it's a big deal to set aside an hour a week, and the committee and I, and all of us at the OEN are really glad that you're choosing to spend some time with us. So, without further ado, I will check the chat to see if there are any remaining questions. If not, we will see all of you again here next week. Thanks again, Gabby and Sunny, and thanks all of you. Farewell.
END OF VIDEO
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Pub101 is a free, informal, online orientation to open textbook publishing. Youβll hear from your OEN colleagues who have worked on open textbook publishing projects and what theyβve learned. In this 2024 initial session, OEN Senior Director, Publishing, Karen Lauritsen provides foundation setting and facilitates discussion with guests Gabby Hernandez and Sunyeen Pai on how to get started with publishing.
Watch the video recording of this session or keep reading for a full transcript. For those interested in reading the conversation that took place among participants and the resources shared, the chat transcript is also available below.
Note: If your comments appear in the transcripts and you would like your name or other identifying information removed, please contact Tonia.
Audio Transcript
Speakers:
- Karen Lauritsen (Senior Director, Publishing, Open Education Network)
- Gabby Hernandez (Open Education Librarian, University of Texas, Rio Grande Valley)
- Sunyeen "Sunny" Pai (Digital Initiatives Librarian, OER University of Hawai'i Community Colleges and Campus Co-lead, Kapi'olani Community College)
Karen: It's official, we have kicked off Pub101 in 2024. Welcome everyone. We are very glad that you are here and look forward to spending the next several weeks with you. So briefly, my name is Karen Lauritsen. I'm Senior Director, Publishing, with the Open Education Network. We are based at the University of Minnesota, but I am based in California, which is where I work from remotely. When I am not working on the Open Textbook Library or supporting open textbook publishing, I love to create wildlife habitat gardens. So I'm particularly excited that it's spring. We've had a fairly wet winter in California and the garden is coming alive.
I would also like to welcome all of you on behalf of the Pub101 Committee. This is a group of people who have been working on improving and maintaining the Pub101 curriculum, as well as these live experiences that we offer annually. I would also like to acknowledge Amanda Larson, who's the Pub101 Chair. She will be managing chat today, and all of these people are very invested in your success and they also want you to know that you are not alone. All of us started somewhere, at square one, with OER publishing and it can be a bit daunting, but there is a community here to support you, and I hope that Pub101 gives you the opportunity to get to know many in the community and there will be ways for us to stay in touch after this experience. So, that is our hope for all of you.
In terms of our time together today, I'm going to spend a few moments setting the scene in terms of what is Pub101, some general housekeeping, reflecting together on whether this is the right place for you. The short answer is yes, of course. If you're interested, we want you here. But if you're totally new to OER, you may want to start somewhere else, because publishing can be hard. We're going to talk about what is Pub101, and we're going to do a Q&A with our very special guests, Gabby and Sunny and hear firsthand from them about what it was like getting started with their publishing program. So, I will introduce Gabby and Sunny shortly.
Setting the scene. So, thanks to those of you who are saying hello in the chat, please continue to do so. I'm going to basically say hello on behalf of the Open Education Network. I know that many of you may be joining us for the first time, because the invitation to Pub101 is sent to the OEN Google Group as well as to all of the institutions that are members of the OEN through their consortium. So, that means that some of you are having your first-hand experience with us and we're thrilled to be able to welcome you.
Very briefly, we have some guiding principles that direct our work in the Open Education Network. We are a community of people who are working to make education more equitable, more accessible, and the common good, our work towards the common good is partly what guides us, as well as our commitment to equity, inclusivity, action, our shared humanity, we are not just people doing a job, but we are whole and complete people. And we work with integrity and we also can celebrate and share in our abundance, which is part of what Pub101 is about. There are many templates and resources that have already been created that you can take and adapt for your situation. And so together, by sharing, we can celebrate the abundance that we have through the work that we do together. So I hope that this very briefly provides a snapshot of the OEN and a little bit of our personality, if you will, and our values.
In terms of Pub101, this is really designed to be a friendly, informal orientation, a chance for you to consider your vision and capacity for supporting open publishing at your campus. It might be different depending on where you are, and so by no means do we ever mean to suggest there is a right way to do this or you should be doing it this way. We really want to put forth a buffet for you to consider and for you to make a nutritious meal, if you will, based on what is out there. We will highlight the adaptable resources that are available to you in the Pub101 curriculum, and a lot of the work that we'll do together is help you anticipate common issues to look ahead. If you're just thinking about starting out, supporting a project or a program, we want to help you anticipate some things that commonly come up.
And Pub101 is also here to help you lay the foundation of knowledge, regardless of what publishing tool you're using. So, we're not going to get into the nitty-gritty of how to use Pressbooks, or Manifold, or LaTeX, we're really going to focus on the bigger picture or the more administrative questions, all the while focusing on how you can maintain your professional and personal health, if you will, your self-care, because there's something about making a book that can be emotionally intense, and so just remembering to make some space and think about what your capacity is and what you're in a position to do as you support faculty authors with that.
A little bit more information about what Pub101 is about. Again, we're inclusive of all publishing support types, so as we move through the weeks, we'll talk about some of those publishing support types. It might be very light touch, it might be really intense. You're providing editorial services, for example, to your authors, or doing different things in between. Again, there is not judgment here or expectation about what we think you should be doing. We are inclusive of all of the different publishing support that may be on offer. Or, you may decide, "We don't want to go here," and that's welcome too. You do not need to meet a particular definition or level of publishing to be a part of our community. It may simply be something that you're interested in someday. That is all it takes to join us. Our goal is for you to consider what publishing means to you and your organization. Publishing is actually a pretty tough word to define, and so the work for you to do is to figure out, "Well, how are we going to define publishing in our institution?" And then, once you've figured that out, we're going to emphasize that it's very important to communicate that definition of publishing or that vision of publishing to your authors and collaborators, since publishing can mean many different things to many people. And so we'll spend a lot of time breaking that down together.
So you may recall when you registered for Pub101, we had a question in the Zoom registration form about what you hope to learn. I have selected some of your responses, just as a sampling of what all of you hope to learn. So, "Where to start." That is perfect. That is why Pub101 is here. Whoever wrote, "Where to start," we're with you. "Getting insight from other colleagues." Yes, we're going to start today with Gabby and Sunny. "Hoping to participate in discussion and learn from peers at other institutions," absolutely. I would like to emphasize that while each Pub101 session will have a guest and a host from the Pub101 Committee, many of you may be bringing experience to this, and we invite all of you to share your experience. There will always be an opportunity to chime in, so that people can learn from you and you can learn from one another.
