WHEN: Thursdays, 3:30-5pm (ET)
WHERE: on Zoom (see your calendar invitations)
WHO: Facilitator: Jonathan Poritz (@poritzj)
Program Description
The Textbook Success Program is a professional development program that equips faculty, librarians, administrators, and managers with the tools they need to make great OER. The program is one year long and comprises two phases:
- Phase 1 (February - April 2022): 12 weekly themed sessions with your cohort to give you an overview of the open publishing process, and help you scope your work.
- Phase 2 (May 2022 - January 2023): Hands-on stage where you and your team work on your OER projects, with a mix of group check-ins with your cohort and 1:1 support sessions with your facilitator. We will alternate between a monthly cohort meeting and an individual support check-in with your team and your facilitator.
You are required to attend all sessions, to the best of your ability, and in cases of absences ensure that at least 1 member of your project team participates to update you and the cohort on your group’s progress. Review the program Memorandum of Understanding prior to participation.
Facilitator
All TSP cohorts are led by a program alum. Your facilitator will be Jonathan Poritz (@poritzj), graduate of the Feb. 2020 TSP cohort. For years, Jonathan Poritz was one of those tattered minstrel mathematicians one sees wandering dusty backroads with nothing but chalk on his coat and a theorem on his lips: in total, he studied and taught mathematics and computer science at around a dozen universities in five time zones on two continents, most recently in a fifteen-year stint at Colorado State University Pueblo.
He has also worked in various IT firms, from start-ups to multi-nationals, doing things like AI, cryptography, and consulting on public policy towards technology. Building on a lifetime of using free/libre/open-source software, Jonathan has for the last decade been involved in the open education movement, writing three OER textbooks and serving on the Colorado OER Council. In his spare time, he teaches the Creative Commons Certificate course and writes snarky articles about the over-hyping of blockchains. Much more information about him, including (almost) everything he’s written, (almost) all of it released under an open license, can be found on his website.
Significant Learning Objectives
- Get to know Rebus’ collaborative open publishing approach with open education peers in a supportive learning environment
- Connect and contribute to the OER community (eg.: process of being in TSP, learning and OER that comes out of it, relationships)
- Reflect on your current pedagogical practices with the goal of creating your OER with learning experiences that are accessible, equitable, and inclusive
- Create an efficient workflow and apply best practices that help your project progress in due time, with guidance from your Rebus facilitator and other cohort members
- Gain confidence using open approaches and tools to advance your project and grow its user community
- Build and strengthen institutional capacity for current and future open publishing projects
- Recognize and grow your open education leadership skills
Course Materials and Tools
- Curriculum Hub (Here you can find all session materials)
- Additional resources:
- The Rebus Guide to Publishing Open Textbooks (So Far) (The open text our program is based on)
- Making Open Textbooks: A Video Series (Video format of the above guide)
- Technology:
- Zoom video conferencing (All sessions will be held on Zoom. Please download and familiarize yourself with this tool.)
-
Rebus Community forum (Rebus’ open communication space for anyone working in open education)
- February 2022 C Cohort Forum Discussion (The cohort discussion space, where you can have asynchronous conversation with your cohort members.)
- Session Recordings in the ROTEL Canvas Site (for login support, contact @BAmbos)
Schedule
Phase 1
10 February 2022
We’ll start off with group introductions and learn about each project, in an effort to build a network of support and awareness. We’ll also share the Rebus approach to OER: how collaboration makes OER stronger, improves and diversifies content, builds adoption vectors, and increases community buy-in. We’ll discuss why considerations like accessibility, communications, formatting should be made early on. Finally, we’ll gather your goals and expectations for Phase 1.
17 February 2022
Defining your project scope and expectations is critical to a successful project. We talk about how to scope a project to get the most buy-in possible from the start, while incorporating accessibility and communications best practices into the creation process.
3 March 2022
Communications strategy must be more than an afterthought. Your method of talking about your project is an integral element of building a successful OER project. Sharing the project’s story helps grow the book’s community to build long-term sustainability and success.
