5 Timelines and Milestones
Submit Milestone Report
The OER Milestone Reporting form is for OER creation and modification projects to be published with Mavs Open Press. It is used to communicate your readiness to formally move the publication process forward on your OER. Milestones include requesting a preliminary accessibility evaluation, setting preferences for cover design and print distribution, reporting the start of your pilot period, requesting a formal accessibility evaluation, requesting publication, and requesting new exports post-publication.
The timeline for OER creation or modification can vary significantly. However, all OER published by Mavs Open Press are required to undergo both formal and informal evaluations before publication. Major milestones require communication between the project lead and the Mavs Open Press team. Please use our OER Milestone Form to communicate your readiness to move your project forward to the next milestone. Milestones are presented in chronological order below.
Milestone 1: Ready for Preliminary Evaluation
After you’ve completed some– but not all– of the edits and additions necessary for your work, you may request a preliminary evaluation from the OER team. The team will then review your work for accessibility and note any issues of consistency, attribution, or formatting that require attention. This allows us to catch and correct errors before they require large-scale remediation.
Milestone 2: Begin Cover Design
We will begin designing a cover for your OER early in your creation process. The OER Milestone Form requests information about your vision for the OER cover and links to any openly licensed images you wish to incorporate in the cover. Recommending cover art is not required. A member of the OER team will contact you via email with a proof of the cover. Please confirm final approval of your cover design via email.
If you haven’t already submitted your preference regarding making a print copy of the OER available for purchase through the UTA Bookstore, please do so at this time. Print files are due several weeks prior to the start of the semester, and deadlines are firm. Any resources that are not finalized by the print deadline will not be made available in print the following semester. Print is advisable if the content will remain relatively static in the short term, if the content requires print (e.g., a workbook that contains tearaway homework pages to be submitted for grading), and/or if students express the desire to purchase a professionally bound print copy. Please note that in all situations students may print their own hard copy from the PDF download available on the book’s landing page or submit the file for professional binding to a print-on-demand service (e.g., Lulu.com)
Milestone 3: Pilot Ready
You may begin using your OER during the pilot semester before making the book public. Students can access a private book via Canvas. Instructions for uploading a Pressbook into Canvas are available in Pilot Semester.
Milestone 4: Formal Accessibility Evaluation
When you’ve completed your edits and additions, submit a request for formal accessibility evaluation. A member of the OER team will review your text for accessibility using the rubric located in the book’s back matter. A team member will contact you via email following the evaluation about the status of your OER. Requests for evaluation should be submitted a minimum of two months before your requested publication date, as some remediation may be required.
Milestone 5: Request Formal Publication
Once all required accessibility remediation is complete and content is stable, you may request formal publication of the OER. At this time, Mavs Open Press will remove draft disclosures from the text, update the publication information, archive a PDF of the OER in the UTA ResearchCommons, and index the OER in relevant open repositories. We will contact you when the publication process is complete. Following formal publication, all changes made to the text should be logged in the book’s Errata and Versioning History page located in the back matter.
[Optional] Milestone 6: Request New Export/Version
OER have the advantage of ease of updates. Minor changes to the text can be incorporated by the author at any time post-publication, as long as every change is logged in the book’s Errata and Versioning History page located in the back matter. Major revisions may require a new export and release under a new version number. If you wish to create a new export of your OER, please submit an OER Milestone Form for this request and someone from the OER team will be in touch about next steps.