We are going to talk a lot about how you might be able to best support faculty that are interested in publishing, considering your local context. Sometimes it can be easy to get into a comparison game in life and feel like, "Oh, I should be offering this, or I should be offering that," but we're really going to emphasize what you're in a position to offer. There are many options. We are going to talk about what's out there, the pathway to getting started, and again, helping you anticipate those challenges. So all of this, it sounds like you're in the right place. I would really like to highlight this last comment, "How to get started with helping faculty and authors of OER textbooks with very limited resources." We hear you, and this has been the focus of the Pub101 Committee for the last couple of years, and again, it's part of why we're really trying to offer options to you. And so if, as we're going along, you're thinking to yourself, "Okay, these options are not realistic in my environment," please say something, speak up and we can brainstorm together about what may or may not work.
Okay, a few more. "How does AI affect OER development?" This is the question of the hour, and we may or may not be able to cover this during Pub101, but I assure you, it is on all of our minds and we have a couple of different publishing advisory groups, the Pub101 Committee, that are actively looking at ways to lead these conversations in our community. So, if we don't get to it in Pub101, there are other opportunities to think about this together, because it's a huge question and it really is something that we want to figure out together. "More information about the evaluation of OER to use as talking points with faculty." This, of course, is really critical as you develop your OER program. It's not the emphasis of Pub101. This is more the emphasis of adoption programs that we offer and other support. So, in the next slide or two, I'll talk about options. If you're really at the first step of your OER program, you may want to start with some of these talking points, like you said, how to build buy-in, how to introduce the idea of evaluation and adoption of OER, and then saving publishing for a bit later.
"Legal requirements for OER." Now, I'm not sure what this respondent meant. We are going to be talking about memorandums of understanding and working with general counsel on intellectual property considerations when developing OER. We'll talk briefly about Creative Commons licenses, but there could be other considerations here that may or may not be covered in Pub101, but please let us know what your specific questions are. "Workflows for creating OER, comparisons of publishing platforms," these do exist out there. We're not going to spend a lot of time on publishing platforms, but we can point you to different resources that exist, so that you can share them with faculty and get a broad overview yourself. "Strengthen understanding of specifics around publishing tools, practicalities of open pedagogy, and how to support faculty." There's a lot there. If you're interested in open pedagogy, we have a separate certificate program and learning circles, and I would be happy to share information with you around that. We touch on it briefly in Pub101, because of course, involving students in the creation of OER is an important part of publishing. But if you want to go deeper with that, I can point you in other directions.
So, with that snapshot of what you hope to get out of Pub101, you may be asking yourself, "Am I in the right place?" And again, I will answer, yes. If you want to be here, we're thrilled to have you. If you're a very new practitioner, one of these other areas may be a better fit for you. The Creative Commons Certificate. We have a certificate in OER Librarianship, and there's a couple of other resources here that you can access when I share the slides. I will be sharing these slides, of course. That'll all be covered in a few moments in terms of our documentation and sharing out of all these things. So, fear not, these resources will be made available.
Okay. That concludes my introductories so far. Now I want to briefly launch a poll and find out how many of you are interested or likely to launch a publishing program at your institution or consortium in 2024 or 2025? So this year or next year. Pick one, just whatever's closest to your current situation. Maybe it's already happening. You are publishing, you have experiences that you can share. That's wonderful. Perhaps you're right on the cusp, "We're ready to go. We've been thinking about it, but we haven't yet launched a call for proposals." Or, you might be more ambivalent, "Maybe one day, slow down. We don't know." And some of you might be thinking, "I want to learn about the landscape here, but I can't imagine doing this at my current institution." Those are your four options. I will give you another few seconds and then we can see where we're all at. Okay, I'm going to end the poll. 98 participation, 98% participation, which is thrilling. And many of you are in the maybe one-day category, and so this is a great place to explore that question. Again, thrilled to have all of you here regardless of what you're thinking about a publishing program. Thank you very much for your responses.
Okay, a couple more words about the Pub101 spirit. We are going to emphasize, time and again, while it may be obvious, it's easy to forget, we are human beings and not publishing machines. You're not alone. There are many people who are here to help you and support you, and there are many ways to publish, and we're just going to share some of many options. Anytime along the way, let us know what you need. You can let us know in the chat. You can reach out to me via email, which I'll share at the end of these slides. But truly, all of us are very interested in creating a meaningful and useful experience for you. So if we're not hitting the mark, let us know.
As I mentioned earlier, this is a rather informal experience. It's not a class. There's no grades. We welcome you, come when you can. I've heard from some of you, you might have a conflict and you can't make a particular meeting. Totally understand. We record these sessions and do our very best to share them in advance of the next session, so that you can watch it before our next session, catch up on what you missed. We try to have some fun. It's always evolving. We are every year making improvements and changes, and really this is just a beginning. So hopefully we'll have the chance to continue to grow together as a community following Pub101.
My last note before we meet Gabby and Sunny, there is a curriculum associated with Pub101. It is built in Canvas and we are not teaching to the curriculum. We're not going through unit by unit, as you may find in a certificate course or a more formal environment. We're complementing the curriculum by speaking thematically about some of the things that are covered. But I do want to highlight that much of what we'll cover and talk about is included in the curriculum. So if you're wondering about an MOU template, if you're wondering about examples from other institutions, that's where you'll find them, is in the Canvas curriculum, along with a lot of helpful tips.
We have taken lots of care to make the units straightforward and supportive. If you want to see for yourself, this curriculum right here and now, it's at z.umn.edu/oen-pub101. However, Amanda will be sharing a link with all the links, so that you can access this at your leisure. If you have not yet had a chance to look at unit one, very briefly, it covers the fact that we're talking about open textbooks, specifically, although many of what we'll cover in our publishing conversations can be applied to other OER. We are focused on open textbooks, which are free to the end user, the student of course, and give permissions, typically Creative Common licenses, for editing. Now, important to know about textbooks, because it often plays into the process of supporting authors and developing them, is textbooks, they have structure. We're all familiar with it. We've all opened up a textbook and seen the pedagogical elements that are inside, that organize information hierarchically, that make them different from monographs, which are much more blocks of text. And that structure and that hierarchy are very important to informing accessibility. And we're really going to talk about accessibility and inclusion right at the beginning, so that it can be at the forefront of your mind and your author's minds as you begin the projects, rather than thinking about it as something to remediate at the end or something to go through a checklist at the end. It's really important, I think, to embrace those goals right at the forefront.
Okay. Without further ado, I am delighted to welcome Gabby Hernandez, who is the Open Education Librarian at the University of Texas, Rio Grande Valley, as well as Sunny Pai, who is Digital Initiatives Librarian, OER University of Hawaii Community Colleges and Campus Co-lead at Kapiolani Community College. Thank you Gabby and Sunny for joining us. Really, I've invited both of you here today to welcome this group and to talk a little bit about your experience as people who offer publishing support, run publishing programs, have worked on publishing projects, all the things. And so Gabby, if we could start with you, how would you describe your publishing experience and what was your starting point?
