January Monthly Check-in

Happy new year @may20-cohort! We’ll kick off the year with our first check-in tomorrow at 3:30pm ET, on Zoom. Like we did last month, bring an update to share. We’ll also touch base and see how everyone is feeling after the holidays, and discuss any plans that you are laying out for your project. See you all soon! :slight_smile:

My sincere apologies…I will not be able to attend today due to conflicting appts. I will see you all next time. Have a great session…I will connect with John and Jon regarding the session.

Thank you.

Dr. Jenny A. Piazza

No worries, thanks for letting us know. We’ll catch you next month! :slight_smile:

Apurva, for some reason this email did not show up until just right now. My personal is gpalmer080@gmail.com. please also send there. I am back in class at 3:30 CST, but can make it by 3:50-4:00. I will post an update today.
Geri

Apurva, now that I relooked at the time 3:30 ET for me is 2:30 CST so, I will be unable to attend on Tuesdays at that time as I am in class. I’ll make a note to post updates.
Geri

Sorry to hear that, Geri. It’s tough with the cohort spread out over so many time zones. Hopefully @rogers.todd.l or @judah.viola can attend the sessions instead, and we can continue to chat in the discussion space?

Session Recap

@may20-cohort , thanks to those who could make it at our session this week. We missed @RobinArmstrong, @wernerwestermannj , and Geri, but very much look forward to catching up with you all about your projects over the forum here or next month. A lot has happened since our session on Tuesday, so I don’t expect you all to engage right away on the forum. Take your time to read my short session recap, and know that I’m around if you have questions/comments at any time.

Summary

Our session was short, and was mainly about reconnecting to see how everyone was feeling after the holiday break, share updates (if any) and discussing project plans for the new year. Remember that if your project timeline has shifted since last May, and if you didn’t quite meet your goals for 2020, that is completely okay! Not only so because of the circumstances of last year, which are ongoing, but also because this is quite common for all OER projects. Keep at the pace you have established.

We also got a chance to look at the Children’s literature project in Pressbooks, and a draft of another module in the Lifelong Fitness and Wellness books. A few questions came up regarding Pressbooks formatting - adjusting font size, adding 3D models, supported image/video formats. I wanted to shoutout to Werner, who wasn’t on the call, but has made a lot of excellent progress on the Educación Ciudadana book in Pressbooks! I look forward to hearing more from Werner next month, and of course, from all the rest. :smiley:

We also spent a bit of time in the session, courtesy @w.j.palmer, reflecting on the importance of OER — especially in how it enables learners to Retain access to their books and content for life! Thanks, Bill.

Chat Transcript and Resources

Finally, here’s our chat transcript with the resources mentioned rounded up in this list:

Hi Everyone:
It’s been a hectic time, but we are pressing forward with our Case Studies in Community Psychology; A Global Lens textbook. Let’s see, we are currently in the peer-review process.

  • Our first reviews were conducted by our editors and instructional designer. All manuscripts have gone back to the authors for revision consideration. We have received two manuscripts back with revisions which are ready for the second-peer review. Thus far, we have 11 full case stories at approximately 20 pages each…

  • We put a call out a few weeks ago for potential peer-reviewers and so far we have 14 who will participate in the process.

  • We will send manuscripts to the reviewers once they are back from the first round. We created a criteria form so we are consistent in what we hope to see in the writing.

  • We have three proposals out to present our work at conferences coming up this year. We received an acceptance to present at the Midwest Psychological Association (MPA) Conference which will be held virtually. We have proposals out for the Textbook and Academic Association (TAA) virtual conference and the Society for Community Research and Action (SCRA) (Div. 27 of the APA) portion of the MPA conference. We’ll likely apply to others as well.

  • We were also approved for a small grant from TAA that provided a stipend for our instructional designer and fee for graphic artist. This is exciting! We also received a grant from SCRA in support of our work.

