The goal of this project is to share high-quality openly licensed textbooks and course packs that we feel confident other Oregon instructors will want to use in their courses. To get there, we prioritize team relationships. The sections and units that follow explain how we implement the values in our equity statement.

Open Curriculum Development Project Equity Statement

The Open Oregon Educational Resources Open Curriculum Development Project creates course materials that challenge structures of power and oppression. We provide tools and resources to make diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) primary considerations when faculty choose, adapt, and develop course materials. In promoting DEI, our project is committed to:

1. Ensuring diversity of representation within our team and the materials we distribute;
2. Publishing materials that use accessible, clear language for our target audience;
3. Sharing course materials that directly address and interrogate systems of oppression, equipping students and educators with the knowledge to do the same.

Designing and piloting openly licensed, intersectional, and antiracist course materials is one starting point among many when addressing inequities in higher education. Our project invites students and educators to engage with us in this work, and we value spaces where learning communities can grow and engage together.

We welcome being held accountable to this statement and will respond to feedback submitted via our contact page [Website].

Community Guidelines

Open Oregon Educational Resources provides a supportive environment in which to learn about open education. This community values equity, fairness, accessibility, empathy, and thoughtfulness. All community members are expected to exercise consideration and respect in speech and actions, which may look like…

• Use welcoming and inclusive language.
• Hold your opinions with humility.
• Use “I” statements to speak from your own experiences.
• Ask before sharing someone else’s story or comment.
• Make space, take space: if you speak a lot, let others speak; if you haven’t spoken up, try to contribute.
• Remember that it may not be possible to maintain confidentiality in an online environment.
• If you overhear or observe language or or action that expresses, reinforces, upholds, or sympathizes with any form of systemic social domination, please consider interrupting. Suggested wording for “calling out” and “calling in”: Interrupting Bias: Calling Out vs. Calling In [Website].

If you have questions, comments, or suggestions regarding these guidelines, or need to report a community guideline violation, please contact the Project Manager.

Project Team Overview

This project involves a lot of people! We are from many different institutions in Oregon and some of us live in other states or countries. You can find more information about each role listed below in the Support Roles units at the end of this curriculum.

Content development

Each open curriculum project includes:

• One Lead Author
• Three Contributing Authors
• Three Pilot Instructors
• Three Early Adoption Instructors
• One Revising Author

The Lead Author maintains a big-picture view of the textbook during Year 1 and Year 2. The Lead Author writes up to 4 chapters and does the final pass on all chapters to ensure that they are consistent. The Lead Author also prepares the manuscript documents for handoff at each milestone of the project.

Contributing Authors usually write 2 chapters each. They work with the Lead Author during Year 1 and Year 2 to draft the project plan, determine the chapter structure, and incorporate feedback from the Developmental Editor and external reviewers.

In the second year of the project, Pilot Instructors develop equity-minded, openly licensed course packs for teaching with the textbook. They also provide valuable student and instructor feedback on the textbook based on their experience in the classroom.

In the third and final year of this project, the Revising Author incorporates feedback from students, Peer Reviewers, and Workforce Advisory Board members to prepare the launch version of the textbook. Early Adoption Instructors continue teaching with the textbook manuscript in order to save money for students and develop materials for the community site.

Support team

Here is a brief description of the support team roles. Each one has a unit with more information in the Support Roles units at the end of this curriculum. If you are not sure who to ask for help, you can always contact the Project Manager to have your question directed to the person who can answer it.

• Project Manager: Manage project timelines, coordinate content development, and serve as the primary point of contact for questions.
• Instructional Designer: Support author teams and pilot instructors in meeting the grant goal of developing equity-minded openly-licensed course packs that integrates with openly-licensed textbooks.
• Developmental Editor: Provide supportive feedback on scope and content during the initial writing process.
• Equity Consultant: Available to the entire project team to ensure that content and processes align with the project’s equity goals.
• Research Consultant: Support the author teams by creating background scans, and providing assistance with locating data, images, and other research.
• Media Developer: Adapt or create accessible images, charts, infographics, and videos.
• Instructional Technologist: Import textbook manuscripts into Pressbooks.
• Copy Editor: Review completed manuscript for writing mechanics, length, clarity, concision, and word choice.
• Proofreader: Final edit for mechanical errors and inconsistencies.

Content reviewers

Content review is an important process to ensure the quality and relevance of the curriculum we develop. Here is a brief description of roles that provide feedback, and there is more information in the Support Roles units of this curriculum.

• Students and Pilot Instructors: Provide feedback on textbooks during Year 2 of the project based on classroom experience.
• Peer Reviewers: Provide feedback on curriculum plan and textbook manuscript based on subject matter expertise.
• Workforce Advisory Board: Provide feedback on textbooks and course materials based on professional expertise.

About Open Licenses for this Project

The default license for content created for the Open Curriculum Development Project is Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 [Website].

Participants are welcome to choose a different license when they share their work. We do our best to contact all contributors to confirm their choice of license. If we do not hear from you, then we will apply the CC-BY license.

We cover what this means for different roles in the units that follow. If you have any questions, please contact the Project Manager.

Project Tools

In this project, we use Zoom, Google Suite, and Pressbooks. Our online meetings will take place on Zoom, and we will invite you via Google Calendar with an included Zoom link. All of our project documents are in Google Drive.

Sometimes we include screen captures to show how to use these tools. Because they are third-party tools, our images may not be completely up-to-date if the interface has changed. If you see something confusing, please let us know!

If you want a hands-on session to learn how to use any of these tools, please ask the Project Manager.

Licenses and Attributions for How We Work Together

Open content, original

“How We Work Together” by Open Oregon Educational Resources is licensed under CC BY 4.0.

Open content, shared previously

“Open Curriculum Development Project Equity Statement” by Open Oregon Educational Resources in consultation with Valencia Scott is licensed under CC BY 4.0.

“Community Guidelines” by Open Oregon Educational Resources is licensed under CC BY 4.0. This statement was adapted with permission from Guidelines for Respectful GSA Spaces by GLSEN.