Gabby: Hi everybody. I'm so happy to be here. I am closer to where we're starting. We've done this for a couple of years, but we are a very small publishing institution. The things like, where do you start? How do you have, like, no funding? Things like that. Like, how do you keep that sustainable over years? And that's where we're at, to set the stage. So, we are really, in our publishing point at the moment, we are really in the part where faculty are adapting and editing and modifying resources that are in existence. We haven't quite hit that, "Okay, I'm a faculty author and I'm ready to start from scratch." So that's where we are. We want to support that, but we're trying to start small over time.
And in the last five years, our entire textbook affordability program has really focused on the OER adoption and professional development side of it, because we are a small program and by a small program, we started with just one scholarly communications librarian and a full-time open education librarian. So even some of you may say, "That's pretty big." Compared to other institutions that are publishing lots of resources, we're fairly small. And so, I've participated in a lot of those OER development programs that Karen was talking about earlier, and I highly, highly recommend them, because those programs are what really help me feel comfortable in the OER space and in the publishing space, and understand where to begin and how to scaffold it. And that's what we did. We were small. We knew we were only two people, and we wanted to, one day, have a publishing program at UTRGV, but we knew we weren't ready yet. So what we decided instead was we just started scaffolding. Like, what would it look like eventually if we did have a publishing program at UTRGV?
And we created little things here and there, which really came in handy, because out nowhere, it was like, "Hey, now you have Pressbooks. And we were like, "Yes, great, but we don't know if we have the staffing and we have zero funding to support publishing projects and all the things that go with it." So, thankfully we thought about it before we had it. So we already had a couple little documents made and it helped us. And the first thing we really, really wanted to do was make some sort of lib guide or page that showcased what are services that we provided, and even more importantly, what services we could not provide. Thinking about our sustainability and how many people we have and the other programs that we're running, yes, we'd like to do publishing support, but we wanted to be very clear on the yeses and the noes in the first conversation with faculty, so they knew exactly what to expect and if they wanted to continue.
And so two years later, after having Pressbooks, we now have six published titles and a couple of more in the works. So, we are really excited to have that number in our Pressbooks platform without any major funding for books. So we're happy there and I think it's important that you can also set, like in the chat, we can set our boundaries to what is a success at our campus and not always compare to what other campuses are doing. So that's where I'll start with our program.
Karen: Thank you, Gabby. Over to you, Sunny.
Sunny: Okay. Thanks, Gabby. That was really good to hear. And hello everybody. Well, I was in the 2019 cohort, so it feels like ancient history now. And starting up, and Karen, please keep an eye on my time. Starting up, I did have some previous experience with open access and open source content working for another library, so working with the DSpace and Plone, which were open systems, so I was a little familiar with that. To give you context, there are seven... I work in a system, and so I'm at Kapiolani Community College, we are one of seven community colleges in the University of Hawaii's system. We have seven community colleges and three four-year/graduate schools.
And at first, my approach was, "This is what I'm going to do for my college." Then it grew into, "This is what we're doing for our community college system," seven colleges, and then it grew into, "This is what we have to do for our 10 campuses." So, my frame is all over the place, so I get a little confused, but starting from the college perspective, I think my first project was an anatomy and physiology lab textbook, where I worked closely with a faculty member who found some materials. We found materials together and we basically had to develop it together. So that's from the community college perspective.
At the system level, we were fortunate to have a Pressbooks site that was supported by our top administration, and so that was established and they did provide us with somebody who would be managing the Pressbooks site. So we were able to work first with the original librarian and then now the OER technologist, Billy Meinke. And so we were able to go through the process of putting that together.
I was very fortunate, my first author was someone who had already published a commercial textbook. She was on her way to publish a second textbook and was in negotiations with her publishers. This is another textbook that she was working on, which is a sleep textbook. We happened to just have a very serendipitous conversation on the roadside, and she said, "My colleague, Amy, said that I need to talk to you." So we just started talking, and her first impression of OER was that it was a crazy idea and not worth looking into at all. I was fortunate to have that conversation with her, and she just really became very, very enthused about the idea, because two of her most core values is diversity and equity. So she saw OER as really a good way to express those ideals. And she has, working with her, basically she's published at least three works. The last work, it was a collaboration of the 10 campuses, with faculty from all 10 campuses.
So that's how I started. Pub101 really helped me. This was at the start of the sleep textbook. I'm so glad that Karen highlighted the difference between a monograph and a textbook. That was such a huge lesson for me, which I took away with. At the time, we were working with a publishing company, Scribe. I'm assuming that's still an option. And we had a very, very positive working relationship with Scribe. We worked with Scribe to produce the sleep textbook. In terms of publishing platforms, we work with all kinds of platforms. I've worked with LibreTexts. I have authors who are basically using GitHub, and there are also authors who have completely expanded the idea of a textbook. It's not necessarily a single entity, but they're developing open courses in our learning management systems. So again, I'm sorry, I'm all over the place.
Karen: Well, Sunny, thank you. And thank you, Gabby, again. I think it reflects the reality oftentimes of supporting publishing. It's like, "I've got this project over here, and then I had this conversation and that relationship evolved, and then it turned out we got a Pressbooks platform." So it can really be like that. I see, Gabby, you're nodding too.
Sunny: Yeah, I think what I had to learn was just to be really agile. Because I was trying... And maybe this was wrong or not, because I feel spread a little thin, but I felt like I needed to meet the faculty where they were. So, the person who's on GitHub is basically, she's a programmer, she's a computer science professor. She had just finished her PhD, so it was just so much easier for her just to forget Pressbooks and just go straight to LaTeX and do all her programming and publishing from her own... At first, it was her own server. My job at that point was to help her get a server, and then she eventually decided, "Okay, let's migrate this to GitHub," because our campus servers were not reliable. So, I was just trying to be there where the instructors were.
Karen: Yeah, I appreciate that comment about agility, and I think it connects also with the comment in the chat about setting boundaries, figuring out; what am I in a position to offer? Oh, I can help with the server. This is a discreet thing that I can do to make this project happen, which is fantastic. And I think too that you're highlighting how sometimes the platform can drive the project as well. And so this is something that we'll continue talking about as the weeks go by. We've already heard so many different publishing tools mentioned, and a lot of the consideration on your end will be, "Do I want to basically say to faculty, 'Hey, whatever works for you, but I don't know GitHub.' I'm not in a position to support GitHub.'" These are all the things that you may find yourself negotiating. And so if it sounds overwhelming right now, just with this first question, please know that we'll continue talking about these questions as the weeks go on. So, Gabby and Sunny, you've both talked a little bit about what you've learned so far. Any other lessons that you think are particularly useful or that stand out and guide you as you move forward?
