1. Designing and implementing oers
Tiffani Reardon, Instructional Designer, Kennesaw State University
Instructional designer and co-author of Sexy Technical Communication
Instructional Designer for OpenStax Adoption in Sociology 1101
Hi! My name is Tiffani Reardon, and I am an instructional designer at Kennesaw State University. I am working on two Affordable Learning Georgia Textbook Transformation grants, one to create a new online technical communication textbook, and one is an OpenStax College textbook adoption for Sociology I am the instructional designer on both of these projects and a co-author on the textbook.

2. Sexy Technical Communication
Funded by an Affordable Learning Georgia Textbook Transformation grant
A compilation of
David McMurray’s Online Technical Communication
Steve and Cherie Miller’s Why Brilliant People Believe Nonsense
Chapters by Dr. Tamara Powell, Dr. Jonathan Arnett, Dr. Cassandra Race, Dr. Monique Logan, and myself, Tiffani Reardon
To replace expensive textbooks previously used in two courses, TCOM and WRIT 3140 and collectively save students approximately $55, per year
So, the technical communication textbook is titled Sexy Technical Communication, and can be found at the URL shown here. We started with permission from David McMurray to adopt and transform his Online Technical Communication and permission from Steve and Cherie Miller to adopt a chapter from their Why Brilliant People Believe Nonsense. From there, we, the authors, have filled the text in with necessary chapters and edits where needed. Sexy Technical Communication is projected to save students in TCOM 2010 and WRIT 3140 a collective $55, per year, well over the amount of the original grant.

3. The Team and Our Roles Subject-matter experts:
Tammy Powell
Jonathan Arnett
Cassie Race
Monique Logan
Instructional designer: Tiffani Reardon (me)
Closed captioner: Lance Linimon
Student assistant: James Monroe
Administrative assistant: Audra Boyd
Intern: Megan MacDonald
We have a pretty big team, and we are all doing specific and important work to ensure an on-time launch. Our 4 subject-matter experts are Tammy Powell, Jonathan Arnett, Cassie Race, and Monique Logan. Each of them have written their own chapters on various topics, edited chapters from the McMurray text and inserted interactive activities into some where appropriate, and are now working on revising some and re-creating other sample documents for the samples index. I am the instructional designer, and I have written one chapter, edited some of the McMurray chapters and inserted interactive activities, and am now working on my own samples. I also designed the website for the text, will later run an accessibility check on the whole site and all chapters, and I will create .ePub3 documents for each chapter so that students can download to their eReader devices for offline reading. Lance Linimon has been closed captioning all supplemental videos in the chapters, and will soon caption the guest speaker videos that will be coming in over the next month or so. James Monroe designed the background art on the website, converted many of the McMurray chapters and the Miller chapter to Softchalk, and is now helping out with any issues that arise. Audra Boyd has been processing all payments and paperwork necessary to get our guest speakers and team members paid. Megan MacDonald helped James with the conversion of the McMurray chapters to Softchalk.

4. What We All Came For: The Design
Website
Softchalk
Interactivity
Supplemental videos
.ePub3 downloads
Accessibility
In designing the textbook, we knew we wanted a few things: we wanted it to be online and freely accessible, we wanted to include interactivity and videos, we wanted to include the option to download an .epub3 file for offline reading, and we wanted it to be web accessible. Well, we decided to use Softchalk and its new .epub3 capabilities because it meant we could put it online, include interactivity, and embed videos, all while being able to include an .ePub3 downloadable file. For easy editing, we decided to use the Softchalk Cloud for hosting the chapters, but we still needed a table of contents, so we built a homepage and TOC in Dreamweaver. The other plus of using Softchalk is that it creates accessible web pages, so we really only needed to worry about the homepage and TOC, PDF readability, captions, and alternative text.
Example:

5. OpenStax Adoption for Sociology 1101
Funded by an Affordable Learning Georgia Textbook Transformation grant
Using OpenStax College’s Introduction to Sociology 2e textbook to liberate Sociology from it’s current expensive textbook, including:
PDF full text at beginning of course
PDF chapters in each module
Practice quizzes
Quizzes
PowerPoint presentations
Projected to save students $13, annually on 2 online sections expected to adopt
If all online sections (8 total) adopt, will save students $55, annually
On the other side of the OER spectrum, I am currently working with Dan Farr at Kennesaw State to transform his Sociology 1101 class using the OpenStax College Introduction to Sociology 2e textbook. We are using the full PDF text and a link to the website for the eBook download and hard copy purchase at the beginning of the course, and then we are including in every module the PDF chapters, the end-of-chapter practice quizzes (in D2L format), the actual quizzes (in D2L format), and the PowerPoint presentations. The OpenStax version of Sociology 1101 is projected to save students a collective $13, annually on the 2 sections that will definitely adopt, and if the other 6 online sections adopt, then it will save students a collective $55, annually.

6. The Team and Our Roles Subject-matter expert: Daniel Farr
Instructional Designer: Tiffani Reardon (me)
This team is much smaller, with only a subject-matter expert, Dan Farr, and an instructional designer, myself. Dan is doing the content-specific things like creating discussion prompts, exams, and supplementary materials. I am doing a lot of the technical things that are required to pass Quality Matters standards, like accessibility and student resources, and I am also creating some instructional videos for students on how to effectively use the OpenStax text to its full potential, specifically how to take and print notes in Adobe and how to use the OpenStax mobile app.

7. What We All Came For: The Implementation
Full text
Chapters in each module
PowerPoint plan
Practice quizzes
Actual quizzes
Discussions
Exams
Videos
QM requirements
In implementing the text, we wanted students to get the most from it, but we also understood that it would require some supplementary material. To start, we put the full text PDF in the first module so that if they wanted to, they could work from the whole book or take it to a print shop and print it. However in each module, we also broke down each chapter and put them in each module for easier access. We’ve included all of the OpenStax PowerPoint presentations in the course as lecture material now, but it will be a trail run. If after the first semester of implementation Dan decides they aren’t what he needs in the course, he will be making new lecture material to align with the text. We also included all of the practice quizzes at the end of each chapter as practice quizzes in D2L, and we included all of the actual quizzes that go with the text as quizzes in D2L as well. They will also run a trial run in the first semester, and will be revised as needed after the first semester. We are also including discussion prompts in each module so that students can discuss what they are learning, exams after ever 7 chapters, and various supplementary videos. For technicalities, we are designing the course to align with the Quality Matters rubric because it is a requirement for online courses at KSU. Doing so, the course will be accessible, organized, and well designed; it will also ensure that the course includes any and all necessary student and academic resources.

8. Questions?