Raising Our Voices

Scope, Objectives, Content

I think the scope of the work can work outside of sociology and easily applied to other fields of study.

The objective of this article is to persuade others to critically analyze open works being adapted, but I think the authors put a lot of bias into their work. I would like to see citations to go along with their critiques and analysis of current landscapes. There is truth in what they are publishing, but it needs to be proven in the writing. 

The content is giving originality with the inclusion of student works and quotes. This was one of my favorite aspects of this article. Figure 1 focuses on privelage and was adapted from work done in Canada. I would like to see the authors make note of how they modified this to be relative to the US. What changes did they make? Why did they make those changes? What information was used (and cited) to make those changes?

Organization

The article is well-organized and appropriate for this section.

Approach and Conclusions

The results are described as innovative. Why? This is not the first group to work with students to critically analyze and update open resources. This is not the first group to use the lens of social justice or DEI to adapt open resources. I want proof of why they are innovative. 

 

Writing Style, References

The informal writing style is fine because they are talking about personal experience. However, there are many, many, many statements made without reference to facts. These statements come off as opinions without reference, example, or citations. Major revisions need to be made in presenting these statements as facts. 

Application

The authors show a good example of how to use students and a critical lens of DEI to improve open resources. 

What are the stronger points/qualities of the article?

The student work and testimonies. 

What are the weaker points/qualities of the article? How could they be strengthened?

The lack of references and citations. This article overall comes off as opinions not facts.

Peer Review Ranking: Scope
Highly relevant

Peer Review Ranking: Clarity
clear

Peer Review Ranking: Contribution
contributes

Peer Review Ranking: Research Assessment
not sound

Note:
This review refers to round of peer review and may pertain to an earlier version of the document.

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Scope, Objectives, Content

The topic is about incorporating EDI into open pedagogy and open textbooks, which is definitely in the scope of the journal and, I believe, of interest to readers.

Organization

Unfortunately the organization of the paper is confusing and needs substantial work. It consists of the introduction, section 1 and then section 2. Each of the sections reads like their own mini-paper, complete with their own introduction and literature review that seem to have been written without any input from the other section or main introduction as there are redundancies between all of them. It's also not entirely clear what the purpose of each section is. Section 1 does seem to present examples of how instructors incorporated EDI into a couple of open pedagogy assignments into one specific Sociology class, but it's unclear if this was done before the grant was obtained, after, or really how it relates to the broader topic of this large grant at all. As for Section 2, I'm really not certain what the purpose is. There's repeating of information from the Intro and Section 1, something that reads like a more expanded literature review (although I'm unclear why this comes so late, especially definitions for open pedagogy and other concepts that were used in Section 1), and then some overall results with no mention of how these results were obtained. How and which students reported satisfaction with the material? Did an IRB approve any of this? (I don't know if one needed to, but as you're dealing with human data, it seems like the authors at least needed an IRB to rule the project exempt). Overall, Section 2 just seems to give a rehashed overview of the grant project without any details. 

The authors need to read through the piece as a whole and consolidate and edit so it is cohesive and makes sense. Have one introduction and one literature review. Consider how each section transitions into the other. Provide definitions when you first introduce a concept. Provide more details, especially for the methodology of how you obtained any results. 

Approach and Conclusions

The paper seems to focus on the forest at the loss of the trees - i.e., more details are needed to support their conclusions. They say they have created a system to help incorporate EDI into open education work but then provide no details as to how they actually did this. Their abstract promises a roadmap for "revolutionizing our textbooks and course builds" but then nothing is said about this process. The abstract also says "We provide tools and resources to make diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) primary considerations when faculty choose, adapt, and create course materials," but again, no mention of this was made in the paper. 

And as stated previously, there's no methodology given at all for how they obtained what few results they do share, so I have no idea what weight, if any, to give these. 

Overall, while the article promises to be a roadmap for how others can implement this work, really it's a very broad overview of the grant with the authors just reiterating that they centered EDI without saying how they did so. The authors do provide a few open pedagogy examples but from just one class, and they provide details for just one project (the infograph) about how they actually implemented and centered EDI. Examples of open pedagogy assignments can be helpful, but I would encourage the authors to at least consider adding more details about how they implemented the assignments, and preferably more examples of other assignments. But really, I would mostly encourage the authors to give more details about the whole process, delving far more into this sentence: "The project is effective because it provides collaborative organizational infrastructure to transform teaching and learning." I think reading about how they created this collaborative infrastructure would be of much more value and interest to readers as I haven't really seen this as much in the literature. We have examples of individual assignments, but not details of how to piece together something like this at scale.

Writing Style, References

The writing style was fine, although there were some occasional typos. Nothing major.

Application

There were some examples, but other than providing a rough overivew of how they developed their one infographic, there were no details provided as to how they developed these assignments, which means there's limited application for others. Considering this paper discusses a large grant that covered many classes, it would be much more helpful to provide more details about the processes they used for multiple classes, not just one.

What are the stronger points/qualities of the article?

I definitely appreciate the focus on EDI. I think it's important to proactively think about how we can make OER and open pedagogy truly equitable, not just assume it is because it's free to everyone. There are still other barriers and ways to keep people out. Also really appreciated the image descriptions provided.

What are the weaker points/qualities of the article? How could they be strengthened?

As mentioned previously, lack of details related to how they did the work and collected data, as well as a confusing organization structure. The article promised one thing (a road map) but then did not deliver that at all. I think at this point it would likely be best if the authors started anew with the focus this time truly being on a roadmap for what they did. Create an overall outline of the article, make it clear what goes where, and then write it with those goals in mind. Or, if the authors opt to focus on the smaller, i.e. examples of open pedagogy from one class, then they need to remove the discussion of this broader grant, other than to note if the class was funded by it, and provide more details about how they developed these assignments, details that others could then try to apply to their own assignments. 

Peer Review Ranking: Scope
relevant

Peer Review Ranking: Clarity
not clear

Peer Review Ranking: Contribution
does not contribute

Peer Review Ranking: Research Assessment
not sound

Note:
This review refers to round of peer review and may pertain to an earlier version of the document.

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