10 March 2022
In this session we cover various roles and responsibilities, tasks and workload, types of teams, and how to find people to help your project succeed. We highlight the ways strong leaders plan tasks, motivate the team, and keep the project on track. Finally, we discuss ways to manage teams, while striking a balance between available time and the project’s requirements.
17 March 2022
This stage of the program will give you an opportunity for you and your team to meet 1:1 with your facilitator, and address any specific questions, challenges, or issues that have come up. It also offers your facilitator the chance to learn more about your work, and use this insight to tailor support in upcoming sessions.
24 March 2022
Thinking about accessibility and inclusive design up front yields resources that can be used by all students from the moment of release. By integrating these considerations into your project from the beginning you can reduce remediation work post-release.
31 March 2022
Content is one of the most anticipated parts of OER creation. In this session we discuss how to produce strong content that is optimal for learners and consistent across the OER project, while also keeping in mind considerations such as target audiences, diversity, accessibility, downstream uses like remixing, localizing, etc.
7 April 2022
Content creation spans a wide range of activities and forms. This session encourages you to think outside of the box - what would be helpful for fellow educators to make full use of the resource you are creating? In this session we also explore editing, which is a critical phase of OER creation as it ensures the usability and readability of the text. We discuss how it plays out throughout the creation process in different ways, and how it helps your project become a cohesive resource.
14 April 2022
A critical piece of successful OER is getting feedback and review early on. In this session we talk about why peer review is important, how to get it done, and other methods to receive comments and critique on your project.
21 April 2022
Once your book’s content has been written, edited, and reviewed, you need to get it into formats to be shared in the world. We’ll talk about different approaches to formatting and layout, (using Pressbooks and other tools) and how to prepare for the book’s big release.
28 April 2022
The book is out there. Now what? We’ll discuss adoptions, improvements, maintenance, and ways to expand your book so that it and the community around it live on.
5 May 2022
In the final session for Phase 1, we look back on all the topics covered and reflect on the progress you have made. We discuss your plans for Phase 2 and highlight the ways in which you can continue to support and get support from your fellow cohort members.
Phase 2
Creating high-quality, accessible, representative, and valuable open resources takes time. We want to make sure that you have the support you need from this learning community for a full year. During Phase 2, you’ll get a chance to talk about challenges and successes as you apply what you’ve learned in the previous sessions to your project. You can lean on the cohort to get answers, share their experiences, celebrate milestones, and get the inspiration or motivation you need to keep progressing!
This phase comprises a series of group check-ins with your cohort and 1:1 conversations with your project team and facilitator. We will alternate between these two formats for the remainder of the year. Group check-ins will be taking place on the same day and time as those in Phase 1. The schedule for Phase 2 will look like this:
- Group check-in: 26 May 2022 , 3:30-5:00pm ET
- Monthly 1:1 with your facilitator: 30 June 2022, 3:30-5:00pm ET
- Group check-in: 28 July 2022 , 3:30-5:00pm ET
- Monthly 1:1 with your facilitator: 25 August 2022, 3:30-5:00pm ET
- Group check-in: 29 September 2022 , 3:30-5:00pm ET
- Monthly 1:1 with your facilitator: 27 October 2022, 3:30-5:00pm ET
- Group check-in: 24 November 2022 , 3:30-5:00pm ET (this session may be moved by your facilitator to account for the public holiday)
- Monthly 1:1 with your facilitator: 29 December 2022, 3:30-5:00pm ET (this session may be moved by your facilitator to account for the public holiday)
- Group check-in: 26 January 2022 , 3:30-5:00pm ET (final meeting for the course)
Contact
We encourage transparency in what we do, so that everyone, including those outside the program, are aware of the work we are doing and can benefit from the knowledge shared. All communications will take place in the cohort discussion space. However, in the event of extraordinary circumstances, participants can contact Jonathan Poritz (@poritzj) privately via direct message on the Rebus Community forum.
