 So my name is Dan Cocroft, I'm the OER librarian at Athabasca University, and I'm joined by my colleague Elaine Fabro, and she's the university librarian. Our colleague Kathy Killow from AU Press wasn't able to join us today, but we really want to acknowledge her work on this initiative. We're really excited to share what we learned on our publishing journey, publishing our first three OER at Athabasca University. During the early stages of our journey, AU Press director at the time was Megan Hall, and there she is. She used a cake metaphor to describe the creation of OER from start to finish, and I'm going to take that metaphor, I'm going to stretch it way out, and we'll see what we can do with it. So we're going to talk about how we baked three openly licensed cakes through our university press, the challenges we faced along the way, and maybe some things that you could take away from our experiences. So I realize I have a clicker, I can change the slides, great. I should also say hello to all our live stream online audience. The context in which any work is produced is really important to understanding that work and appreciating that work. So with regards to place, Athabasca University is located on the border of tree six and tree eight, and we want to recognize and acknowledge that this is traditional and ancestral homeland of many indigenous peoples of Canada. As an institution, AU is Canada's open university. We offer a variety of accredited courses and programs, and we currently offer about 980 courses, both at the graduate and undergraduate level. That's about 43,000 learners, all over Canada and internationally. AU's strong credit transfer agreements, flexible continuous enrollment model at the undergraduate level, and our semester-based graduate levels and programs provide learners with the opportunity to complete courses and programs when it works best for them. So there's a lot of asynchronous learning going on. Another unique aspect of our university is our course materials model, where learning resources are included in tuition and fees for undergraduate students. So any course that uses paid resources includes a fixed $56 course materials fee. By subsidizing those resource costs, AU saves learners potentially thousands of dollars in textbooks costs. So working up an appetite. These unique attributes make AU the perfect environment for OER to thrive. So there's several factors that contributed to formalizing that institutional support and really primed us for success in this space. Firstly, as an open university, AU's mission to reduce barriers to education aligns us philosophically with the open education movement, as does our learning framework goal of providing integrated, affordable, accessible, relevant, and current academic resources which support learning and teaching. By aligning ourselves with open education, we not only fulfill our own mission to improve the experiences of our learners, but we have the opportunity to improve the ability of education resources globally. So for example, by adopting this flat fee course materials model, the traditional model where students spare the weight of textbook costs is reversed. For AU, it's in our best interest to support OER development and adoption. Beyond these more tangible cost savings for both students and the university, there's also an internal incentive to use OER to streamline resource management, including eliminating the looming danger of textbooks going out of print or maybe having rights revoked. When using OER textbooks, there is no need to dedicate valuable staff, time, and resources to managing who can access what and when. There's no need to revise an entire course when a publisher releases a new addition or when a particular portion of the text becomes out of date. So any good recipe undergoes changes over time. Some additions you might find by accident, but most of them come by making mistakes. So it's trial and error. Our process for producing OER has been no different. We've learned from others, we've experimented with new techniques, new ingredients, we've made mistakes, and we've learned from those mistakes. And I hope we've grown through those failures. About two years ago, maybe over two years ago now, the OER pilot program was formed. So the members of the pilot team included myself, the director of AU Press, Megan Hall, the university librarian, the director of academic services, and myself, the OER librarian. So primarily this initiative was launched with the goal of saving the university money. Subsidizing the cost of learning resources is expensive. And the opportunity to eliminate a paid resource could mean a considerable amount in institutional savings. So to facilitate this work of the pilot, the university made a one-time investment of $75,000. To get started, the process of selecting those first four courses was relatively simple. Deans communicated with faculty members, those who had those high-enrollment courses, and they inquired if they were open to a transition to OER. Additional weight was given to those courses with expensive resources. At first, we supported an English course, a computer science course, a math course, and a philosophy course. And we'll show you the results of three of those later on in the presentation. So drawing on a previous experience and processes developed by other... So one of the first challenges we faced was a disconnect between what faculty wanted the OER to look like and what the pilot was able to deliver. When faculty expressed their interest in more advanced or complex features, our pilot lead at the time, Megan Hall, she explained the need for a solid cake base before we add icing or sprinkles or any other decoration. So in other words, there was a tendency for a faculty to gravitate towards the bells and whistles that OER could provide before focusing on the actual content. Next, as you know, textbooks are long and they're complex. So even adapting OER, it's no small task. And as any output of this program reflects on the university, we had to focus on quality. And quality takes time. Every title in the pilot project actually ended up taking longer than we anticipated. Whether that be to extra work needed, unexpected delays, or faculty struggling to meet deadlines. Related to that, faculty facing course revision deadlines, in particular, they face extra stress. And it's critical to provide support and encouragement along the way without nagging. You got to be flexible at the same time. Next, there are many people involved in course creation and textbook creation. And those high workloads can cause missed connection opportunities. So they're really different recipes altogether, but they're invariably linked. So we found that if parties are siloed, there's a danger that