The motivations and practices that instructors bring to open education can vary widely, particularly for those interested in publishing open textbooks. Institutional and disciplinary norms can influence how authors approach their textbook’s content, design, and format choice. In this panel, four OER authors across the disciplines of Agronomy, Biology, Food Science, and Applied Linguistics will share their experiences developing OER with support from Iowa State University's Digital Press.
In addition to coming from different disciplines, the authors have also taken different approaches to OER development, including adapting existing material, updating and republishing older works, and developing new content from scratch. During the panel, the authors will introduce the audience to their publications, explain their project design priorities, and share lessons learned. The session will conclude with a Q&A to delve deeper into the authors’ experiences.
Attendees of this session will be able to:- Identify the steps required to develop an open textbook.
- Describe four different approaches to OER development.
- Reflect on how local support systems and priorities may affect their capacity to develop an OER.
- Apply lessons learned to design or improve their own approach(es) to OER development.
