The OER Collective Communities of Practice are a key element of the OER Collective model. They are designed to support community and capability building related to open textbook publishing across CAUL Member institutions.
There are two Collective Communities of Practice.
| Community name | Intended for | Focus | Who can join | How to join |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Library Staff Community of Practice | All library staff at participating CAUL Member institutions | Developing library staff capacity to collaborate with and support authors who are writing open textbooks | Any library staff member at participating CAUL Member institutions | Sign up for the email list |
| Academic Authors Community of Practice | Authors at participating CAUL Member institutions who are writing textbooks for the Collective Pressbooks platform, or who are actively involved in developing open textbooks for publication on a participating institution's own local Pressbooks instance | Supporting authors to develop the skills and knowledge necessary to produce an open textbook | Any author contributing to an open textbook at a participating CAUL Member institution. All authors writing a textbook on the OER Collective Pressbooks Platform will be automatically added to the CoP email and Slack lists. | View the procedures |
Each Community of Practice is convened by Rani McLennan, the OER Collective Project Officer with support from the OER Collective Champions and CAUL's Director, Strategy & Analytics, Katya Henry.
In 2024, the themes will be flexible to adapt to calls from Communities of Practice members for topics as they are needed.
Themes will be facilitated by the OER Collective Project Officer, Collective Champions and special guests.
Library Staff and Academic Authors will meet twelve times a year at Community of Practice webinars. Each meeting will have a topic related to a theme and may include a short presentation or training in addition to open discussion related to the topic. The first meeting will be an orientation.
Meeting themes and dates are on the CAUL events listing. Find them copied below (select each item to view details).
Find the recording and presentation slides of the Orientation session via the event page.
Topics covered include:
Find the recording and presentation slides via the event page.
Presented by Lucy Walton, Scholarly Publishing Consultant at Western Sydney University.
Find the recording and presentation slides via the event page.Learn about this year's grants program.
Find the recording and presentation slides via the event page.
Presented by Alice Luetchford, Open Education Librarian, James Cook University.
Find the recording and presentation slides via the event page.
Join us as we interview several members:
Rebecca Fabry
Manager, Academic Services
Charles Sturt University
Jennifer Hurley
Lead, RMIT Open Publishing Team
RMIT
Philip Worthington
Subject Librarian (Economics & Finance, Government, Information Management)
Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington
Stephanie Davenport
Senior Librarian (Research and Academic Engagement)
The University of Western Australia
Find the recording and presentation slides via the event page.
Wondering how best to launch your next OER publication? Struggling with how to manage a hybrid event?
Come along to our next CoP with all your questions for our panel of guest speakers who will share their insights and experiences in organising an OER book launch at their institution.
Featuring:
Tim Ormsby
Learning and Teaching Librarian
Flinders University
Steph Simon
Academic Librarian
University of South Australia Library
Lucy Walton
Scholarly Publishing Consultant
Western Sydney University
Dr Mais Fatayer
Learning Experience (LX) Design Manager
University of Technology Sydney
Find the recording and presentation slides via the event page.
Join your colleagues from Monash University and Deakin University as they discuss types of peer review, their varied approaches, and practical tips.
Find the recording and presentation slides via the event page.
Wondering about using generative AI in OER publications? Unsure what the limitations are or whether others are actually doing this?
Join your colleagues Catherine Radbourne (Queensland University of Technology), Susannah Bell (Swinburne University of Technology), Rachel Doherty (University of Canterbury) and Richard White (University of Otago) as they discuss attitudes and approaches to the intersection of AI and OER.
This month’s session is designed to be a facilitated community discussion. So, bring your stories, experiences, topics and questions to share!
Find the recording and presentation slides via the event page.
Would you like to present? Submit an expression of interest now via this form.
Would you like to present? Submit an expression of interest now via this form.
Would you like to present? Submit an expression of interest now via this form.
Community of Practice members should register to attend the meetings. For planning purposes, members are encouraged to register only if they plan to attend. Note that when registering for the first time, you will have the option to register for all events at once.
The training or presentation component of each meeting will be recorded and the recordings will be distributed via the relevant Community of Practice email list. They will also be listed on the CAUL Events page.
In addition to the Community of Practice meetings, discussions will all take place via the email lists and in Slack. Emails and Slack posts related to the current theme will be made by the theme facilitator to help promote discussion in these spaces.
Community members are also welcome to post on any topic related to open textbooks at any stage.
Each Community of Practice operates according to a charter. The charters will be reviewed by the Governance Group and uploaded to this site.
The training or presentation component of each meeting has been recorded and distributed via the relevant Community of Practice email list.
