Key Links
- Review Guide Template [adopt and modify]
- Handout for session 9
The ultimate purpose of review is to ensure that your OER is well-structured and ready to be used in the classroom. Review can help you get critical input and suggestions for change that will make your OER even stronger. By sharing your book with subject experts, you can ensure that the content is appropriate, accurate, and adequately covers the material. At heart, review is about bringing more hands on deck to invest and help your resource.
Today’s session covered the different kinds of review, workflows for these processes, and important considerations for this stage of your projects. We looked at a few central documents and questions that may support you all, and also do a bit of forward thinking about how to share the results of this process!
- Peer Review: ‘Peers’ can offer constructive feedback and solutions to improve the quality of educational content. We encourage you to reflect, recognize, and minimise biases in peer review. For instance, consider what types of feedback you need and who can speak to the quality of your content besides another instructor — would an industry expert be able to input? Think back to your SLOs — whose subject matter perspectives are needed to help determine whether the OER is built to help students achieve these outcomes?
- Accessibility Review: The accessibility review involves a thorough run through the different output formats of your OER looking specifically at the web accessibility in each format. A specific set of accessibility criteria can guide the people in your team who are tasked with this form of review to ensure that your resource meets the desired accessibility standards. The goal is to make as accessible an OER as you can, knowing that there is always opportunity for improvement down the road.
- Classroom Review: This form of review is particularly powerful because it invites feedback from the students which ultimately will help your team to determine necessary improvements for future iterations. Feedback can be gathered both from the instructor using the book to teach as well as the students using the book to learn. Try to identify some academic and non-academic measures as you gather comments from the classroom.
In session, Ebony mentioned the rewarding aspects of issuing an open call to not only subject-matter experts but to reviewers from a wide variety of disciplines. Every reviewer’s feedback enhanced the content and made the resource stronger.
Glenn discussed the importance of getting more focused subject-level feedback, a critical examination of how this work relates to the field as well as the quality of the scholarship. The feedback sought allowed for more conversation and discussion vs. filling out a checklist or fill-in rubric. Some of the questions one OER team asked were:
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Is the scholarship sound? What is the author’s goal, and how well have they succeeded in reaching it?
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How does this manuscript compare with other resources available in this subject area?
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Is the manuscript organized logically and effectively? Are stylistic revisions called for? Is the text easily and readily divisible into smaller reading sections that can be assigned at different points within a course?
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How could the manuscript be improved? Would you recommend deletions, expansions, or other changes? (Please be specific.)
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In general, do you recommend this manuscript? If not, can you suggest revisions that would make it acceptable for use in courses?
In light of this example, we discussed the importance of giving multiple ways to get feedback from users–email, Google form, etc.
To wrap up the conversation, DawnDena reminded folks that reviewers can earn a $250 honorarium for review of an OER once it has been published. Potential reviewers can apply through the Campus Manitoba Open Ed website.
We provided a Review Guide Template [link above] that will help you establish review workflows and identify expectations and central guiding questions to better structure your review process and support reviewers. The adoption activity is is laid out in more detail in the handout for session 9 [linked above].
In the final part of our session, we participants engaged in a discussion activity around which you can access in the cohort forum thread Session 9: Review and Feedback.
While this stage is fairly straightforward, it’s critical to prepare all the documents and workflows ahead of time to ensure smooth sailing. And remember: along the way, if you have any questions - do not hesitate to lean on each other and the open community, including the Rebus forum, cohort members, and myself.
Next week, we’ll begin looking towards the book’s official launch with a session on formatting and release preparation. This phase is one where your project really begins to take shape as a whole, usable resource.
