Resources > Revising Textbooks
Revising a Textbook
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One of the promises of Open Textbooks is flexibility for instructors to modify and customize them for specific course designs. Here are some initial considerations on editing an open textbook.
- Current format
- Some textbooks are available in formats that while easy to view and print, are not easy to edit. Check your selection and see if the website offers a way to edit it, or provides an editable copy such as a word processing file.
- Modular design in a textbook makes it much easier to revise for specific course design. Check that your selected textbook is presented in modules or units that can be dealt with separately if needed.
- Is your textbook hyperlinked so that students can move through material both in a linear pattern AND in response to immediate needs? Be mindful not to lose useful cross links when revising content.
- License and Attribution
- What version of Creative Commons or other open licensing is the textbook offered under? Not all open licenses allow revision or republication.
- Student Access
- If the textbook you choose is editable, do you also have the software or support to re-distribute it in a format that students can access?
- While Acrobat READER is free, Adobe Acrobat Professional, the software used to CREATE accessible PDF's is not. You will need it if you plan to provide a PDF to your students.
- Instructor Skill Set
- If you want to revise a textbook, examine your own proficiency with software
- Is the file format in a software program you know fairly well?
- If you will edit online, is the program offered easy to understand and use?
- If you want to make changes to graphics or other unique learning aids like equations or diagrams, do you have the software and know-how to rework them?
- Extent of revisions
- Finally, consider how much you wish to change. Minor tweaks can seem easy, but if they are numerous, they still take time.
- If changes you want are substantive, you may want to search for a better match. Extensive content changes can be challenging.
- When edits need to be structural, such re-arranging the order of chapters, open textbooks are quite flexible.
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