It’s a big deal to pilot a new open textbook. As you engaged in meaningful learning, you and your students likely managed inconsistencies with structure and continuity gaps within chapters. You kept weekly notes on ideas to improve after the pilot term ended, and you met with your Instructional Designer at midterm to discuss how the course was going. As improvements to the open textbook get underway, we’ll do the same with your course materials.

We want to normalize that the first iteration of a course is rarely the best. Even the most seasoned instructors revise their courses to improve the effectiveness, relevance, and outcomes of their design decisions. Both you and your students will benefit from time spent on thoughtful revision.

You and your Instructional Designer will capture your sense of what needs to improve at your Course Revision Meeting. At this meeting, you will fill in the {Instructor} {Course #} Course Revision Action Plan document and the Course Revision Action Plan Priorities tab of the {Course #} Pilot Deliverables for Open Curriculum Development Project sheet. These documents will help you to detail next steps before sharing your course design.

The table in Figure Y2 5.2 shows what the Instructional Designer and Pilot Instructor do at each step of the course revision process.

The goal of the revision process is to bring your course materials into closer alignment with the project’s four instructional design frameworks: Transparency in Learning and Teaching, Culturally Responsive Teaching, Universal Design for Learning, and Open Educational Practices. These design frameworks inform the project’s Criteria for Success in Learner Focus, Representation of Diverse Voices, Accessibility, and Oregon Context. Creating a Course Revision Action Plan ensures that the most high-impact suggestions generated from the pilot can be synthesized into actionable, concrete tasks. Setting priorities will help you to be strategic with your time.

Your Instructional Designer will help you to make sense of your teaching experience and the feedback you received. The submission date for revised openly licensed course materials is the end of the term following your pilot term (about 10 weeks). Your Instructional Designer will help you to scope revision goals so that they are realistic for this timeframe. This is why there is space for due dates in the Course Revision Action Plan Priorities tab of the {Course #} Pilot Deliverables for Open Curriculum Development Project sheet. Keep in mind that pilot instructors typically spend about 10 hours total completing revision goals.

While our criteria for success are consistent across projects, no two Course Revision Plans will be identical. If you had only 4 weeks pre-pilot for design, you probably needed to create pilot content as students were active in your course. Often this means minimal opportunity for reflection or review. Now that the pilot is over, you can check the basic scope and sequence of your modules and assignments for misalignment.

In contrast, if you had more lead time and built the entire course before the pilot launch, you may already have a well-developed sequence and structure. Your revision may address Learner Focus practices like transparently designed assignments or clear, detailed rubrics, or Accessibility practices like consistent naming conventions in module and page design. Relatedly, your revision might focus on assignment structures rather than the overall sequence of course topics. The top priorities for each Course Revision Action Plans will vary based on preliminary design work and the instructor’s own goals.

The final step of the course revision process is to attach an open license to your revised materials. Your Instructional Designer will help you to draft an open license statement and copy it into the footer of all of your course documents. The open license is important because it gives specific permissions to future educators to adapt your course materials.

Licenses and Attributions for Summary of the Course Revision Process

“Summary of the Course Revision Process” by Open Oregon Educational Resources is licensed under CC BY 4.0.