Gabby: Yeah, I'll go ahead and start again. So one of my main lessons, and I'm sure y'all all know this, is that this process just takes so much time. It's a lot. There's time to build up the infrastructure itself, before you even say yes to a project. Like, what are you even going to offer? Time, even like this to participate in professional development opportunities to understand what even we're getting into, it takes time to get the word out that the service even exists. I know that was a big thing on our campus that OER was brand new. Faculty didn't know, my position was new. So it was lots and lots of marketing and getting the word out, talking to faculty and having them understand what this is.
And it's also taken us a lot of time to advocate for internal funding and apply for external funding grants to try to compensate our faculty for the amount of work that goes into this. We haven't yet been able to accomplish that, but I'm still hopeful. It's there. It's so close. We feel like it's right in our reach, but it hasn't dropped in the line yet. So, all of this takes time, apart from the time it actually takes to then create a resource.
So at UTRGV, we definitely have faculty interest, especially those who have gone through our professional development programs. I'm seeing that transition. We really focused, in the beginning, on just what is OER, just adopt it as is. It's a free resource, and that's where we started, and now we're able to make that transition. Now that they know what this definition is, now, what can OER truly do, which is all the pedagogical practices and the adoption and creating resources that reflect your student population and that fit your unique region, or goals, or area.
And so, our faculty are now understanding that piece and are really engaged and really interested in it. And so, what I've learned a lot with it takes time, is that also projects can take many forms. So some of the things that's happening at UTRGV, again, without traditional funding, because if we did have traditional funding, we'd be able to say, "Okay, we're going to build textbooks and this is what it's going to look like." But since we don't have that yet, we wanted to make sure that our Pressbooks subscription was being used and we could see that resources were being in there. So it wasn't, "Hey, we gave you this thing and now you haven't been able to do anything with it." So some of the stuff that we've been able to add has been a course reader that one of our faculty is like, "Hey, I have all these public domain resources that I've used over the years. Do you have a nice... And I heard you have a platform where I could put this. Can I do that?" And it was like, "Absolutely." So it was something that was just in a Word document that we were able to put into Pressbooks to give it that really nice readability.
Our College of Health Professions had a resource that they were working on, and it wasn't a traditional textbook, but it's something that they provide to all of their students, which is building your professional identity. So, it's a resource that introduces students to professionalism and soft skills. So it was, again, it's like, "This isn't a textbook, but we want all of our students to have easy access to it, we want to share." So those are some of the ideas to give you, what could publishing look like to have, "These are the resources that were created that faculty have already done. We have them in our platform." And then utilizing that to say, "I have 10 other faculty who have all of these projects that are ready and raring to go once you give us the funding to be able to do it."
So instead of asking for funding and waiting for the projects, I have been collecting all the projects over all the years and telling faculty, "This is a possibility. Can I use your project to advocate for you?" And so that's how we've decided to go, which has also given us the time to, again, think about our capacity, what could we possibly provide, and things like that. So it is a lot of here and there, taking it as it comes and deciding what you can and cannot provide.
Some other possible ideas is, I had a faculty member reach out to me who said... She is an educator. She teaches in the education field, and one of her class projects is her students create bilingual kids' stories, and she wants those to be in a volume, so that way teachers in the Valley and anywhere could teach them, because there's always a lack of bilingual resources. So those are the kind of things, the little projects that we've been pulling together to beef up our catalog of resources, things that are already happening on campus that we're putting together in a nice format. And then that gives examples to other faculty and they're like, "Oh, this is really nice. I want to be able to do that." And it's continuing that cycle. So, lessons learned, it comes and goes. Faculty may already have resources that they've created, and you can utilize that in to talk about what open publishing is. So, those are some of the things I've learned.
Sunny: Okay. Well, let's see. For me, I guess getting back to the working with Scribe, I guess I would describe them as a back-end publishing service, a very professional group. We relied on them heavily for their editing work. We just don't have the capacity to provide editing support. And although the book that we worked on, I thought, was well-written, they really were able to bring it up to a whole 'nother level of editing. And what I found interesting was she said her editing experience with Scribe was actually better than her editing experience with the commercial publisher. So, she was very impressed with their abilities. Plus another author, who also took a look at her first manuscript and then her second manuscript, as a copy editor, said that it was a considerable improvement. So that was good for me to hear.
The production process, working with Scribe, came out to, along with, quote-unquote, "heavy editing," came out to under $5,000, basically 4110. And what they offered was, they had a project coordinator who really helped us formulate the structuring and the process of the book production. They gave us advice about things like, "Well, you shouldn't use this chapter as an intro. You should make this the first chapter." Those kinds of things. They gave us a lot of expertise. We had more than 130 images. They gave us a lot of expertise on images, because this was a science textbook. And so they were very helpful with that. And my goal was I wanted something that would be easily printable. So I wanted a printable PDF, so that students could print out chapters one at a time, or even just a couple pages, but also would be readable online. So they were able to get, for us an EPUB and also a very nicely laid out, printable PDF, which requires... They worked in InDesign. So, they brought in a whole slew of expertise, which we just simply had no capacity for, and it would've taken my occasional student assistant position person six months to figure out how to do it. So it was much better to work with them.
Now, when I tried to justify the $4,000 bill with my head librarian and my colleagues, their immediate reaction was, "Oh my, this is expensive." So we're just so used to... Our mentality is we're so used to doing things on our own, as free as possible, and we do an okay job, but for the cost, I'm not sure whether it would cost the same today, but for the cost, we really got, I think, an excellent, professional job, and I learned a great deal during the process.
I guess what I'm trying to say is sometimes you just have to pay for the service if you just don't have that bandwidth, the capacity. An interesting anecdote was, about a year ago, this was The Science of Sleep textbook, an instructor on the mainland, continental U.S., basically contacted our DSpace administrator, because I have the textbook on DSpace, requesting an accessible version of the PDF. What I had saved up on DSpace was the printable PDF, which is very different from an accessible PDF. All the markup has to be for printing, not for accessibility. And I just didn't have that. I didn't make that connection, in the old days, when we were doing this. We had an EPUB, so what I had to do was I double checked with our administration, because I know that we have to provide, for all the materials we put online, we have to have an accessible version. I wanted to double check whether or not I had to provide both an accessible EPUB and also an accessible print PDF. I also had the Microsoft markup version. I know I'm getting really technical here.
What I learned was our system said, "You have to provide something accessible. You only have to provide one format." So we took the EPUB, went back to Scribe and said, "Can you do this? Can you enhance the accessibility?" And by then, it had been several years. So they did a total rescrub of the EPUB, and they ran it through accessibility tests. There were a couple of snags, because the accessibility software was asking, "Why don't you have an ISBN number?" But we got through the snags, and now I'm very confident we have an accessible EPUB. So we were able to get back to the instructor and say, "This is what we have for you. The PDF is really for printing, and it'll do a great job, I promise you, but we can provide you with an accessible EPUB, which your students can use online." So again, that's relying on expertise, when you have the funding to be able to do that. And I think the cost for that was about $240. To me, it was worth the time. Plus, they also updated some of the information in the edit process.
