Collaboratively Developing an OER Music Appreciation Textbook
Channel: Open Education Southern Symposium
Date: 2021-09-22

In 2019-2020 I led a team in the development and publication of a peer-reviewed OER music appreciation textbook. From the start, I imagined this as a highly collaborative project that would draw on the expertise of our entire teaching staff. My team included seven adjunct instructors and three tenure-track professors. Six separate authors contributed text on topics from their expertise, while other team members created demonstration videos, produced graphics, sourced images, and provided feedback. Team members also produced listening guides, wrote test questions, and created slides. When the book was published by the University of North Georgia Press in May 2020, therefore, it was accompanied by a complete set of teaching materials, meaning that it can easily be adopted by any instructor at any institution. This work was funded by a Large-Scale Textbook Transformation Grant awarded by the Affordable Learning Georgia (ALG) program.

In this presentation, I will walk participants through my entire process, including the use of cloud technology to facilitate collective writing and editing. I will also discuss the pros and cons of developing a textbook with a large team of contributors. The greatest strength of my approach was the inclusion of adjunct instructors, all of whom were provided with stipends through ALG. As a result, the instructors felt valued and the textbook was improved through the inclusion of a broader range of topics. At the same time, it proved challenging to coordinate a large group of contributors, each of whom responded to the project in different ways. Despite challenges, however, this project has forged community among music appreciation instructors, improved our curriculum, heightened enthusiasm for teaching, and eliminated textbook costs for students. I will also describe contributions made after publication by instructors at other schools.

Presenters:
Esther Morgan-Ellis