  • We should be uploading case stories and cover soon! We have a big conference for community psychologists coming up in August (virtual), which we hope to have a good framework uploaded, if not completed.

Take care everyone!
Geri Palmer

1 Like

Thanks for this marvellous update, Geri! Your team has certainly been busy these past few weeks.

Congrats on the TAA and SCRA (is that the Society for Community Research and Action
?) grant! I’m happy to hear how this has helped provide a stipend for instructional design and graphic design support on the project.

I’d love to hear more about the editorial process and your experience working with the instructional designer. Did they suggest any major changes to improve readability of the book?

Congrats on the confirmed reviewers! If you can share a copy of the review criteria you’ve prepared, this might help others in the cohort design their own review guides when time comes.

Good luck with the various conference applications. As I’ve said before, I’d love to tune into any of these sessions if I can (the MPA one might be a bit challenging since it is discipline-specific) - so please do post links to the sessions here, or the recordings if they are saved!

I look forward to seeing the case studies when uploaded on the Rebus Press! There are a few other groups in this project who are hoping to present their books at conferences this year; I’m glad to see that this is a motivating factor, and also that you’re all looking at ways to highlight the impressive work you’ve been doing! :smiley:

Hope you are taking care as well.

Thank you Apurva! I will give you more updates and also share copies of review criteria, call for manuscripts, etc. I meant to do this earlier!
Geri

1 Like

Excellent, thanks Geri. No worries. It’s been a busy few weeks, with lots to do, so take your time!

Hi Apurva and All:

I will absolutely add links to the conferences as they are all virtual. To your questions about SCRA, yes this stands for the Society for Community Research and Action. This is Division 27 of the American Psychology Association (APA)..

So we have sent images and some thoughts to our graphic designer to begin working on our book cover. We are looking to see templates of some type of world (map) as a backdrop with images of diverse images of people in the community in the foreground. I’ll be sure to add them to updates for thoughts from the cohort.

We received approval to present at the session held by SCRA at the Midwest Psychological Association’s conference. Here is the link for the conference registration:
MPA Conference Registration. This is for both the MPA general presentation and SCRA has a separate program on Friday, April 23rd, 2021; and on Saturday, April 24th, we’ll present for the MPA General Session.

We did upload our case study guidelines here: Case Study Guidelines

Stay safe!
Geri

Thanks so much, Geri!

I’m excited to hear more about what this process has been like, and of course, to see the cover you’ve landed on! The idea of the map is great. I wonder if there’s a way you could even use a non-Mercator projection map as a template? It might be hard to find, but would be a great statement if you could.

Thank you for the links to the conferences! I’ll see if we can pass along these links within our networks for anyone attending.

Yes the guidelines looked good. Hopefully these have been clear and useful for all the authors.

Hi Apurva,
Tell me more about a non-Mercator projection map? Thanks,
Gri

Hi Geri! There are lots of different kinds of map projections and many debates about which of these is best (perhaps the AuthaGraph?). Some alternatives are more true to size about continent landmass or display a non-Eurocentric view of the world. These can be strange to look at initially, since we’re so used to seeing the normal Mercator projection, but may make for an interesting statement if you decide to go with something else. If you’re curious and want to have a bit of fun, the true size of tool is a neat way to challenge our perspective about mapping!

Hi Apurva and All:
I just wanted to add to my updates the cover we are going with for our book! We are in the process of sending back peer-review comments to the contributors (last round) and will work on our introduction, etc.

1 Like

Hi Geri, this looks wonderful! Thank you for sharing.

I’d suggest being a bit careful with some of the colour contrast ratios in the last line (Edited by…) and in the subtitle (A Global Lens), so that the text is readable by everyone. And you can certainly bump up your names by a font-size or two so it is more prominent. :slight_smile:

Otherwise, this looks fantastic! I especially like how you’re suggesting how diversity is part of our communities, regardless of where we are geographically located.

@may20-cohort, what do you all think?