25 Promoting your Open Text
Now that your open text is published, it’s time to let your audience know.
Underlying Principles
Marketing starts at day one, or before. Well before content is written, even before a project officially ‘starts’, the story of the open text has begun, including the reasons for creating it, the subject it covers, your team approach, and the people who make up that team. Get in the mindset of telling that story early and often.
Every open text project is different: and so is the marketing. Our suggestions are guidelines, not a standards. Formulate your marketing ideas based on what happens in your project.
Collaboration in marketing is as important as it is in the content creation. The more voices and perspectives that are brought in, the greater the diversity, which also leads to greater potential for adoption, use, and reuse.
Connection-making is at the heart of communications. Create and tell a story about your project, connect with those who listen and respond to their feedback.
Word of mouth and grassroots efforts are easily the most effective tactics for marketing your open text. The team working on your open text is one community, but you and everyone else in it have ties to many other communities.
Internal Promotion
Your colleagues at JCU are a ready-made community that can help promote a new open text. Here are some ways you can make use of your institutional networks:
- Use email and mailing lists to inform colleagues, as well as the Dean and/or Head of School or relevant committees.
- Ask the communications and marketing team to write a press release to help promote your open text.
- Ask your liaison librarian to share your open text with their contacts.
- Promote your open text in high schools and community groups.
- Contact peer reviewers and others involved in the book and ask them to promote the open text.
- Open Access Week, Open Education Week and the annual Learning and Teaching showcase are ideal opportunities to highlight our resources and champion our OER authors and publications.
- Add your open text to your email signature.
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
The OE Team can arrange a persistent identifier for your open text, a DOI. Using the DOI whenever you promote or mention your open text will improve reach and impact. With a DOI, you can then keep track of social media mentions and other online activity of your open text with altmetrics.
Altmetrics
Altmetrics gives a score based on the volume and sources of attention a work has received. The sources may be academic citations, social media posts, web forums, users on Mendeley, and more. The score is visualised as a multicoloured doughnut that summarises the sources of online attention received. See the JCU Researcher Profiles, Identifiers and Engagement library guide for more information about using altmetrics.
You might consider installing the Almetric Bookmarklet for Researchers to keep track of online engagement for your open text.
ORCID
Add your open text to your ORCID record. An ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor ID) enables you to reliably, unambiguously and permanently connect your name(s) with your work throughout your research career, including publications, grants, education, employment and other biographical information.
If you need help setting up a free ORCID account, contact your liaison librarian.
Other Channels for Promoting Your Open Textbook
Promoting open textbooks requires a multifaceted approach that leverages various channels to reach educators, students, and other stakeholders. In Australia, promoting open textbooks requires a targeted approach that leverages specific channels within our educational landscape.
Here are some of the best Australian and international channels for promoting open textbooks.
Online Platforms
These online platforms are valuable resources for educators, students, and other stakeholders interested in discovering, creating, and promoting open textbooks. They provide opportunities for collaboration, sharing of resources, and advocacy for open education principles and practices. You will find more online platforms in the JCU Open Educational Resources (OER) library guide. Here are some platforms you may be able to submit your ebook to.
- MERLOT: A curated collection of free and open online teaching, learning, and faculty development services. MERLOT’s textbooks cover various disciplines and are peer-reviewed for quality.
- OER Commons: A digital library offering a vast collection of openly licensed resources, including textbooks, lesson plans, and multimedia materials. Educators can search for and contribute to the repository.
- Australian Tertiary OER Repository: This is a group within OER Commons. The focus is on Australian-generated and centric open education resources for use in tertiary education.
- Open Textbook Library: Open textbooks are licensed by authors and publishers to be freely used and adapted. Download, edit and distribute them at no cost. Selection criteria apply for adding books to the Open Textbook Library.
- Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB): DOAB is a community-driven discovery service that indexes and provides access to scholarly, peer-reviewed open access books and helps users find trusted open access book publishers. All DOAB services are free of charge, and all data is freely available. To comply with submission requirements, books need to be independently and externally peer reviewed.
- Pressbooks Directory: Pressbooks Directory is a free, searchable catalogue with +6,000 open access books published by +170 organisations and networks using Pressbooks. Nearly all books are highly accessible, and many include interactive H5P learning activities to engage learners. (The OE team can add your ebook to the Pressbooks Directory as part of the publishing process).
Other External Promotion Opportunities
Here are some ways you can promote your open text to external audiences:
- blog posts (with clear links, especially the DOI). Ask the OE Team to create a post on the JCU Library News blog.
- milestone announcements
- social media (either from your accounts or a dedicated project account, sharing updates and other relevant content)
- conferences and webinars (as opportunities to present, be challenged, make connections, and reconsider your open text and how to make it better in a future release)
- professional bodies and organisations
- book launch (either virtually or in person)
- email signatures.
Chapter Attribution
This chapter has been adapted in parts from:
Western Open Books Quick Start Guide, 2022, by Lucy Walton, Western Sydney University, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.
Open Publishing Guide for Authors, 2023, by Nikki Andersen, Deborah King, Adrian Stagg and Emilia Bell, University of Southern Queensland. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
