Who are we?
Remixing Open Textbooks with an Equity Lens (ROTEL) was envisioned in 2021 by the leadership of the MA Open Education Resources Advisory Council.
The ROTEL leadership group included the Principle Investigator (PI) Millie Gonzales, Dean of Libraries at the lead institution Framingham State University, Co-PIs Susan Tashjian, Coordinator of Instructional Technology at Northern Essex Community College (NECC) and Dr Robert Awkward, Assistant Commissioner for Academic Effectiveness in the MA Dept of Higher Education’s Office of Academic Affairs & Student Affairs, and consultant, Marilyn Billings, previously the Head of the Scholarly Communication Office at the University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMA)
The ROTEL Publishing Support Team (PST) was created towards the end of the first year of the grant when the PI and Co-PI leadership group recognized that ROTEL needed to have a “boots on the ground” effective team to assist faculty in the publication process of their ROTEL textbooks.
Marilyn Billings: ROTEL Faculty Liaison and Publishing Support Team Coordinator
Barbara Ambos: ROTEL Grant Administrative Coordinator & Pressbooks Administrator, Revised Editions Copyeditor and Technical Editor
Richard Lizotte: Copyeditor for ROTEL’s Publishing Support Team
Jess Egan: Copyeditor for ROTEL’s Publishing Support Team
Minh Le: Multimedia Specialist for ROTEL’s Publishing Support Team
Vicky Gavin: Technical Editor and Quality Assurance Checker for ROTEL’s Publishing Support Team.
We want to give special thanks to the people who helped bolster our work and kept us moving forward:
- Steel Wagstaff, Customer Experience Lead
- Thomas Weideman (he/him), Support Team Lead and QA Tester
- Mich (Michèle) Spieler (They/Them), Customer Support Specialist
- Julie Curtis, VP Strategy & Growth
- Caroline Johnson, Financial Administrator
The Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education (ISKME) gave us an extensive workshop to keep us up-to-date on the best practices for accessibility. Working with Joanna Schimizzi helped us to confidently emphasize accessibility throughout the publications in ROTEL.
Luis Daniel Rodriguez
Senior Graphic Designer, Office of Marketing & Communications
Framingham State University, Framingham
https://www.linkedin.com/in/luisrodriguezstudio/
Dr. Michelle Cromwell (they/them) has a Ph.D. in Conflict Analysis and Resolution focusing on ethnic conflicts. Their work involves applying contemporary theories of conflict transformation to guide clients through complex situations.
Timeframe of PST
The ROTEL Grant’s PST work occurred between 2022 – 2025 predominantly in Pressbooks.
