Supporting Open Textbook Creation
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Stefanie Buck
Your OER project will need a home or “host,” which is someplace where you can store your OER project files so others can access, reuse, and remix them, and so that repositories or referatories can link to them for discoverability. You will need to consider what technical formats you will offer the OER in so you can determine where and how to store them. Discoverability and reusability of your OER content are central to being open and can prove to be challenging for OER creators (Amiel 2013; Ovadia 2019).
Where Will You Host the Project?
How and where the OER projects reside and are delivered for use once they are completed is a decision that needs to be considered sooner rather than later (Cuillier et al. 2016). It will impact what you are able/willing to host (and how) and may also have implications for the formats you can accept from your faculty authors. For example, if you are using Pressbooks as your hosting platform, it may be easiest for faculty authors to provide a Word, XML or ePub format. PDF documents, on the other hand, won’t translate well into Pressbooks and should be avoided. And don’t forget about ancillary materials such as videos, slide decks, and question banks, which will need a home as well and in some way connect to the original OER.
OER delivery mechanisms can be divided into three categories:
- Repository: A centralized site that stores the OER locally (e.g., an institutional repository)
- Referatory: a portal or directory that links to the OER and provides the metadata to help locate these resources (e.g., Open Textbook Library)
- A combination of the two (Brahmin, Khribi, and Jemni 2018; McGreal 2017)
Reusability and Revisabillity of Content
Making content available as well as reusable and revisable are major tenants of the open movement. Ovadia (2019) notes that there are technical challenges to overcome. As project manager, you will want to take these into consideration. One is the reusability of the content (can it be downloaded as opposed to just viewed) and if the file format is editable (remixable and revisable) by anyone, not just individuals who have access to proprietary software (Ovadia 2019).
Storing OER Locally
There are many options when considering where to host, but working with what you already have at your institution is certainly a good place to start. Hosting requires technical support and possibly financial support, so rather than starting from scratch, checking with your institution on what is already available can save you time and money.
Local hosting means that the server storing your content is located and managed by you or someone at your institution on site. It could also mean having to manage a server where your content lives, including running system updates and security patches. Hosting locally gives you control over the content but also means you are potentially responsible for everything to do with the server maintenance.
One option is to