Karen: Thank you both.
Sunny: So that was one lesson I learned.
Karen: Yeah, well, that's a lot of lessons Sunny, and you're highlighting a lot of the technicalities, as you mentioned, and the desire that everyone shares to create accessible resources. And what sometimes is entailed in creating those resources. And I appreciate your point that if your budget allows, sometimes it is more economical to work with professionals who do this all the time, who can create a good working relationship with your author and do these things that would have a huge learning curve for someone in your department, if that is a possibility. What I'm hearing you say is, that can be a good path to follow. And Gabby, I really appreciate your comment about time and the building blocks of developing a publishing program and the opportunities that arise when you ask people or hear from people in terms of what they already have, what already exists, and that you may be able to help them provide.
So, it may not be something like, "Oh, please create this from scratch." Instead it's, "Oh, we can help you bring this to more students," or, "We can help you get this into an accessible format." And so thank you both for reflecting on the many things you've learned. It does sound like a lot. And so for any of you who are feeling overwhelmed or trying to find your way through those responses, we will continue to break down a lot of what they talked about as these weeks go on.
So briefly, as we start to wind down the hour, what would you recommend to people who are here, to someone who's just getting started? There's been a question in the chat about, "What's the right tool? I need a tool." What would you offer in terms of guidance for people just starting out?
Gabby: I touched on this a little bit with that I said earlier, but definitely creating a process that works for your institutional needs and departmental capacity. When looking at other open publishing programs and figuring out who you want to use as your model, remember, we're rarely comparing apples to apples. They may have different funding structures or more people, fewer people assigned to work on these projects. And then also thinking about their levels of faculty engagement and participation and interests. You could have the exact same model, but maybe it's not working, because your faculty are at a different interest level. So there's a whole host of things that could be different, but in saying that, you're in the right place, because there is an entire community of people that are here and ready to help you on this publishing journey. So definitely take a look at that departmental capacity and create a program that fits within those parameters. You can always start small and grow over time, and it's often harder to go backwards where you took on a whole bunch of projects and then realize, "Oh, we actually can't be there. We need to be here." And there'll be more guidance on this and more people and more conversations as you go through the Pub101 Program.
And the other quick little thing is just, I think it'd just be a safe space for faculty too. I honestly believe that as long as you promote your services and are openly available and also open with what you can and can't provide that, not that you're not willing, but there's not a possibility to, that it really helps. And my experience is that, at UTRGV, is that usually the faculty that want to openly publish are the same faculty that are engaged in a thousand other things on campus. So just they want to do it all, from the bottom of their heart, but they also may be overextended in their capacities.
So, those are some of the things I've learned. Even just today, I, right before this, I got a call from a faculty who's been engaged with our program for years, and he called and was like, "I think it's time. I think I can finally publish." And that came about, not because he didn't want to, but because there was a change in leadership in his department that's now allowing more diversity in the course material selection process. So there's just so many factors on campus that could be happening. So don't always say, "Oh, my program isn't successful." There could be other things that are helping. So just being a safe space for faculty to allow them to tell you their story and helping them where you can.
Sunny: Yeah, I like very much what Gabby said. If you're just starting with the program, first of all, you're making yourself, your work available and helping your faculty becoming aware of what's possible. Start small. Definitely start small. Start with maybe introduction to OER workshops. Start developing a following and awareness. I think the reason why we focused on, when we first started at the very, very beginning, even before thinking about publishing, just getting faculty aware of what OER is, that was our first hurdle, to get people talking about it. There has been so much really good research going on about the benefits of OER and the benefits of ZTC programs. Back in 2019, we didn't have that kind of data, those kind of studies to bring in when we were talking with our faculty.
Do a little bit of a research scan. There's a lot of material out there to help persuade both your administrators and your faculty, and different data will speak to each of those populations differently. So understand that you're going to be talking to at least three different kinds of populations: students, faculty, and your administration. And so build interest, build a sense of confidence that this is something that's really worth getting into. And you will find the early adopters, and they will step out first and perhaps grow with them slowly by introducing them to materials, well-constructed materials that are already out there, like open stacks, like some of the materials that you'll find at the Open Textbook Library. Start with adopting and then move into light modification, then more modification.
And then at that point, you'll have some expertise under your belt and some of the problems that come up, including funding, including technical skill, that might help you to slowly evolve into a little bit more publishing. We work closely with a few instructional designers, a lot of people are just more comfortable working from within their LMSs. So, what's the definition of a textbook? I don't want to make this too crazy, but we have a lot of people who are taking their course materials that they've already created and they're building from within their LMSs, OER courses, and then referring out to materials, OER materials, or modifying and supplying them. So just be open to what faculty are comfortable with, because a huge challenge is their technical ability.
Karen: That's true. Sorry, I'm going to interrupt you, Sunny.
Sunny: That's fine.
Karen: But I can really appreciate what you're saying about see what people are open to and find those connections, those people who will become your advocate. It makes a huge difference as you build your programs. Now, I know we only have a few minutes left, but I'm going to fit in a few more things before we adjourn. Thank you for the questions you've been posing in the chat as we've been going along. I will emphasize what you've been hearing us say is you're not alone and everyone here has something to contribute. We are going to do this work together.
Amanda has already dropped in the link tree. I just want to highlight that all the different documents that you'll need for Pub101, you can find in that link tree. That includes the orientation document, where the slides will be linked from, the Canvas curriculum, our YouTube playlist, where we will post all the videos, transcripts, and unit feedback. So, please do make a note of that link.
The orientation document is sometimes referred to as the one-stop doc. It will be updated weekly. And if you would like to know the very moment that the videos become available, you can subscribe to our YouTube channel and it will notify you. Now, we've been talking a lot about faculty, and both Gabby and Sunny mentioned how important it is to build those relationships. The Pub101 Committee is working on adapting this very experience for a faculty audience, so that in the future, particularly if you're at a less-resourced institution, you don't have the time, you can send your faculty to the Pub101 experience designed especially for them. But we will need your help. And so every week we're going to ask you what it is that you want faculty to know about what we've covered that week. And so this week, we ask what you want faculty to know about working with you as you make open textbooks with them. So Amanda just dropped the Padlet into the chat, and we do have a couple moments. If you could please follow that link and you should be able to make a note. Amanda, would you like to provide any guidance?
Amanda: Sure thing. When you load the site, there is a plus sign in a round button at the very bottom right of the page. You can click that to open a note, or you can use the plus sign next to the session title. So session one kickoff, April 10, there's a plus there, and that will also open up a note. You can write a fantastic little message there. And at the bottom, if you care about aesthetics, I do, you can change the color from black to a different color and then click publish and your... I guess the sticky notes will show up in the session one heading.
