International Journal of Open Educational Resources Volume 2, Issue 1, Fall 2019/Winter 2020 | Page 136

International Journal of Open Educational Resources
entire team the ability to add structure,
such as chapters, sections, chapter objectives,
key terms, and exercises. Using
the shared document, faculty provided
the design team with links to open
resources that were to be included in
specific areas of the textbook. The final
column in the table provided an area to
communicate notes and receive sign off
on final edits before content was moved
into the textbook.
As previously mentioned, Pressbooks
was selected for the creation of
the open textbook. Ideally suited for
creating OER materials, Pressbooks’
slogan is “The Open Book Creation
Platform” (https://pressbooks.com/).
Pressbooks was also chosen due to the
designers’ experience with the platform,
and because it is built on WordPress,
which allows for the creation and sharing
of electronic textbooks. Moreover,
Pressbooks is one of the most commonly
used platforms for publishing open
textbooks globally (Falldin & Lauritsen,
2017). Pressbooks is also extremely affordable.
Auburn University at Montgomery
chose their PDF + EBOOK Pro
plan, which has a small fee of $99.00
per developed book title. This plan includes
hosting, software, and public
access, along with the ability to provide
a printable PDF for students. This
demonstrates that with minimal initial
investment, a university can see a major
return in savings for their students.
To highlight the need to differentiate
a work that is intended as a classroom
learning resource from a novel,
Daniel K. Schneider created a textbook
writing tutorial where he identified
three areas of a textbook: openers, closers,
and integrated pedagogical devices
(Schneider, 2008). The project team
implemented these instructional design
elements to assist faculty with adoption
of the open textbook.
The University of Minnesota
(n.d.), in their open course entitled
OTN Publishing Curriculum, defined
openers as items such as learning objectives,
introductions, and focus questions.
When creating a digital textbook
today, one might also expect to see an
introductory video that relates to the
chapter or section content. These videos
add a layer of student engagement
and can be embedded from sites such
as YouTube in the electronic version or
linked via the use of QR Codes in an offline
format.
The University of Minnesota
described closers, which can help
learners reinforce their learning. These
items can be chapter summaries, review
problems, and links to further reading.
Closers in Project 2 were titled Important
Concepts and Reflective Writing
Prompts. Other development recommendations
may include reinforcement
tools like Key Takeaways and Chapter
Review Questions.
The University of Minnesota described
Integrated Pedagogical Devices
(IPD) as instructional design elements
in a textbook that assist with student
learning. IPD could include things like
bolded vocabulary words that are important
concepts in a chapter. IPD can
also be biographies of an author discussed
in the open text. Case studies
can also be created to provide students
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