A Message to our Reviewers

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for your willingness to serve as reviewer for the the Pennsylvania Alliance for Design of Open Textbooks (PA-ADOPT); a multi-year US Department of Education-funded, equity-focused grant. Utilizing leaders and experts like yourself in the process strengthens both the validity and reliability for the publishing of these eTextbooks while also increasing access to higher education for students by reducing, and/or eliminating the cost of basic course materials.  

We recognize the significant time commitment you are making to this project in providing a preliminary review for our books, so we ask that you use the Open SUNY Textbook Peer Adoption Guidelines to guide you through the process. As such, a portion of your review will be made available to the public via the PA-ADOPT website further connecting your work to the larger project outcomes.  

We remain grateful for your leadership and support for this federally-funded eTextbook initiative and look forward to collaborating with you in the future. Please let us know if you have questions, comments, or concerns, and keep a look out for further communications and instructions from us and the authors. Please review the information below to ensure a smooth review process.

Kindly,

Marc Drumm, Principal Investigator

Reviewer Qualifications

  1. A PA-ADOPT peer reviewer must be a faculty member at a higher education institution.
    • They can be a faculty member from either the same institution or a different institution as the author.
    • They can be another PA-ADOPT author.
  2. They must be an expert in the book’s subject matter.

Reviewer Directions

  1. You will receive a Microsoft Word document from the author of their book to review, however, the layout and design of the books will be developed through Apple Pages so if there are some formatting errors or inconsistencies they will be resolved once transferred into Pages. The eTextbook has been copyedited once peer review has begun, unless otherwise noted.
  2. Follow the directions provided in the Open SUNY Textbook Peer Review Guidelines document.
    • Please note that there is a portion of the peer review (the “Public Review”) that will be made available to the public on the PA-ADOPT website along with the reviewer’s name. 
  3. Complete the peer review of the book using the Word file and include the public review portion as a separate Word document.
    • Please keep in mind that eTextbooks tend to be shorter compared to printed, commercial textbooks. This can be for a couple of reasons:
      • Some commercial textbooks, especially books for introductory-level courses and core subject courses, contain content for more than one course. Our books typically contain content for just one course.
      • Content within an eTextbook can be made available in alternate formats, such as external Internet links and/or audio and video files. These formats take up little space within an eTextbook but often replace what would be several pages of content in a commercial textbook.
  4. Return your feedback and public review to the author. The author will notify Marc Drumm, the principal investigator of PA-ADOPT, once the review is complete.
  5. Each peer reviewer will be compensated $2,085.00 for their expertise and contributions.
    • If the reviewer is from an institution within the PA-ADOPT consortium (Cheyney, Kutztown, Millersville, or West Chester Universities), Marc will notify the author’s institutional coordinator to begin the payment process. Otherwise, the reviewer will be asked to send an invoice and a completed W-9 form in order to receive payment.