Introduction

This book is an adaptation of the B.C. Open Textbook Authoring Guide created by BCcampus and licensed with a CC-BY 4.0 license, with some material also being incorporated from two other BCCampus open books the BC Open Textbook Adaptation Guide and the BC Open Textbook Accessibility Toolkit.

This adaptation of the Open Textbook Authoring Guide has been edited by Ann Ludbrook and Sally Wilson of the Ryerson University Library & Archives and Michelle Schwartz of the Ryerson University Learning & Teaching Office.

Why are open textbooks important for Queen’s University?

The first of the Library’s Strategic Priorities is to “develop a comprehensive information resources vision that addresses the challenges and opportunities of the evolving scholarly record, in all its forms, and raises awareness of resources.” This priority specifically makes room for “Promotion of and support for Open Access, Open Data, and Open Educational Resources.”

Queen’s University Open Textbook Initiative

Queen’s University is committed to providing affordable and accessible teaching materials to its community. To assist the Queen’s community in adopting, adapting, or creating open access educational resources, Queen’s Scholarly Publishing has created the Queen’s Open Textbook Authoring Guide.

This guide provides readers with an introduction to open access education, as well as instructions on how to adapt an already existing textbook or create an entirely new resource. Readers will also find production tips, instructions on using the Queen’s hosted Pressbooks platform, accessibility and copyright guidance, and tips on the creation of ancillary materials.

The original B.C. Open Textbook Authoring Guide stated that this book is ever evolving. We hope others can reuse parts of our adaption to produce other institutional authoring guides so this work can continue to evolve.