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The Pub101 spring 2024 cohort begins April 10, engaging Open Education Network (OEN) members in our community’s free, friendly orientation to open textbook publishing for the sixth consecutive year. Created for librarians, instructional designers, and all OEN members who support authors, Pub101 provides a relaxed opportunity to learn from colleagues who have open textbook publishing experience.
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The Pub101 spring 2024 cohort begins April 10, engaging Open Education Network (OEN) members in our community’s free, friendly orientation to open textbook publishing for the sixth consecutive year. Created for librarians, instructional designers, and all OEN members who support authors, Pub101 provides a relaxed opportunity to learn from colleagues who have open textbook publishing experience.
Pub101 Today and Tomorrow
The weekly spring Pub101 synchronous sessions complement an asynchronous curriculum that covers key topics and highlights existing templates and resources. Together, the Pub101 experience offers an informal, supportive environment that improves participants’ abilities to:
- Identify key elements of an open textbook.
- Evaluate their capacity to support OER publishing.
- Select which publishing program services may work for their local context.
- Apply project management methods and strategies for communicating with authors.
- Practice compassion and self-care when taking on publishing responsibilities.
In addition, this year’s participants are invited to help shape an upcoming adaptation of Pub101 for a faculty audience.
Pub101 for Faculty Authors
Pub101 for Faculty, currently in development, will be an adaptation of the existing Pub101 curriculum. While the current version is for a librarian audience, the revised version will be for a faculty audience.
“Our goal is twofold,” said Karen Lauritsen, OEN’s senior director, publishing. “First, we want to support authors who are at institutions where resources are stretched thin. They may want to create an open textbook, but not have local support or guidance. Second, we want to offer librarians options. If they have a lot on their plate and want the OEN’s help informing and preparing faculty for writing OER, they can send them to Pub101 in the future.”
For the past several months, Lauritsen and Pub101 Committee Chair Amanda Larson have been collaborating with committee members to envision outcomes for this 2025 offering.
Committee members working toward Pub101 for faculty are:
- Heather Caprette of Cleveland State University
- Melissa Chim of Excelsior University
- Micah Gjeltema of the University of Minnesota
- Cindy Gruwell of University of West Florida
- Jessica McClean of University of Texas at Arlington Libraries
- Kelly Smith of Eastern Kentucky University Libraries.
Librarians Know
Many librarians and staff are familiar with the struggles inherent to publishing. Sharing what they know about faculty pain points will enable the committee to refine and equip Pub101 for Faculty to better serve participants.
Larson, an affordable learning instructional consultant at The Ohio State University, identified the opportunity to gain this important input regarding faculty publishing concerns, questions, and challenges by talking with the upcoming spring cohort.
“It’s paramount to me that Pub101 remains a community-driven endeavor,” Larson said. “Who better to glean insights from than our very own community before embarking on building a version of Pub101 for faculty authors? Either they’re already doing this work day in and day out, or are just starting and have important questions about how they should handle faculty publishing concerns.”
The committee members, who take turns hosting Pub101 sessions, plan to ask the cohort, “What do you want your faculty to know about publishing?” or “What would you like to see in the faculty version of Pub101?” among other questions. Their responses will inform the Pub101 for Faculty redesign.
Heather Caprette has served on the Pub101 Committee since 2021 and currently works as a senior media developer/instructional designer at Cleveland State University.
“Pub101 is an excellent starting place for librarians, instructional designers, and staff helping faculty authors of OER,” she observes. “I know from working with faculty and supporting their professional development over the last two decades, that they will have questions about technology and tools for authoring.”
Caprette says that Pub101 for Faculty will point participants to online resources and professional development opportunities to familiarize them with OER authoring tools and may also provide them with ideas for open pedagogy. “I look forward to hearing the community’s ideas about the publishing needs of faculty around the world,” she said.
Spring 2024 Sign Up
OEN members, would you like to brush up on open publishing? Do you have faculty publishing experience that might be helpful to others? Consider joining the spring 2024 Pub101 cohort. We’ll meet once per week on Wednesdays at 1pm CT, April 10 through May 29, 2024. Look for the invitation in the OEN Google Group, or contact Karen Lauritsen or Amanda Larson with any questions.
Everyone is welcome to visit the OEN blog to read transcripts of previous sessions, or stop by our YouTube channel for Zoom recordings of 2023 sessions.
See you at Pub101 this spring.
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