The project’s expectation in offering Revised Edition stipends was that the revisions were minor editing for currency or relevance, without major changes to the content or structure. The PST also expected to make the changes to a Pressbooks clone of the OER. There were tight time constraints for publishing before the next semester and this seemed straightforward.

Whether the author was editing directly into the Pressbooks cloned OER, or in a collaborative document, the authors were explicitly informed to note changes in a [separate] log of changes. This would allow the editors to focus on the parts that were new, rather than reworking the whole OER again. The log also served as a basis for the Version History, which was added to both the Revised Edition and the First Edition.

In the Revised Edition production, the process included other technical requirements only available to the Super-Administrator. Again this is dependent on which Publishing Platform is used. The Technical requirements included:

• URLs for the Revised Edition.
  This generated additional sequential preparation to update including:
  • When publishing the final Revised Edition, we opted to use the First Edition’s URL, so that prior linking to a ROTEL OER in syllabi, etc. would not be broken. The First Edition remained on the server, but its URL was changed before the Revised Edition’s URL was changed.
  • Internal linking in both editions of the OER needed editing to match the URL being used.
  • Source Book attributions needed editing.
• Platform Project Catalog updates.
  • We opted to remove the First Edition from the Project Catalog, but it was retained in the Pressbooks Directory.
• Cover updates.
• Title updates with [Revised Edition] and [First Edition] in the title fields.

Lessons Learned:

The Revised Edition Process
Even with the explicit instruction, change logs often were not maintained and often collaboration documents did not note changes. This resulted in extra work time in editing the OER and research for version histories.

Retaining the First Editions in the Pressbooks Directory allow them to be accessible from anywhere on the internet. This means that the later Revised Edition may be overlooked if the student/reader is going to the OER via an internet browser search (rather than the Pressbooks catalog or a syllabus URL link).

Revised Editions often needed new H5P activities. These requirements competed with other projects and were considered a lower priority for the limited professional resources of the PST.