Introduction
Open Educational Resources and Open Textbooks have been gaining traction here at the University of Saskatchewan over the past several years. Faculty and departments are independently supporting their use, adoption and even adaptation through grassroots initiatives. In 2015, the University of Saskatchewan made available $83,000 for use during the 2015-2016 academic year to support the use, adaptation, and creation of open textbooks at the university. The Open Textbook Creation/Adaptation Fund is provided for projects involving U of S instructors adapting existing open textbooks, creating new ones, or developing supporting resources (e.g. test bank questions, slides, etc.) needed to facilitate the use of an open textbook in place of a commercial textbook. This funding is available through an application process managed by the Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching Effectiveness (GMCTE).
As a result of this funding opportunity and the growing demand for Open Textbooks and their ancillary resources, the Distance Education Unit (DEU) has been designated as the key support unit for the project based development of these resources. This unit has extensive experience with online and distance delivered course design and development projects and maintains a development team. This team of development professionals includes Instructional Designers, Copyright Staff, a Text Editor, an Instructional Technologies Coordinator and program support staff.
DEU also maintains the Open Textbook authoring platform, Pressbooks, which has quickly become the standard authoring tool for Open Textbook development and adaptation used by institutions world wide. DEU can provide you with the training, tools and personal support to complete your Open Textbook adaptation or development in this innovative authoring environment.
This Authoring Guide provides content to help facilitate the process of adopting, adapting, or developing an open textbook specifically at the University of Saskatchewan using Pressbooks Textbook authoring platform. However, there is information here that will be useful for anyone working with open textbooks, open educational resources and Creative Commons material.
This Authoring Guide is ever evolving. It is being designed to support faculty who wish to create a new, or adapt an existing, open textbook.
