3 Prerequisites: Information for Authors

You will need the following:

• An understanding of the six Creative Commons licences. Knowing the difference between each licence will help you:
  • Identify suitable open content and textbooks for re-use
  • Correctly attribute (openly licence) your open textbook
  • Determine licence compatibility (use this Creative Commons License Compatibility Chart for guidance)
  • Seek further advice from your School Librarian. The University Copyright Officer will provide expert advice on copyright and licensing as you draft your open textbook. e.g.,
    • Permission to use third-party content
    • Attributing your open textbook

• Access to the Western Open Books platform.
  • Register for a Western Open Books account.
  • Review Pressbooks Pressbooks End User Training [58:02] to understand the process and the Pressbooks Demo Book for an example of how you might design your open textbook.

• A clear purpose and audience for your textbook.
  • Use the OER Development Worksheet to help you determine if an open textbook is required for educational purposes
  • Download and use these checklists to plan your project and publish your open textbook

• Consult with your School Librarian
  • Submit a WesternNow form to schedule a consultation with your School Librarian.
  • If Western Open Books is determined to be a good fit for your publishing purpose, your School Librarian will arrange an initial consultation with the Scholarly Publishing Consultant, who will provide further details about the publishing process. You should receive a copy of this Initial Consultation Checklist [Word format], which outlines the Western Open Books publishing workflow.

• Download copies of the following documents, e.g., forms, checklists:
  • OER Evaluation Checklist (Word) to help evaluate the suitability of openly accessible content you want to repurpose
  • OER Development Worksheet (Word) to help you determine your learning objective and assessments and instructional materials to be used in your open textbook
  • Checklists to plan your project (Word)
  • Western Open Books Open Textbook Outline (Word) template to use for your manuscript. Use Microsoft Styles to format the headings
  • OER Content Sharing (Google Doc) facilitates content sharing for your course with faculty. Also, add these resources to your open text’s Resources list (in the back matter).
  • OER Content Tracker (Excel) or Record of Permissions (Excel) to track permissions given to use third-party content. Permission should be arranged through the University Copyright Officer
  • Download the Inclusivity Diversity Equity Accessibility statement for Western Open Books (Word) checklists to assess the content in your open text against the criteria for accessibility, diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Seek further advice from the Scholarly Publishing Consultant.

• Create a draft of your work before Library submission
  • Track third-party content and Creative Commons-licensed content using the OER Content Tracker.
  • Develop your content in Word format.
    • Use the Word Styles menu to format headings. Include placeholders for images, tables, and multimedia content.
    • Decide on the textbook outline. Which front and back matter will you include in your textbook? Consider including an ‘Acknowledgement of Country’. The Library will add an Inclusivity, Diversity, Equality, Accessibility (IDEA) statement to your text.
    • Consider embedding video and multimedia content, e.g., H5P. These open textbooks include examples of multimedia use. If you intend to embed video, you must correctly attribute the original source. Your school librarian can help you with this.
    • Use the library’s Accessibility and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) checklists to check your content. This information about the accessibility and DEI of the textbook content will be added to the IDEA statement in the text.
    • The Scholarly Publishing Consultant will source external editing services to proofread, structure and copy-edit your work.

Seek further advice from the Scholarly Publishing Consultant about submitting your work to the Library.

• Upon Library submission
  • Once the Library approves your submission, the Digital Publishing Librarian will upload and format your content in Western Open Books. The Library will liaise with you throughout this process.
  • The Digital Publishing Librarian will design a cover image with a Western Open Books visual identity (‘logo’) for you.
  • After the Scholarly Publishing Librarian has checked and approved the quality of the open textbook, downloadable files will be made available, and the textbook will be published.
  • The Library will work with you to develop a promotions pack. The Library will promote your work, and you can use your promotions pack to plan how you will promote and maximise the impact of your open textbook.
  • The Library will provide you with relevant analytics to support you in your academic promotions.