Karen: Thanks, Amanda. We're using Padlet, so that as a committee, we're gathering all of your input in one place. You'll be able to see it, we'll be able to see it, and it will offer us guidance as we make these revisions for our faculty audience. So, please take a moment and share your reflections with us. Knowing that many of you are beginners, I wanted to create a question this week that was broad enough. So if you feel like you're a beginner, maybe your answer to this question is, "I want faculty to know that I'm doing this for the first time." That was something someone mentioned in the chat. Like, maybe find someone who you enjoy working with and reveal to them, "I'm figuring this out as I go, and that's what I want you to know." So please do contribute.
As you do that, I will preview next week's topic. We are going to be covering accessibility. We will be joined by Jacqueline Frank, who is the Instruction and Accessibility Librarian at Montana State University. That session will be hosted by our Pub101 Committee Member Heather Caprette, who is Senior Media Developer and Instructional Designer at Cleveland State University. So, you'll be hearing from new folks next week.
In anticipation of that accessibility session. You can choose to do some homework if you wish. Go to the orientation one-stop doc, the link of which you can find in the link tree. You'll look for homework listed under week one. And then there is a link to an open textbook that has been created in a Google Doc, which is a very fine way to make a textbook. You can use Google Docs and please post your description or alt tags as a comment. And Jackie has agreed to review your alt tags and provide feedback. So it's a great way to give it a go and get some feedback from someone with expertise in that area.
Please join me in thanking Gabby and Sunny for joining us and sharing the many things that they have learned so far. I would like to thank all of you as well for your commitment to student success, your willingness to learn more with us, your interest in joining us, and your engagement in the process. You have a lot on your plate. I know it's a big deal to set aside an hour a week, and the committee and I, and all of us at the OEN are really glad that you're choosing to spend some time with us. So, without further ado, I will check the chat to see if there are any remaining questions. If not, we will see all of you again here next week. Thanks again, Gabby and Sunny, and thanks all of you. Farewell.
END OF VIDEO
Chat Transcript
00:18:10 Thomas Gillespie: Hello, Tom Gillespie at Northern Michigan University
00:18:20 Nava Cohen: Nava Cohen, Associate Director of Libraries, Pasco-Hernando State College (Central Gulfcoast region of Florida)
00:18:25 Amanda Larson: Welcome everyone! Amanda Larson, The Ohio State University, Affordable Learning Instructional Consultant. :)
00:18:31 Kim Hale: Hello, Kim Hale, Academic Engagement Librarian at Columbia College Chicago. And I'm friendly. :-)
00:18:37 Sarah Clinton-McCausland: Reacted to "Hello, Kim Hale, Aca..." with π
00:19:13 Kelly Smith: Kelly Smith, Director of Collections & Discovery at Eastern Kentucky University near Lexington.
00:19:34 CIndy Gruwell: Hello Cindy Gruwell, Scholarly Communications Librarian - University of West Florida
00:19:54 Gabby Hernandez: Hello everyone! I am Gabby Hernandez the Open Education Librarian at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley in deep South Texas.
00:20:01 Maria Taylor: Maria Taylor, OER Librarian , Berea College
00:20:07 Lori Albrizio: Hi to everyone and all my FL colleagues! Broward College here in Fort Lauderdale. :)
00:21:11 Elisabeth Ball: Reacted to "Hi to everyone and a..." with β€οΈ
00:21:35 Ginelle Baskin: Ginelle Baskin, Student Success & Open Education Librarian, Middle Tennessee State University
00:21:46 Micah Gjeltema: Hi All!! Micah Gjeltema, Open Education & Affordable Content Librarian, from the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities
00:22:00 Jessica Kirschner: Hi all! Jessica Kirschner, Digital Publishing Coordinator at VIVA, Virginia's Academic Library Consortium
00:22:28 Linda Miles: Hi! I'm Linda Miles, OER Librarian at Michigan State University
00:22:59 Bethany Mickel: Reacted to "Hi all! Jessica Kirs..." with π
00:24:00 Roxanna Palmer: Reacted to "Hi! I'm Linda Miles,β¦" with π
00:24:21 Meredith Tummeti: Meredith Tummeti, Instruction and OER Librarian, Centralia College in WA
00:25:52 Amanda Larson: https://linktr.ee/pub101
00:25:59 Amanda Larson: links for today's session
00:26:06 Roxanna Palmer: Reacted to "links for today's seβ¦" with β€οΈ
00:27:55 Abbey Childs: Reacted to "links for today's se..." with β€οΈ
00:30:08 Amanda Larson: since a few more folks have joined, here are the links for today's session: https://linktr.ee/pub101
00:30:19 Amanda Larson: And a Community of Practice
00:32:02 Linda Miles: Already happening, but considering a second open publishing program not focused on course materials
00:33:07 Sarah Clinton-McCausland: Sort of in between the first 3 options -- helping a few select faculty with OER creation/publishing but trying to figure out what a full program would look like
00:33:13 Sarah Clinton-McCausland: Reacted to "Already happening, b..." with ππ»
00:34:50 Amanda Larson: since a few more folks have joined, here are the links for today's session: https://linktr.ee/pub101
00:35:48 Amanda Larson: it's in the link tree! π
00:36:02 Kim Hale: Reacted to "it's in the link tre..." with ππΎ
00:36:39 Lori Albrizio: Reacted to "it's in the link tre..." with ππ»
00:37:14 Kim Hale: https://linktr.ee/pub101
00:37:39 Amanda Larson: Yay Gabby and Sunny! <3
00:40:44 Karen Lauritsen: Please feel free to drop in your questions for Gabby and Sunny as you think of themβ¦
00:41:22 Kelly Smith: What she just said is so important.
00:41:28 Kelly Smith: Set your boundaries
00:41:34 Amanda Larson: Reacted to "Set your boundaries" with π―
00:42:14 Kelly Smith: And if you're not sure what your boundaries might be, consider a pilot project and be clear with the faculty member that they will be helping you learn as you go.
00:42:22 Amanda Larson: Reacted to "And if you're not su..." with π―
00:42:53 Amanda Larson: we'll talk about about boundaries, expectation setting, and capacity throughout several Pub101 sessions too.
00:43:08 D'Arcy Hutchings: Reacted to "we'll talk about abo..." with β€οΈ
00:47:23 Sarah Clinton-McCausland: Reacted to "And if you're not su..." with ππ»
00:47:41 Lori Albrizio: Reacted to "And if you're not su..." with ππ»
00:47:58 Sarah Clinton-McCausland: Reacted to "we'll talk about abo..." with β€οΈ
00:48:21 Amanda Larson: hosting is often a struggle for faculty who are running their own projects
00:48:27 Sarah Clinton-McCausland: Reacted to "hosting is often a s..." with ππ»
00:49:35 Chris Chang: There is no institutional support for OER publishing at all at my institution. But one independent researcher, not affiliated with my institution, wants to publish her OER textbook. Which platform can I recommend? I would welcome any suggestions
00:53:12 Amanda Larson: Replying to "There is no institut..."