those involved might have conflicting understandings of what the textbook needs to include or exclude. Boundaries between textbook content and course content, it's not always clear. So this is related to the previous point. We found that there was a tendency for faculty to want to bring course content into the textbook or inversely package the content of the OER into a learning management system. It was difficult at times for us to make it clear that the OER would be just like a familiar textbook except openly licensed. So during our work, we found that the line between textbook content and LMS content is really dotted. It's not solid. They need to complement each other, but they need to remain distinct and separable, especially if we want to release these OER to a wider community. OER literacy is also a mixed bag. Not everyone knows how to bake a cake. So don't assume that because a faculty member wants to get involved in the OER that they know about OER, open licensing isn't always straightforward. It can get a bit confusing, and it can be really challenging to understand what can be included in an OER and what others can do with a finished project. So informed consent is really big there. OER may also vary in quality and format, so many niche subject areas, they only have a few OER available, and this lack of a variety will, they might lead you to encounter material that is either low quality, full of errors, or maybe it's in a format that just doesn't work for your uses. Maybe it's difficult to convert. So in these cases, you really need to weigh your options and consider how much investment of time and funds is worth taking on. You might also be required to take on OER emergencies. This is not a word you want to hear when you're talking about a cake metaphor, but in truth, some projects may land in your lab as a matter of necessity, not opportunity. So in these cases, a textbook might have gone out of print, maybe a resource may be particularly disliked by students, or of course might be facing poor completion rates. Maybe a faculty member started working in an OER without letting you know at all, and you find out about it at the last second. So in any case, any OER program might have to set aside those goals of reducing resource fees and instead shepherd those struggling projects through the publication process. So many of our early challenges were ironed out in that pilot phase. We had challenges around where to put the finished OER, who is responsible for which parts of the publication process, but we addressed those when we transitioned earlier this year from the OER pilot to the OER publishing support program. I just call it OPS because it's easier. I'm the only one. The most significant change was from the selection of OER projects, from the OER team to implementation and implementation of the application process for review and selection from a diverse committee of individuals representing various areas of the university. So we've made this program a biannual submission. So there's a form and includes questions about learning objectives, the type of support requested, deadlines, current status, and existing OER in the subject area. Now the diversity of this community ensures that criteria which over there, so that's impact, reason for replacing current resource, clarity, feasibility, estimated cost, readiness to pursue, and equitable distribution of support. So an initial evaluation of publishing needs that's completed by the OER elite at AU Press. Right now that's Cathy Killow. That's translated into an estimated cost which is shared with the selection committee. Provided with this package that summarizes each application, well that's my spot, yeah, summarizing each application, estimated costs, and relevant contextual information about the course that selection committee meets and they discuss the merits of adopting each project. The OER librarian, in that case it's me. I guide applicants towards successful applications both before selection and after age action. So just because a project doesn't make it in one window doesn't mean that their journey is over. And after a project is selected for support, AU Press is to offer their expertise during each stage of the publication process, essentially serving as project managers. I'm going to quickly show you this diagram if you want to look at the project and the unique needs of that project. How many pages are in the resource? Is it 200 pages or 600? Will the publication have design elements like graphs or illustrations? If so, what kind and how many? How accessible is the adapted text? What is the quality of the resource? Quality answers to these kinds of questions help us to produce cost estimates and also to develop timelines for projects within the program. Quality in particular is a complex attribute to assess. Whether we're thinking about an adapted text, an adopted one, or a created one, we are committed to only releasing highly effective, clear, and professional OER. While the Press employs a traditional peer review process for their other materials, the OER model is a bit different. To help determine the quality of these resources, we work with subject matter experts to review the OER and suggest improvements. When we think about the organization and creation of the final text, we recognize that this is really key before the publishing process actually begins, making significant changes to the publication in the publication process. Doing that later on instead of early means that more work becomes redundant, the costs are increased, and delays are incurred. Therefore, it's really important that faculty have a clear vision of the final text as early in the process as possible. To aid in this, we can consider posing questions about the structure of the resource to help faculty think about what they want that final product to look like. Some of the questions might include things like, are there going to be learning objectives listed for each chapter? Will each chapter have key takeaways? Is there going to be a glossary? Will there be an introduction? Is the book broken down into parts? And if so, does each part have its own opening page and description? So things like that are things that are worth thinking about. So the publication process actually begins with the submission of the final text. The final text will need to be reviewed to make sure that there's consistency between chapters. This also means that each chapter contains the same elements in the same way as the other chapters. If there's art being included in the text, we need to identify what kind of art that is, what are the illustrations, graphs, images, tables, et cetera. Some of the material in this form may need to be redrawn or recreated or have replacement images found. And