Important links:
Last week’s session helped your team focus on the planning of the two pivotal aspects before the release of your OER: formatting and promotion preparations.
It might be hard to imagine this endpoint in your projects given where you are in the publishing process right now, but let us assure you, you will eventually get to the end point!
As you work to manage these many small details, what’s useful at this phase is to keep a running list of and tick off items as you complete them. The main things to keep in mind is that your book is available in web, editable, and offline formats, and that there’s a short announcement that you can share on release day. It can sometimes be difficult to draw the line with final tweaks and touches on the book, so work with your team to reach a point where you are all happy.
In the first part of the session, we spent time discussing the sequence of formatting process that bests starts with formatting the main content in your publication software of your choice. Then add non-textual elements before your finally review the work. We provided a proposed formatting workflow template for your team planning. As with other stages of the OER publishing process, collaboration is key! We encourage you to assign tasks and seek input and advice from resources on your campus.
After formatting, you will want to focus on the final touches to help your book feel like a well-curated and professionally created resource. Frontmatter and backmatter can help your resource feel more rounded and professionally created, as can a well-designed cover. Adding information like a review statement, accessibility statement, book metadata, and adoption form can provide readers with more information about the quality and efficacy of your resource, and also provide pathways for others to find the book and report their use.
Finally, the time will come when you pull together what you already have for promotion purposes, so you can focus on filling in any gaps. But, most importantly savour the moment — this is the milestone you’ve been working towards, and it’s finally here! Pause and celebrate with your team.
Tomorrow, we will dive into ways to keep your book up to date following release, as well as how to understand the longer-term impact of your team’s hard work via adoptions and other non-traditional metrics for assessing learning.
