Y1 Unit 5.4: Preliminary Review of {Course #} About This Book Document
At this stage of your project, we conduct a preliminary review to get early feedback on your {Course #} About This Book document from our Workforce Advisory Board and Peer Reviewers. This is a chance for you to share your work so far with colleagues to ensure that the content is appropriate, accurate, and adequately covers the material. This supports our project goals in three ways:
- Preliminary review ensures that materials are widely sharable and usable by other Oregon instructors.
- Preliminary review is an opportunity to incorporate diverse viewpoints and perspectives on your curriculum.
- Preliminary review builds awareness of your curriculum and connects you to people who are interested and invested in its success.
Preliminary Review Process for {Course #} About This Book Document
Your {Course #} About This Book document will go out to the Workforce Advisory Board and peer reviewers at the end of Unit 6 (Week 8 in our schedule). We’ll ask reviewers to assess the planned textbook before too much work is invested in developing content. We will also ask whether the proposed textbook aligns with statewide curriculum maps and workforce standards and how well it addresses our four categories of quality: learner focus, representation of diverse voices, accessibility, and Oregon context.
In this project we practice a form of open peer review. This is a shift from traditional peer review in which reviewers remain anonymous. Reviewers submit feedback through a form, and they can choose for their form responses to only be shared with authors anonymously. Reviewers are also invited to leave non-anonymous comments directly in a copy of your {Course #} About This Book document. This practice allows for a conversation and encourages collegiality and accountability. In all cases, authors know who their reviewers are, even if they don’t know exactly which reviewer provided which feedback.
Your Developmental Editor will summarize the feedback on your {Course #} About This Book document using the rubric in figure Y1 5.3, so that you can see how your planned textbook is doing with respect to this project’s criteria for success. Your Developmental Editor will also recommend a strategy to incorporate reviewer suggestions. Authors do not review the Workforce Advisory Board or peer review form responses directly; the Developmental Editor will give you the takeaways.
| Characteristics for Review | Well-Developed | Developing | Needs Development |
|---|---|---|---|
| Learner Focus | The planned textbook knows its audience and speaks directly and clearly to them at an appropriate level. The outline has all required parts and the elements are aligned to support student learning. | The planned textbook shows progress towards a learner focus and will benefit from work on alignment to support the learning outcomes. | The planned textbook needs to be refocused on the student audience. Sections are missing or incomplete, or elements are not aligned. |
| Representation of Diverse Voices | The planned textbook demonstrates an exemplary focus on lifting up diversity, equity, and inclusion through examples, spotlights, and citations. | The planned textbook shows progress towards focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion and will benefit from additional research or inviting new contributors to represent minoritized identities. | The planned textbook can do more to support the diversity, equity, and inclusion goals of this project. |
| Accessibility | The planned textbook does an excellent job of anticipating the needs of all learners, including students with disabilities. | The planned textbook follows some accessibility practices and will benefit from a review to make sure that all learners can use the whole text. | The planned textbook will not be accessible to all learners as written. |
| Oregon Context | The planned textbook will be relevant and engaging to current, diverse Oregon students. | The planned textbook has started to develop its Oregon context and can do more to connect with current, diverse Oregon students. | The planned textbook is missing an Oregon context. |
Workforce Advisory Board Review of {Course #} About This Book Document
The Workforce Advisory Board consists of individuals with an interest in the training and employability of others in their field. We select Workforce Advisory Board Members based on occupations that relate to the curriculum topics in this project. The Workforce Advisory Board advises authors on current workforce needs to improve our textbooks. We do not ask each board member to read an entire textbook manuscript – that would be too big an ask. Instead, they review the {Course #} About This Book document.
Board members’ relationships with co-workers, clients, and organizations, as well as their methods of problem-solving, can all inform their feedback. They offer recommendations that will help us prepare students for the meaningful careers they seek. They will augment the knowledge and skills of the project team with their knowledge of workforce standards and needs.
Workforce Advisory Board members will also offer suggestions about discussion questions, current events, and workplace scenarios based on their own experiences that authors can incorporate into chapter drafts as spotlights to illustrate chapter learning outcomes. We will come back to this in Unit 8, when we discuss how to write spotlights.
You can preview the questions we’ll ask Workforce Advisory Board members in {Course #} About This Book Workforce Advisory Board Review.
Identify potential Workforce Advisory Board members
Identifying Workforce Advisory Board members is an all-hands-on-deck task. Please help by providing names of people in your field who you would recommend for the Board. The leadership team will also do outreach to identify more potential members. We need a big list of potential Workforce Advisory Board members because lots of people aren’t able to commit to participating when we ask.
Wherever possible, we invite members who are underrepresented in their field, including self-identified people of color, people who identify as LGBTQIA+, and people with disabilities. This helps to ensure that we have a comprehensive curriculum that includes multiple perspectives.
Peer Review of {Course #} About This Book Document
Peer review is a familiar concept for academics. Subject matter experts read through content and provide critical feedback and suggestions to improve the resource for its intended audience.
With your team, discuss what would be most helpful to learn about your {Course #} About This Book document from peer reviewers. What do you consider to be the strengths of your planned curriculum? What are its weaknesses? Where do you feel uncertain?
Use the {Course #} About This Book Preliminary Review Questions document to decide on a maximum of 10 questions you will ask peer reviewers. You don’t have to start from scratch – this document is populated with a range of possible reviewer questions that you can use. You can see an example of what peer reviewers have been asked about a past project: Peer Review of Detailed Outline for Open Oregon Educational Resources [Google Form].
Identify potential peer reviewers
Identifying peer reviewers is another all-hands-on-deck task. Please help by providing names of people in your field who you would like to have as reviewers. The leadership team will also do outreach to identify more potential reviewers. We need a big list of potential reviewers because lots of people aren’t able to commit to a review when we ask.
Consider inviting peer review from colleagues who publish on equity-related topics in your field and who openly discuss how their lived experiences shape their scholarship and teaching.
Add potential peer reviewers to the {Course #} About This Book Preliminary Review Questions document.
Receiving Preliminary Review Feedback on the {Course #} About This Book Document
At the end of Month 3, your Developmental Editor will provide you with a summary of preliminary feedback submitted via Google Form. The Developmental Editor makes recommendations for revising the {Course #} About This Book document based on the Workforce Advisory Board and peer reviewer feedback and helps the author team plan and prioritize changes.
The Developmental Editor does not look at Google Doc comments. Authors manage that feedback on their own.
The Developmental Editor meets with each author team and the Project Manager to share preliminary feedback in the first week of Unit 8 (beginning of month 4). The authors make a plan and complete revisions by the end of month 4.
You don’t have to remember these future steps – we will come back to them when it’s time.
Unit Self-Check Questions
Licenses and Attributions for Preliminary Review of {Course #} About This Book Document
Open content, original
“Preliminary Review of {Course #} About This Book Document” by Open Oregon Educational Resources is licensed under CC BY 4.0.
Figure Y1 5.2 by Michelle Culley for Open Oregon Educational Resources is licensed under CC BY 4.0.
Open content, shared previously
Figure Y1 5.3 is adapted from OER Pathways Developmental Rubric and Editorial Shorthand by Stephanie Lenox for Chemeketa Press, licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.
