Obtaining independent reviews for an open textbook: what criteria to use? | Tony Bates

"What is the issue? One of the questions I had to ask myself as a self-publishing author of Teaching in a Digital Age was whether I needed my book to be independently reviewed before publication. If so, would the same criteria need to be used as if I was publishing commercially? ... What did I do? Because the book was to be an open textbook, and I have a blog which is read within the community of practice in which I work, I was able to test early drafts of chapters and get some feedback on an ad hoc and voluntary basis. I also hired an instructional designer/editor to proof read and assess each draft chapter. I also sent drafts to other specialists in the field where I described in detail their work, asking for feedback and comments. I then published each chapter when I thought it was ready, and the Centre for Digital Education at Ryerson University also offered to provide systematic feedback as I published. As a result I got a lot of useful feedback and comments that influenced the final version of the book, but nevertheless I was a bit shaken when I received an e-mail from a student who wanted to quote me in her graduate thesis, but was advised not to by her supervisor because the examiners might not accept references to a book that had not been independently reviewed. As a result, after the book was published, and with no guarantee that it would be picked up and reviewed in an academic journal, I decided to obtain three independent reviews, and, as with the BCcampus textbooks, I would publish these reviews as received alongside the book ..."