There are a lot of options out there: Pressbooks, Manifold, OER Commons Open Author, LibreText has an authoring platform, Gitbooks (GitHub), Jupiter Notebooks. These are just what come to mind off the top of my head, some have costs (either upfront or in hosting), some are completely free but have a learning curve. They'd need to evaluate what meets their needs.
00:56:31 Chris Chang: Replying to "There is no institut..."
As a complete novice, I don't know where to start. If you were asked in during an elevator ride, what would you recommend for probably no or little cost for the author? The author is not tech savvy. The book is for K-12 history
01:00:33 Amanda Larson: Replying to "There is no institut..."
I think I'd steer them to PubPub - https://www.pubpub.org/
01:00:42 Chris Chang: Replying to "There is no institut..."
Thank you!
01:00:48 Amanda Larson: Replying to "There is no institut..."
It's a got a pretty low learning curve and is free.
01:00:54 Amanda Larson: Replying to "There is no institut..."
and it makes pretty outputs
01:01:29 Chris Chang: Replying to "There is no institut..."
Thank you so much! I've been struggling this questions for months
01:01:36 Amanda Larson: Replying to "There is no institut..."
Anytime! π
01:03:32 Amanda Larson: Replying to "There is no institut..."
A relevant to this conversation example of a PubPub - https://openisu.pubpub.org/pub/o64i31lr/release/1
01:03:50 Amanda Larson: Replying to "There is no institut..."
If you want to take a look at what an output could look like.
01:03:51 Lori Albrizio: Reacted to "A relevant to this c..." with ππ»
01:03:58 Chris Chang: Reacted to "A relevant to this c..." with π
01:04:06 Chris Chang: Reacted to "If you want to take ..." with β€οΈ
01:04:51 Amanda Larson: And you're building a community right here! π
01:05:07 Kim Hale: Reacted to "And you're building ..." with ππΎ
01:05:41 Chris Chang: Reacted to "And you're building ..." with π
01:06:48 Gabby Hernandez: Reacted to "And you're building ..." with β€οΈ
01:10:55 Sunny Pai: Platforms: You can always start with MSWord and Google docs.
01:11:08 Amanda Larson: And Google Sites!
01:11:16 Sunny Pai: Reacted to "And Google Sites!" with π
01:11:37 Sarah Clinton-McCausland: Reacted to "Platforms: You can a..." with π―
01:11:42 Sarah Clinton-McCausland: Reacted to "And Google Sites!" with π
01:11:46 Amanda Larson: https://padlet.com/alarsonoer/pub101-z1d7xlq5amzizljf
01:12:46 Sarah Clinton-McCausland: Replying to "Platforms: You can a..."
Yes @Chris Chang we are working on getting Pressbooks set up for the first time, but our faculty have mostly been using google docs, google sites, and word up to this point
01:14:14 Sunny Pai: When working with budgets, know that writers can take longer than a single fiscal year to produce works. Our system allowed us to use carryover to keep funds encumbered over multiple years.
01:14:58 Jeanne Kambara: Thank you!!
01:14:58 Amanda Larson: Replying to "When working with bu..."
This! So much this!
01:15:00 Chris Chang: Thank you!
01:15:03 Andy Johnson: Many thanks to you all!
01:15:04 Elizabeth Tolman: Thank you!
01:15:06 Robin Miller: Thank you!!
01:15:07 Sara Davidson Squibb: ππΌ thank you!
01:15:12 Thomas Gillespie: Thank you.
01:15:18 Micah Gjeltema: Thanks!!
01:15:20 Alyssa Archer (she/her): Thank you, this was really helpful!
01:15:21 Jeanne Pavy: Thanks1
01:15:22 Kat Nguyen: Thank y'all so much!
01:15:22 Elisabeth Ball: thanks!
01:15:23 Lori Albrizio: Thank you!
01:15:23 Bethany Mickel: Thank you!
01:15:24 Kestrel Ward (they/them): Thank you, wonderful start!
01:15:31 Kim Hale: So great to be here today!
01:15:32 Elizabeth Tolman: See you next week!
01:15:38 Sarah Clinton-McCausland: Thank you so much,!!
00:18:20 Nava Cohen: Nava Cohen, Associate Director of Libraries, Pasco-Hernando State College (Central Gulfcoast region of Florida)
00:18:25 Amanda Larson: Welcome everyone! Amanda Larson, The Ohio State University, Affordable Learning Instructional Consultant. :)
00:18:31 Kim Hale: Hello, Kim Hale, Academic Engagement Librarian at Columbia College Chicago. And I'm friendly. :-)
00:18:37 Sarah Clinton-McCausland: Reacted to "Hello, Kim Hale, Aca..." with π
00:19:13 Kelly Smith: Kelly Smith, Director of Collections & Discovery at Eastern Kentucky University near Lexington.
00:19:34 CIndy Gruwell: Hello Cindy Gruwell, Scholarly Communications Librarian - University of West Florida
00:19:54 Gabby Hernandez: Hello everyone! I am Gabby Hernandez the Open Education Librarian at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley in deep South Texas.
00:20:01 Maria Taylor: Maria Taylor, OER Librarian , Berea College
00:20:07 Lori Albrizio: Hi to everyone and all my FL colleagues! Broward College here in Fort Lauderdale. :)
00:21:11 Elisabeth Ball: Reacted to "Hi to everyone and a..." with β€οΈ
00:21:35 Ginelle Baskin: Ginelle Baskin, Student Success & Open Education Librarian, Middle Tennessee State University
00:21:46 Micah Gjeltema: Hi All!! Micah Gjeltema, Open Education & Affordable Content Librarian, from the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities
00:22:00 Jessica Kirschner: Hi all! Jessica Kirschner, Digital Publishing Coordinator at VIVA, Virginia's Academic Library Consortium
00:22:28 Linda Miles: Hi! I'm Linda Miles, OER Librarian at Michigan State University
00:22:59 Bethany Mickel: Reacted to "Hi all! Jessica Kirs..." with π
00:24:00 Roxanna Palmer: Reacted to "Hi! I'm Linda Miles,β¦" with π
00:24:21 Meredith Tummeti: Meredith Tummeti, Instruction and OER Librarian, Centralia College in WA
00:25:52 Amanda Larson: https://linktr.ee/pub101
00:25:59 Amanda Larson: links for today's session
00:26:06 Roxanna Palmer: Reacted to "links for today's seβ¦" with β€οΈ
00:27:55 Abbey Childs: Reacted to "links for today's se..." with β€οΈ
00:30:08 Amanda Larson: since a few more folks have joined, here are the links for today's session: https://linktr.ee/pub101
00:30:19 Amanda Larson: And a Community of Practice
00:32:02 Linda Miles: Already happening, but considering a second open publishing program not focused on course materials
00:33:07 Sarah Clinton-McCausland: Sort of in between the first 3 options -- helping a few select faculty with OER creation/publishing but trying to figure out what a full program would look like
00:33:13 Sarah Clinton-McCausland: Reacted to "Already happening, b..." with ππ»
00:34:50 Amanda Larson: since a few more folks have joined, here are the links for today's session: https://linktr.ee/pub101
00:35:48 Amanda Larson: it's in the link tree! π
00:36:02 Kim Hale: Reacted to "it's in the link tre..." with ππΎ
00:36:39 Lori Albrizio: Reacted to "it's in the link tre..." with ππ»
00:37:14 Kim Hale: https://linktr.ee/pub101
00:37:39 Amanda Larson: Yay Gabby and Sunny! <3
00:40:44 Karen Lauritsen: Please feel free to drop in your questions for Gabby and Sunny as you think of themβ¦
00:41:22 Kelly Smith: What she just said is so important.
