3 The UniSQ Open Text Publishing Workflow

Each open text is different and has a different publishing journey and variation in pedagogical design. However, each open text is guided by UniSQ’s Open Text Publishing Workflow which has five steps:

  1. Prepare and plan.
  2. Write and create.
  3. Review and edit.
  4. Publish and share.
  5. Evaluate and maintain.
A diagram showing 5 steps in the publishing process, which are: prepare and plan, write and create, review and edit, publish and share, evaluate and maintain
Figure 1: Steps in the open text publishing workflow

Plan and Prepare

At this stage, you should ask yourself a few key questions to gauge your OER knowledge and skills before starting an open text. Have you explored OER content in your subject area? Do you need training on working with openly licensed content? Have you scoped and created an outline for your text? How will you manage and keep track of content?

Having an OER consultation with a member of the Open Educational Publishing team at this stage is pivotal. Once you have a consultation and are happy to proceed with the text, you will sign a Memorandum of Understanding and begin the writing process.

Write and Create

This phase is where the most time is spent on your open text. We encourage you to send us single chapters once they are completed so we can check for any copyright issues and help design a sample chapter in Pressbooks for you. This stage includes heavy intellectual work and includes being mindful of copyright, accessibility, academic integrity, and diversity and inclusion.

At this stage, you will need to become familiar with UniSQ’s open publishing platform, Pressbooks.

Review and Edit

Quality assurance is an essential part of our publishing workflow and you are expected to have your text reviewed by a suitable reviewer with disciplinary knowledge of your text’s topic. Copyediting and proofreading are undertaken by the author/s in this phrase. The OEP team will review copyright and accessibility.

Publish and Share

Once you are happy with your text, inform the OEP team who will send a request to the Director (Library Services) for your book to be published.

Once the book is approved and published, consider how you will communicate and promote your text. The OEP team can help you with this and will deposit your book in national and international repositories

Evaluate and Maintain

You can measure the reach and impact of your open text through analytics, adoptions, reviews and student feedback. Additionally, as an author, you should consider maintaining your completed open text by updating content when necessary and correcting mistakes. These steps are required for the ongoing quality, relevance and sustainability of your book. We also have the option of creating editions of our open texts.

The five steps of open text publishing are expanded on in the workflow below.

The UniSQ open text publishing workflow step by step. The first section is titled Getting Started and includes the following questions: have you explored open texts in your subject area; do you understand open licences' are you confident to begin working with open texts? The next section is called prepare and plan and has the following questions; do you need help curating OER?; have you developed text outline; scope production; choose open licence; sign MOU. The next section is called 'write and create' and includes writing chapters and putting book into Pressbooks. The next section is titled 'Review and Edit' and includes peer review, checking copyright and accessibility and editing. Once quality assurance completed, a request to publish is issued. The fourth section is titled Publish and Share ' which includes distribute to students. The last section is called evaluate and maintain which includes considering data collection and student feedback
Figure 2: UniSQ Open Text Publishing Workflow

Please feel free to download or print a clearer version of the UniSQ Open Text Publishing Workflow [PDF].

 

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Open Publishing Guide for Authors Copyright © 2023 by University of Southern Queensland is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

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