La Trobe University

La Trobe University Library

La Trobe eBureau

Steven Chang, Coordinator, Digital Literacies and Open Education (Library)
Phone: +61394793028
Email: s.chang@latrobe.edu.au

Program Overview

Since its inception in 2016, the La Trobe University Library’s eBureau has published high-quality, peer-reviewed, Open Access resources for online and blended La Trobe University courses.

The eBureau’s Open Access publishing model supports equity in higher education by providing accessible learning resources for free, saving students thousands of dollars in textbook costs.

These open texts also activate student engagement through interactive content and videos that are related directly to the subject matter.

Publishing activities began: 2016
Location: Australia
Languages published: Primarily English. Other languages where necessary, e.g. Tetum for one of our current texts in development.
Organization: services distributed across library units/departments
Stage of publishing efforts (1-3): 3 - Established
Stage comments: All eBureau resources are written by La Trobe University academics for La Trobe courses and subjects. The La Trobe eBureau provides academics with editing, design, copyright, peer review and online publishing services.You may like to read this interview with a pair of authors from our leading open textbook that we published: https://australianopentextbooks.edu.au/2021/08/20/international-accolades-and-new-collaborations-for-la-trobes-open-textbooks/Titles from the La Trobe eBureau have attracted global attention and adoption as teaching materials at numerous institutions:Research and Evidence in Practice, an OER for the health sciences published by the La Trobe eBureau, has been adopted by educators at the University of Limerick (Ireland) for a health psychology and research methods subject for Speech, Occupational Therapy, Physiotherapy & Dietetics students. This follows its adoption at Victoria University in two subjects on evidence-based health. Biomedicine academics and librarians from La Trobe University (LTU) and University of Southern Queensland (USQ) recently met to collaboratively plan an adaptation of the La Trobe eBureau OER, How to do Science. This resource, already used internationally (U.S. and Indonesia), will be fitted with a newer and more open Creative Commons license so it can be modified to suit the USQ learning and teaching context. The La Trobe eBureau OER Democracy in Difference: debating key terms of gender, sexuality, race, and identity by Carolyn D’Cruz has been judged successfully eligible for the Excellence in Research Australia (ERA) program. This milestone achievement establishes a clear precedent that OER can be recognised as valued research works which count towards earning dedicated research time for academics. This precedent can act as a material incentive for future prospective OER authors.
Open access focus (1-5): 5 - Completely
Program advisory/editorial board: No
Peer reviewed journals: 100%

Staffing (in full-time equivalents):

Professional staff: 1.8

Funding sources for publishing activities:

Library operating budget: 80%
Grants: 20%

Publishing Activities

Types of publications: educational resources (ex. textbooks, course modules).

	2021	Open access
Conference papers and proceedings, faculty
Conference papers and proceedings, student
Databases
Datasets
Educational resources (e.g., textbooks, course modules)	1	1
Electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs)
Journals, campus-based faculty-created
Journals, campus-based student-created
Journals, contracted by external groups
Journals, inactive back issues
Monographs
Newsletters
Technical/research reports
Undergraduate capstones/honors theses

2021: New publications from July 2020 to June 2021. Journals include titles actively publishing during the date range. Other publication types include items that were published or added to repositories for the first time within the date range.

OA/Paid/Hybrid: Publications currently published and/or available online. OA (open access) publications do not include counts for hybrid publications. Hybrid publications are those that offer a combination of both open access and pay-access content.

Highlights

Top publications:

Research and evidence in practice (textbook)
How to do science (textbook)
Democracy in difference: debating key terms of gender, sexuality, race and identity (textbook)
Key concepts in the humanities and social sciences (textbook)
Don't cheat yourself: scenarios to clarify collusion confusion (textbook)

Disciplinary specialties:

allied health (nursing, social work, physical therapy, occupational therapy, etc.)
biomedical sciences / biochemistry
life sciences and physiology
history
plant biology

Partners

Internal partners: individual faculty

Openness to working with external partners: Consider external partners but only if in our disciplinary specialty

Best publications to refer to our program: educational textbooks

Technologies & Services

Media formats:

audio
images
multimedia/interactive content
text
video

Softwares & platforms:

figshare
Adobe Creative Suite e.g. InDesign. And PressBooks from early 2021 onwards, but not right now yet.

Additional services:

analytics
applying for Cataloging in Publication Data
audio/video streaming
author advisory – copyright
author advisory – other
cataloging
contract/license preparation
copyediting
DOI assignment/allocation of identifiers
graphic design (print or web)
hosting of supplemental content
image services
ISBN registry
marketing
metadata
outreach
peer review management
print-on-demand
typesetting

Digital preservation strategy:

No digital preservation services provided

Service vendors: Editors Victoria; Figshare; PRIMO; Google Analytics; Thorpe-Bowker Identifier Services

Additional Information

Plans for expansion & future directions:
Transitioning from Adobe Creative Suit to PressBooks in the near future to increase accessibility, modularity, and interactivity.; Aiming to create a grant system soon to attract/incentivize academics to publish with us.; Plans to create a community of open textbook authors / champions among faculty.

Other information:
You may like to read this interview with a pair of authors from our leading open textbook that we published: https://australianopentextbooks.edu.au/2021/08/20/international-accolades-and-new-collaborations-for-la-trobes-open-textbooks/ A selection from achievements for our open textbooks: Research and Evidence in Practice, an OER for the health sciences published by the La Trobe eBureau, has been adopted by educators at the University of Limerick (Ireland) for a health psychology and research methods subject for Speech, Occupational Therapy, Physiotherapy & Dietetics students. This follows its adoption at Victoria University in two subjects on evidence-based health. Biomedicine academics and librarians from La Trobe University (LTU) and University of Southern Queensland (USQ) recently met to collaboratively plan an adaptation of the La Trobe eBureau OER, How to do Science. This resource, already used internationally (U.S. and Indonesia), will be fitted with a newer and more open Creative Commons license so it can be modified to suit the USQ learning and teaching context. The La Trobe eBureau OER Democracy in Difference: debating key terms of gender, sexuality, race, and identity by Carolyn D’Cruz has been judged successfully eligible for the Excellence in Research Australia (ERA) program. This milestone achievement establishes a clear precedent that OER can be recognized as valued research works which count towards earning dedicated research time for academics. This precedent can act as a material incentive for future prospective OER authors.

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