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Using the Open Textbook Planner
The step-by-step guide to plan a textbook. Note: You will encounter three different icons in the Open Textbook Planner. Crossed-arrows indicate the place where you can click and drag an element. Two overlapping pages represent the duplication power of the Clone tool. The Square surrounding an X is the Remove tool.
Determine your textbook’s hierarchy
On this screen, select the number of levels that work best for your content.
Your content can be organized in two levels, Chapters and Sections. This is represented by the graphic on the left.
Your content can be organized in three levels of organization by clicking on Parts, Chapters, and Sections.
When you are ready to create the outline of your content click Next in the lower right.
Outline your textbook’s content
On this screen you will outline your entire textbook using the hierarchy levels you chose. On this screen your outline is on the left and the structural levels are on the right. You can rename the titles later so you can use placeholder titles if needed.
You can build your outline in two ways:
Drag and drop
Drag levels from the right and drop them on your outline on the left.
Fill in the titles for each Part, Chapter, and Section.
Repeat until your outline is complete.
Select Next to add pedagogical elements.
Clone
Create the structure of one Part by adding all the Chapters and Sections you will likely need for each part of your book. Do not add titles at this point.
Use the Clone tool to copy that Part. This will copy all of the included Chapters and Sections. Note: You can always add or delete chapters and sections as your content requires.
Clone Parts until you have all that you will need. Fill in the titles for each Part, Chapter, and Section to complete your Outline.
Select Next to add pedagogical elements
Add pedagogical elements
Each Part, Chapter, and Section in your textbook can include pedagogical elements. You can use this screen to establish the elements that will appear consistently in all of the Parts, Chapters, and Sections of your textbook.
Available pedagogical elements are organized into Openers and Closers. Openers, such as Introduction and Learning Objectives, prepare learners for the materials ahead. Closers, such as Summary and Further reading, reinforce the main concepts and give the learner an opportunity for reflection. There are also elements that could be either an opener or a closer, such as a list of Key terms.
This screen has two columns. On the left are the levels of your textbook’s structure. On the right are the available pedagogical elements.
To add pedagogical elements to your textbook:
Drag an element from the list on the right and drop it under the desired Part, Chapter, or Section. Note: colored bars will appear to help you place the pedagogical element in the correct order within the desired level. This is helpful, for example, when you wish to place closing elements after sections at the end of each chapter.
Click and drag to reorder elements or click the X to remove them.
Clicking Next will apply the selected elements to the outline you created in the previous step. On the following screen you can review the structure of your textbook.
Review textbook
On this screen you will see your entire textbook outline including pedagogical elements. Here you can:
Retitle Parts, Chapters, and Sections
Drag and drop levels to reorder them
Clone (duplicate) Parts, Chapters, and Sections
Delete Parts, Chapters, and Sections
You can click Back (lower left) to return to add additional pedagogical elements or to return to any of the previous steps.
Once your textbook plan is ready, click Build Book in the lower right.
IMPORTANT: Once you click Build Book you may not return to the Textbook Planner. Any changes you want to make will need to be completed in your document as you add content.
Adding content to your textbook
You have now created a textbook project in Editoria and can start writing the content into your textbook plan. See the chapters in ‘Creating and editing content’ for guidance on using the Editor and formatting tools. Additional guidance specific to authoring and editing in an instance with the Open Textbook Planner enabled is given below.
Using pedagogical elements
In the Editor, you can add more pedagogical elements to your book by placing your cursor where you want the element to appear, and then selecting the element from the left sidebar. Once the pedagogical element is inserted you can add an appropriate heading level from the left sidebar and add any content within the pedagogical element block.
To exit a block, hit Enter on your keyboard twice.
To delete a block, select it with your cursor and hit Backspace on your keyboard.
To copy a block, select it with your cursor and use your system keyboard controls (either ctrl c and ctrl v, or Cmd c and Cmd v) to copy and paste it.
To copy text from a block without its formatting, use your system keyboard controls (either ctrl c and shift ctrl v, or Cmd c and shift Cmd v) to copy and paste it without formatting.