Expectations and contract

You will want to establish expectations for your contributors before writing begins. If you decide to invite one or more colleagues to provide material to your textbook, determine the parameters of this business relationship and then clarify with each author the following points:

• Who will own the copyright?
• Disclose the type of open-copyright license that will be used to release the book.
• Decide if contributing authors will be compensated for their efforts. Be clear about how much they will be compensated or paid.
• Provide written details about their contribution, including:
  • the topic — be specific.
  • length of their work by word count.
  • the layout of the contributing piece, including sections and subsections, the number and type of images, tables, graphs, or other support resources.
  • the timeline and deadlines for the first and subsequent drafts.
  • the timeline and deadlines to review questions from the copy editor and make revisions.

You will need to have a contract drawn up by your department (not OERU) for each contributor. The contract should clearly describe these expectations clearly so there are no misunderstandings. This will be a valuable document to reference if either party has questions during the writing process.

Attribution