Support Role 3.2: {Course #} About This Book Feedback
At the end of Year 1, Unit 6 (end of month 2) each author team hands in their {Course #} About This Book document, and it is sent out for preliminary review by the Workforce Advisory Board and peer reviewers.
The purpose of preliminary review is for reviewers to assess the planned textbook before too much work is invested in developing content. We want to ensure that the proposed textbook aligns with statewide curriculum maps and workforce standards so that it will be widely usable in Oregon. The Developmental Editor will provide suggestions that encourage the planned textbook to improve in the four areas of our criteria for success: learner focus, representation of diverse voices, accessibility, and Oregon context.
Reviewers have two options for providing feedback:
- Anonymous feedback via Google Forms (required).
- Comments using their own name via Google Docs (optional, not instead of submitting their form).
Reviewer feedback is due in 3 weeks, and the Developmental Editor’s work takes place over one week (end of month 3). The Developmental Editor reads the Google Form feedback and summarizes it for the author team. Using the template provided, the Developmental Editor makes recommendations for revising the {Course #} About This Book document based on the reviewer feedback and helps the author team plan and prioritize changes.
The Developmental Editor does not look at the Google Doc comments. Authors manage that feedback on their own.
The Developmental Editor meets with each author team and the Project Manager to share the feedback summary in the first week of Year 1, Unit 8 (beginning of month 4). The author team uses your recommendations to make an action plan that will determine how they reconcile the reviewers’ feedback and decide whether/how to incorporate it into the {Course #} About This Book document and their chapter drafts. The authors complete revisions by the end of Year 1, Unit 8 (end of month 4).
Using the {Course #} About This Book Preliminary Review Feedback Template
The {Course #} About This Book Preliminary Review Feedback [Google Doc] template is pre-populated with messages for author teams. Please feel welcome to make it your own.
{Course #} About This Book preliminary review rubric
The rubric you’ll use corresponds to the categories of the project’s criteria for success.
| 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. |
{Course #} About This Book recommendations
Please provide feedback on each category assessed with the rubric. Use the bullet points in our criteria for success to show authors how to revise their {Course #} About This Book document in alignment with project goals.
Your feedback comes at a delicate moment. On the one hand, author teams need to take a close look at the overall plan and make improvements before too much content is written. On the other hand, they have started writing chapter drafts and may feel reluctant to circle back to an earlier phase of the project. Therefore your recommendations should focus on a limited number of top-priority specific actions that bring the plan into alignment with the criteria for success.
Remember, the author team works with the Project Manager to develop an action plan for revision based on your recommendations. You do not need to make a plan for the team. Instead, your feedback will focus the authors’ revision efforts on the project’s criteria for success.
Reviewer contributions
There is a blank space on the template for you to pull in the Workforce Advisory Board’s 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. Each chapter will include at least one spotlight, which is a deep exploration of a chapter concept, historical event, biography, or case study that requires sustained student engagement. Spotlights may also be a first-person narrative vignette or a third-person scenario with a named character that engages student interest and shows the relevance of the chapter’s topic. Spotlights may appear in a box or under a consistent subsection header, and typically include figures, reflection questions, relevant links with annotations, or other invitations to extend interaction.
Your feedback will recommend a strategy for incorporating these real-world vignettes so that the author team feels prepared to use them in a consistent way throughout the book. These vignettes are critical to our textbooks meeting the criteria for success; in particular they will lift up diverse voices and highlight Oregon-specific examples. Your goal in presenting them here is to help authors see the compelling reasons to include them in their chapter drafts. Include at least two different recommendations for how authors can incorporate them.
Copy the suggestions into the author-facing document, respecting the level of anonymity requested. Please use H3s to group the suggestions thematically, using your best judgement about how to organize them. Here are a few suggestions for how you might organize your spotlight recommendations:
- Categories from criteria for success
- Course learning outcomes
- Chapter learning objectives
- Type of content (eg discussion question, narrative, multimedia, etc)
Licenses and Attributions for {Course #} About This Book Feedback
Open content, original
“{Course #} About This Book Feedback” by Open Oregon Educational Resources is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.
Open content, shared previously
“{Course #} About This Book Feedback” is adapted from Developmental Review Process by Stephanie Lenox for Chemeketa Press, licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.