00:41:28 Kelly Smith: Set your boundaries
00:41:34 Amanda Larson: Reacted to "Set your boundaries" with π―
00:42:14 Kelly Smith: And if you're not sure what your boundaries might be, consider a pilot project and be clear with the faculty member that they will be helping you learn as you go.
00:42:22 Amanda Larson: Reacted to "And if you're not su..." with π―
00:42:53 Amanda Larson: we'll talk about about boundaries, expectation setting, and capacity throughout several Pub101 sessions too.
00:43:08 D'Arcy Hutchings: Reacted to "we'll talk about abo..." with β€οΈ
00:47:23 Sarah Clinton-McCausland: Reacted to "And if you're not su..." with ππ»
00:47:41 Lori Albrizio: Reacted to "And if you're not su..." with ππ»
00:47:58 Sarah Clinton-McCausland: Reacted to "we'll talk about abo..." with β€οΈ
00:48:21 Amanda Larson: hosting is often a struggle for faculty who are running their own projects
00:48:27 Sarah Clinton-McCausland: Reacted to "hosting is often a s..." with ππ»
00:49:35 Chris Chang: There is no institutional support for OER publishing at all at my institution. But one independent researcher, not affiliated with my institution, wants to publish her OER textbook. Which platform can I recommend? I would welcome any suggestions
00:53:12 Amanda Larson: Replying to "There is no institut..."
There are a lot of options out there: Pressbooks, Manifold, OER Commons Open Author, LibreText has an authoring platform, Gitbooks (GitHub), Jupiter Notebooks. These are just what come to mind off the top of my head, some have costs (either upfront or in hosting), some are completely free but have a learning curve. They'd need to evaluate what meets their needs.
00:56:31 Chris Chang: Replying to "There is no institut..."
As a complete novice, I don't know where to start. If you were asked in during an elevator ride, what would you recommend for probably no or little cost for the author? The author is not tech savvy. The book is for K-12 history
01:00:33 Amanda Larson: Replying to "There is no institut..."
I think I'd steer them to PubPub - https://www.pubpub.org/
01:00:42 Chris Chang: Replying to "There is no institut..."
Thank you!
01:00:48 Amanda Larson: Replying to "There is no institut..."
It's a got a pretty low learning curve and is free.
01:00:54 Amanda Larson: Replying to "There is no institut..."
and it makes pretty outputs
01:01:29 Chris Chang: Replying to "There is no institut..."
Thank you so much! I've been struggling this questions for months
01:01:36 Amanda Larson: Replying to "There is no institut..."
Anytime! π
01:03:32 Amanda Larson: Replying to "There is no institut..."
A relevant to this conversation example of a PubPub - https://openisu.pubpub.org/pub/o64i31lr/release/1
01:03:50 Amanda Larson: Replying to "There is no institut..."
If you want to take a look at what an output could look like.
01:03:51 Lori Albrizio: Reacted to "A relevant to this c..." with ππ»
01:03:58 Chris Chang: Reacted to "A relevant to this c..." with π
01:04:06 Chris Chang: Reacted to "If you want to take ..." with β€οΈ
01:04:51 Amanda Larson: And you're building a community right here! π
01:05:07 Kim Hale: Reacted to "And you're building ..." with ππΎ
01:05:41 Chris Chang: Reacted to "And you're building ..." with π
01:06:48 Gabby Hernandez: Reacted to "And you're building ..." with β€οΈ
01:10:55 Sunny Pai: Platforms: You can always start with MSWord and Google docs.
01:11:08 Amanda Larson: And Google Sites!
01:11:16 Sunny Pai: Reacted to "And Google Sites!" with π
01:11:37 Sarah Clinton-McCausland: Reacted to "Platforms: You can a..." with π―
01:11:42 Sarah Clinton-McCausland: Reacted to "And Google Sites!" with π
01:11:46 Amanda Larson: https://padlet.com/alarsonoer/pub101-z1d7xlq5amzizljf
01:12:46 Sarah Clinton-McCausland: Replying to "Platforms: You can a..."
Yes @Chris Chang we are working on getting Pressbooks set up for the first time, but our faculty have mostly been using google docs, google sites, and word up to this point
01:14:14 Sunny Pai: When working with budgets, know that writers can take longer than a single fiscal year to produce works. Our system allowed us to use carryover to keep funds encumbered over multiple years.
01:14:58 Jeanne Kambara: Thank you!!
01:14:58 Amanda Larson: Replying to "When working with bu..."
This! So much this!
01:15:00 Chris Chang: Thank you!
01:15:03 Andy Johnson: Many thanks to you all!
01:15:04 Elizabeth Tolman: Thank you!
01:15:06 Robin Miller: Thank you!!
01:15:07 Sara Davidson Squibb: ππΌ thank you!
01:15:12 Thomas Gillespie: Thank you.
01:15:18 Micah Gjeltema: Thanks!!
01:15:20 Alyssa Archer (she/her): Thank you, this was really helpful!
01:15:21 Jeanne Pavy: Thanks1
01:15:22 Kat Nguyen: Thank y'all so much!
01:15:22 Elisabeth Ball: thanks!
01:15:23 Lori Albrizio: Thank you!
01:15:23 Bethany Mickel: Thank you!
01:15:24 Kestrel Ward (they/them): Thank you, wonderful start!
01:15:31 Kim Hale: So great to be here today!
01:15:32 Elizabeth Tolman: See you next week!
01:15:38 Sarah Clinton-McCausland: Thank you so much,!!
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