See the list of past recordings and upcoming below:
| Title & Date | Summary | Presenters | Link to Recording |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Academic Authors 2023/5 14 November 2023 |
Crafting online learning experiences: Learning design fundamentals and H5P for Pressbooks | Tim Ormsby | Recording |
|
Academic Authors 2023/4 12 September 2023 'Teach, Design, Thrive: A Handbook for Tertiary Educators at UniSA’ |
Antonella Strambi and Kirsty Summers from the Teaching Innovation Unit at the University of South Australia (UniSA) discuss their forthcoming OER Teach, Design, Thrive: A Handbook for Tertiary Educators, with Q&A facilitated by Ash Barber (UniSA) and Katya Henry (CAUL). | Antonella Strambi, Kirsty Summers & Ash Barber | Recording |
|
Academic Authors 2023/3 13 July 2023 'Copyright & Creative Commons' |
Overview of copyright and licensing; practical demonstration of using Pressbooks copyright elements; Q&A. | Katya Henry & Richard White | Recording |
|
Academic Authors 2023/2 9 May 2023 'Writing Your Open Textbook' |
Writing Your Open Textbook with Nikki Anderson; Copyright Considerations; Peer Review; Book structure Considerations; Tips when writing your open textbook; Other Tips | Nikki Anderson | Recording |
|
Academic Authors 2023/1 14 March 2023 'Orientation' |
Aim of academic author community of practice; Orientation; Getting familiar with Open Education Resources; OER benefits; Tips for authors; Q&A. | CAUL | Recording |
|
Academic Authors 2022/5 11 October 'Quality Assurance' |
Copyediting; Proofreading; Accessibility standards; Copyright standards | Craig Patterson | Recording |
|
Academic Authors 2022/4 23 August 2022 'Writing Your Open Textbook' |
Choosing & applying style guides and style sheets; structuring your open textbook; writing & revising content; writing the first draft; creating and curating figures, images and multimedia; creating interactive learning objects; choosing & applying a Pressbooks template; creating a book cover | Samara Rowling | Recording |
|
Academic Authors 2022/3 5 July 2022 'Accessibility & Inclusion' |
Where to go for accessibility & inclusion support; What is digital accessibility and why it’s important; 8 things we can do to make our content accessible; Helpful tools; What is inclusion?; Diversity v Equity v Inclusion; What does inclusion look like in open textbooks?; Universal Design |
Frank Ponte, Anna du Chesne, Annette Goodwin | Recording |
|
Academic Authors 2022/2 24 May 2022 'Copyright and Licensing' |
Where to go for copyright support; Copyright & IP considerations at a local institutional level; Creative Commons licensing & how it works; Finding openly licensed material for your textbook; Copyright & licensing features in Pressbooks; Q&A | Chloe Czerwiec, Richard Levy | Recording |
|
Academic Authors 2022/1 12 April 2022 'Getting Started' |
Aim of academic authors community of practice; |
Tahnee Pearse |
|
|
Title & Date |
Summary |
Presenters | Link to Recording |
|
Library Staff 2023/5 10 October 2023 |
University of Adelaide & Queensland University of Technology - challenges, lessons learnt. |
Ash Barber Matt Lumsden |
Recording |
|
Library Staff 2023/4 08 August 2023 |
Spotlight on OERs at Deakin | Frank Ponte | Recording |
|
Library Staff 2023/3 13 June 2023 |
Crafting online learning experiences: Learning design fundamentals and H5P for Pressbooks | Tim Ormsby | Recording |
|
Library Staff 2023/2 4 April 2023 |
Local vs Collective users; Choosing open textbook projects; Recruiting authors; Open Educational Resources Advocacy Toolkit; OERC catalogue. | CAUL | Recording |
|
Library Staff 2023/1 14 February 2023 'Orientation' |
Participating institutions 2023; Grant timeline; (Re)orientation; Structure; Roles & responsibilities; Managing collaborative projects; Working with author teams; Q&A. | CAUL | Recording |
|
Library Staff 2022/5 8 November 2022 'Peer review' |
Supporting authors with peer review; Peer review models; Designing a peer review process, including open review & use of rubrics; Post-publication peer review | Fiona Tyson | Recording |
|
Library Staff 2022/4 27 September 2022 'Open textbook advocacy' |
What is advocacy?; The OER Advocacy Toolkit; Practical approaches that support advocacy | Adrian Stagg | Recording |
|
Library Staff 2022/3 9 August 2022 'Accessibility & Inclusion' |
Where to go for accessibility & inclusion support; What is digital accessibility and why it’s important; 8 things we can do to make our content accessible; Helpful tools; What is inclusion?; Diversity v Equity v Inclusion; What does inclusion look like in open textbooks?; Universal Design | Frank Ponte, Anna du Chesne, Annette Goodwin | Recording |
|
Library Staff 2022/2 21 June 2022 'Copyright & Licensing' |
Where to go for copyright support; Copyright & IP considerations at a local institutional level; Creative Commons licensing & how it works; Finding openly licensed material for your textbook; Copyright & licensing features in Pressbooks; Q&A | Chloe Czerwiec, Richard Levy | Recording |
|
Library Staff 2022/1 10 May 2022 'Helping academics get started with open textbook publishing' |
Equip Yourself: grow your network; build your skills; open textbook pitch; look out for opportunities; Engaging Academics: academics view of content; guage academics’ point of view & motivation; encourage exploration & build skills; quality & peer review; managing expectations | Tahnee Pearse | Recording |
|
Title & Date |
Summary |
Presenters | Link to Recording |
|
Academic Authors & Library Staff 2023/6 12 December 2023 |
2022-2023 round up; statistics, 2024 membership, what's coming up. | Rani McLennan | Recording |
|
Community Day 1 March 2023 |
Download the program | Multiple | Recording |
|
Academic Authors & Library Staff 2022/6 7 December 2022 'Celebrating our Successes' |
OER Collective Pilot Project objectives; Books that have launched Panel discussion: panelists discuss OER Collective activities at their institutions, their motivations to become involved, how they found the experience, and what they have learnt. |
Tahnee Pearse, Steven Chang, Richard Levy, Angie Williamson, Phillip Worthington | Recording |
|
Pressbooks Training 'Advanced' 26 May 2022 |
More detail on cloning openly licensed books and other features covered in the ‘Getting Started’ session. Also covers interactive features such as H5P activities, hypothesis annotations, mathematical notation, and accessibility best practices. | Thomas Weideman, PressbooksEDU | Recording |
|
Pressbooks Training 'Getting started with Pressbooks' 12 May 2022 |
How to get started on a Pressbooks project. Creating, exporting or cloning a book and using the Pressbooks Directory. | Thomas Weideman, PressbooksEDU | Recording |
|
Community Day 31 March 2022 |
Download the full program. | Multiple | Recording |
