Y1 Unit 8.2: Next Steps for Your {Course #} About This Book Document And Chapter Draft
Read this section to get situated to where we are with the different strands of your project. Stick with the timeline and you will have a manuscript ready to pilot with students by the end of Year 1.
What’s Next for Your {Course #} About This Book Document?
At the end of Unit 7, you received feedback on your {Course #} About This Book document, including your project description and your outline. Your Developmental Editor prepared a summary of anonymous reviewer feedback. Authors can also check for comments that reviewers may have optionally left directly in the review copy of your outline.
During Unit 8, authors will work with their Developmental Editor, Project Manager, and other team members as needed to make an action plan. Together, you will reconcile the reviewers’ feedback and decide how to revise your {Course #} About This Book document and your chapter drafts. The spreadsheet {Course #} Textbook Deliverables for Open Curriculum Development Project has a tab titled “About This Book Revision Actions.” Use this tab to capture the top three priorities for each part of your document. We recommend editing this tab to make it work for you!
Your revision decisions will be informed by what you are learning from drafting your first chapters. You can add to-dos to this sheet if there is a section that needs major changes. If there are undone to-do’s from the “About This Book To-Dos” tab, you can move them over to the “Actions” tab to make sure that all to-dos get completed by the end of Unit 8.
Your revised outline will continue to be a working document, subject to change, but you’ll probably take a break from making changes after this unit. It’s been drafted with the support of your team, externally reviewed, and revised – it’s in good shape! Project leadership will be able to use your revised outline to recruit course pilot instructors because it shows them what the book will cover.
Receiving Preliminary Review Feedback on Your {Course #} About This Book Document
Preliminary review offers valuable feedback on the plan for your book to make it stronger. Remember: the goal of preliminary review is not to get a “green light” on your project but to identify areas for improvement. This may be an uncomfortable process, as getting feedback about how a project can improve is a vulnerable exchange. Every project has room for growth and revision, even when curriculum design is already responsive to student needs. Know that your support team believes in your work and the importance of your project.
Keep in mind that occasionally feedback will not be helpful. All of our external reviewers are asked to align their feedback with Open Oregon Educational Resources’ Community Guidelines [Website]. These guidelines ask external reviewers to use inclusive language, to hold opinions with humility, and to speak from their own experiences. In the event that an external reviewer does not follow these guidelines, they may leave comments in the review copy of your doc that are disrespectful and upsetting to hear.
If you receive feedback that lowers your motivation and your confidence, reach out to your support team. Your Developmental Editor and Project Manager can help you maintain perspective and point out which comments are worthwhile versus what to ignore. Leadership can also ask external reviewers to edit or remove comments that do not align with our community guidelines.
If the wind is knocked out of your sails because you find some feedback discouraging, there is no need to pretend that everything is fine. Peer review can generate complex emotions (figure Y1 8.2). Your support team can partner with you to process your experience and help you plan your next steps. You can reach out to your author team, Project Manager, or Equity Consultant to discuss your response to feedback and consider what you might need from your team in response.
The very first Open Curriculum Development Project that our team sent out for preliminary review received a flood of unconstructive criticism from one particular external reviewer. That’s when Instructional Editor Stephanie Lenox introduced us to the term “Peer Reviewer A.”
The “A” stands for “asshole.”
After that we made a number of changes to our process to make it much less likely for us to have a second encounter with “Peer Reviewer A.” This includes pasting the full text of the Open Oregon Educational Resources Community Guidelines [Website] at the bottom of our invitations to reviewers. Meeting “Peer Reviewer A” was a searing experience and we planned carefully about how to protect ourselves, and our authors, from a repeat!
What’s Next for Your Chapter Draft?
The primary goal of Unit 8 is for each author to finish the chapter draft they started in Unit 6 and have it ready for Developmental Review. This is a major deliverable, so please plan accordingly. Your Project Manager will make sure that the Developmental Editor receives your chapter draft.
In Unit 6 you moved background scan materials into your chapter draft, and in Unit 7 you drafted original content with inclusive writing strategies. In this unit, we’re going to cover all the required chapter elements we introduced in Unit 4 that you’ll need in order to finish your draft. This will support one of our Learner Focus criteria for success: Chapter contains all the parts needed to accomplish the learning objectives.
During this unit you will add chapter openers and chapter closers to bookend the content you’ve written so far. You’ll also spend time writing an engaging spotlight for your chapter, and making sure that there is at least one figure per chapter section. The last section in this unit goes in-depth on making figures accessible to all students.
Looking even further ahead, you’ll use team meeting time to finalize chapter assignments for the next chapter each team member will work on. Lead Authors may write more than one additional chapter for the textbook.
Make the Most of Your Developmental Edit
Your Developmental Editor will provide feedback on your chapter draft using a rubric (figure Y1 8.3). They will be reading for evidence that your chapter will meet the Open Curriculum Development Project Textbook Criteria for Success, and will offer recommendations on areas that need further development at this point.
Their feedback will focus on the big picture. They are not going to provide a checklist of what you still need to complete because you work with your Project Manager and author team on that. Instead, they will engage with the plans and ideas in your chapter.
Make the most of your developmental edit by drafting as many of your ideas as you can so that the Developmental Editor has content to respond to and offer feedback on.
| Characteristics for Review | Well-Developed | Developing | Needs Development |
|---|---|---|---|
| Learner Focus | This manuscript knows its audience and speaks directly and clearly to them at an appropriate level. The chapter has all required parts and the elements are aligned to support student learning. | This manuscript shows progress towards a learner focus and will benefit from work on readability and reducing word count. With more time invested the chapter elements will align to support the learning outcomes. | This manuscript needs to be refocused on the student audience. Chapter elements are missing or lack clarity on connection to learning outcomes. The drafting process is incomplete and outline elements are showing up in the chapter. |
| Representation of Diverse Voices | This manuscript demonstrates an exemplary focus on lifting up diversity, equity, and inclusion through examples, spotlights, and citations. | This manuscript discusses the elements of diversity, equity, and inclusion and will benefit from additional research or inviting new contributors to represent minoritized identities. | This manuscript can do more to support the diversity, equity, and inclusion goals of this project. |
| Accessibility | This manuscript does an excellent job of anticipating the needs of all learners, including students with disabilities. | This manuscript follows some accessibility practices and will benefit from a review to make sure that all learners can use the whole text. | This manuscript will not be accessible to all learners as written. |
| Oregon Context | This manuscript will be relevant and engaging to current, diverse Oregon students. | This manuscript has started to develop its Oregon context and can do more to connect with current, diverse Oregon students. | This manuscript is missing an Oregon context. |
Licenses and Attributions for Next Steps for Your {Course #} About This Book Document And Chapter Draft
Open content, original
“Next Steps for Your {Course #} About This Book Document And Chapter Draft” by Open Oregon Educational Resources is licensed under CC BY 4.0.
Open content, shared previously
“Receiving Preliminary Review Feedback on Your {Course #} About This Book Document” is adapted from “Expectations for Peer Review” by Stephanie Lenox for Chemeketa Press, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
Figure Y1 8.2. “Person at work with a laptop” by The Gender Spectrum Collection licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.