this can be difficult because authors sometimes take content from the internet that may be copyrighted elsewhere or because they're online, the image quality or their image resolution is not good enough to be used, especially if we want to have the book be printable. Once the art inventory is complete, we need to decide what work needs to be done, whether that work can be done in-house at the press and what needs to be sent out to freelancers. We also want to make sure that all text is included for any of the images, any of the art that is included, and so the author will need to write text that will be read out by a screen reader in the place of the image. The entire book is copy-edited according to the publication style, whether that's Chicago or MLA or APA or another standard. This can be time-consuming and costly depending on the text in question. The author will have a chance to review all the editing via redlining and MS Word, where they can accept the changes and make additional edits and changes before the final version is created. Once we have the final text with all the artwork, the text will be flowed into a design template and then the text is proofed by the author. It's during this stage that any final errors can be corrected. We don't want to be making any substantive changes at this point if we can avoid it because then we have to go all the way back to the beginning. Finally, the file creation process includes the output of PDF, EPUB 3, which is accessible, XML, and InDesign files. Currently, the OER Publishing Support Program and Danza Librarian, so of course he gave it an acronym, seeks a two-pronged solution to deliver and share these open resources. A public version of each text is hosted on various open repositories to encourage the reuse and adaptation of our efforts. A base authoritative version will exist in an interoperable format on stable AU servers to keep the text available to our learners for the duration of their course and will make sure that it's flexible with future accessibility formatting and functionality needs, including the possibility of print-on-demand when requested. The stable AU version will be served to students through the AUPress website under the Remix branding. Students are offered the option to read the text on Manifold, which is an open source publishing platform that incorporates features such as user annotation, reflowable text, and full WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility compliance. Students can also download the text as a PDF or an EPUB file for offline use or request a print-on-demand copy. So we're very proud to show off a few of the screenshots from the first three books that we've published through this program. Many thanks to Kathy Killow, who is unfortunately not here, Megan, who's in the audience, and to all the authors and contributors who worked on this project. The first of these screenshots is the introduction to computer programming with Python by one of our faculty members, Harris Wang. It's an original OER and begins with some of the basics of computing and programming before diving into fundamental elements and building blocks of computer programs in the Python language. RethinkWrite, writing in university by Pam Chamberlain and Edine Dibbelbauer, is an adaptation of two OER textbooks, Writing for Success by Scott McLean and Writing for Success the First Canadian Edition by Tara Horcoff. It provides instruction in writing, reading, critical thinking, research, and study skills. Critical Thinking Logic and Argument by Eric Dayton and Kristin Rodier is a reworking of a previously published traditional textbook. After obtaining permission from the copyright holder, Dr. Rodier created a new openly licensed textbook that offers students an introduction to critical thinking methods, principles, and applied examples. And finally, we hope that our experience can help others who are starting in this OER journey. And some of the, what you see on the screen are some key takeaways that we'd like to share. First of all, give yourself time and then give yourself more time. Ask any AU Press, or any university Press, publishing a book takes a long time. Be generous with your estimates, both time-wise and budget-wise. Remember that deadlines are really just guidelines to help you organize your work. Check in regularly. Schedule meetings with your faculty during the writing and content selection process. It helps to keep everybody on the same page and on schedule. Get involved early, and this is important especially for librarians, but it's universally true that the earlier you get involved the less time you will have to spend fixing easy mistakes later on. Steering faculty away from form and towards function. In other words, don't put the icing before the batter. Focus on the conversation on the solid base that is the OER textbook and worry about the bells and whistles later. Be open to change. For example, just because we want the outcome to be a cake doesn't mean that there aren't different types of cake. We know OER are more than textbooks and we want our program to start funding innovative and non-traditional projects in the future. So know what you can support and start thinking about what you currently lack the expertise to do. Consider what would occur if you didn't offer the program. There are dangers in not providing a centralized OER program. Without this kind of program, adopted OER will lack a thorough review of available material before selection, professional editing of the content, and consistent presentation of key components. Recognize the readiness of your institution. Key attributes of faculty who will find adapting OER are those who have a clear vision of the final output, in particular its scope, a sense of what needs to be done and what would be nice to do. Communicate clearly. A conversation is easily forgotten or misinterpreted. So follow up your meetings with an email summary. That's always a good idea. And create a welcome packet outlining expectations and a clear depiction of the process that faculty are asked to participate in. And then finally, reflect openly. Enjoy the slice of cake, savor what you made, and then sharpen your pencils. What worked in the process, what didn't? What can be improved next time? Dedicate time towards learning about others' experiences and incorporate those findings into your own work. Remember that some will be further along in the OER journey than you are, and some will be just starting. Be patient. Don't give up. And the rest will come. Thank you very much. And I think we have maybe 30 seconds for questions. Are there any questions? Okay. Perfect. Our contact information is on the slide. Thank you for... I also say go to AU Press website and check them out. It's really cool.