Adopting Open Textbooks

What Do I Need to Participate in this Course?

This is a facilitated course, where you will have the opportunity to chat and work directly with both members of the B.C. Open Textbook team and the other participants in the course.

In addition to the self paced activities, we have included weekly one hour synchronous webinars with Open Education experts. These sessions will take place each Wednesday at 11am PST using the tool, Blackboard Collaborate. Sessions will be recorded and posted for you to view on your own time should you not be able to make the regular time slot.

How Much Time Will this Course Take?

We estimate each week will take between 3 and 5 hours to complete the content, webinars and activities.

How Do I Converse with my Fellow Learners?

There is no central discussion forum for this course. Instead, we have made numerous avenues available to you to participate, depending on whichever method you find most comfortable.

  1. At the bottom of each page there is a comment box. Feel free to use this space to start a discussion. You can use the comment box with your Twitter, Facebook or Disqus account.
  2. We have a Google+ Community where you can post resources or converse with others in the class. You do not need a Google account to see what is happening in that space; however you will need a Google account if you wish to contribute to the Google+ Community space. If you are new to Google+, you may want to visit the help document.
  3. On Twitter we will be using the hashtag #AdoptOTB. If you use Twitter, you can contribute and participate using that hashtag. If you are new to Twitter, you may want to visit the help document.
  4. If you have a blog, you can participate by writing blog posts about the course and then posting links to your posts in the Google+ Community or on Twitter using the #AdoptOTB hashtag. If you see your fellow participants posting links to their blogs in either of those spaces, head over to their blog and spark up a conversation about what they wrote.

That's a Lot of Spaces!

We've set this course up to encourage you to converse and share resources. You do not have to contribute or even follow conversation threads in all the spaces. Instead, participate when and where you feel comfortable and respond to what interests you. One of the roles of your facilitators is to follow conversations and postings in all the spaces and then amplify them to the larger group via the #AdoptOTB hashtag on Twitter, in the Google+ Community, through the weekly email updates or by posting in the comment threads at the bottom of each page.

Prompts for Discussion

At various points in the course, you will see prompts designed to spark discussion among participants. Use these questions as the basis for a reflective blog post (if you blog), or a comment thread in the comment areas at the bottom of each page of the course. You can also post a question or comment about what you are reading/watching in the Google+ Community or on Twitter using the #AdoptOTB hashtag.

If you see a fellow participant posting a comment or question in any of these places, feel free to respond about what they have posted. This is the way you can participate in the course.

How Can I Get in Touch with the Course Facilitators?

You can get in touch with the B.C. Open Textbook team in a variety of ways during the course:

How Do I Connect to the Blackboard Collaborate Sessions?

What the Weekly Webinar Dates and who are the Invited Experts?

  • Week 1: Wednesday, January 14, 2015 at 11am PST with Nicole Finkbeiner (Associate Director Institutional Relations for OpenStax College)
  • Week 2: Wednesday, January 21, 2015 at 11am PST with Paul Stacey (Associate Director of Global Learning for Creative Commons)
  • Week 3: Wednesday, January 28, 2015 at 11am PST with Linda Williams (Professor of Business Administration for Tidewater Community College) and Daniel DeMarte (Vice President for Academic Affairs and Chief Academic Officer for Tidewater Community College)
  • Week 4: Wednesday, February 4, 2015 at 11am PST with Leslie Kennedy (Director of the Affordable Learning Solutions, CSU)

How Will you Contact me?

There is an optional weekly email update. If you have not done so already, sign up to receive a weekly email that will review the week's activities and discussions, and will preview the following week. We will also post a copy of these weekly emails to the Course Announcements page, and share the weekly announcements in the Google+ Community and on Twitter using the #AdoptOTB hashtag.

Can I Earn a Badge for Participating in the Course?

Yes! You can earn a badge for participating and completing the "badgeable" activity each week . Complete all of the activities and you will receive a course badge.

To collect a badge, you need to create an account here at P2PU. You only have to create a P2PU account if you wish to receive course badges. You do not need a P2PU account to participate in the course, just to collect the badges.

Attribution: Parts of this document have been adapted from Open Research Course: What do I need to do to participate in this course? by the Open Research P2PU Course released under CC BY SA.

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