Goal: Define a clear set of types of review, and develop best-practices/processes around each review type.
As we develop a robust review process for open textbooks, we envision different kinds of review that each serve different purposes throughout the life of a book. This group will try to better define the types of review and approaches to the different types.
These could include:
(Traditional) peer review by a subject matter expert
Open review by subject matter experts
Student & faculty review during “beta” phase
Ongoing student & faculty feedback
Review of updated content over time
This group will work to define the purpose, structure and criteria of each of these kinds of review. They will also help guide the development of dedicated tools and resources for each kind of review, and ask (& possibly answer!) various questions including:
How should we handle reviewer anonymity (in each review type)
Best-practice approaches to each type of review
Best-practice approaches to author-review-editing process etc.
If you would like to be a part of this group, please comment below with a bit about yourself, any specific interests on the subject and any initial thoughts on the group’s purpose.
Hi, with CALI’s eLangdell Press we already do peer review before publication. And, I am interested in ways to collect, sort, value, use “spontaneous” and formal reviews from users during the book’s life. Including reviews of revised text. Lastly, while I currently use emails to collect reviews and Google Spreadsheets to track reviews, as the scale grows, I need more efficient tools. – Deb
@dquentel Tools for managing the review process are top of mind for us – I’ve been creating various spreadsheets for the projects we have undergoing review at the moment and they’re serving as an early feature development process. We’ll keep you in the loop as we move forward so we can make sure they do what you need them to!
Very interesting to consider all the different kinds of feedback over the life of a book, too. We have a great opportunity with open textbooks to recognise the value this adds and enable it in new ways!
@zoe I too have Google spreasheets to track each project and projects as a group! The latter is rougher but helps me not forgot about projects. My Google spreadsheet for each book has about 170 steps - and a summer goal is to tweak the order of steps. Perhaps at another meeting we can all share what we do.
@dquentel Oh wow, I’m pretty far from 170 steps with mine! Will definitely be good to compare processes in the not too distant future. We’ll probably focus more on this once we have the current groups a bit further along.
Hi all, the American Association of University Presses published a ‘Best Practices for Peer Review’ handbook in April of last year under a CC-BY-NC-SA license, and it’s excellent. PDF available here as well.
@swagstaff Thanks Steel, I must have seen this doing the rounds when it was released but haven’t yet taken a closer look. Great that it’s CC! These working groups have obviously lost some steam over the summer (we’ve been swamped!) but nice to see you posting here They’re still very much on the radar to get moving once we have some resources freed up.
They’re still very much on the radar to get moving once we have some resources freed up.