Q: What are you using to make this resource?

A: Pressbooks is a WordPress-based platform that many instructors are using to produce interactive, open textbooks for their course content. To learn more about open educational resource initiatives at UW-Madison, visit UW’s Educational Innovation “OER Strategic Framework” page. For more information about how to use Pressbooks in your teaching, visit the UW-Madison Pressbooks 101 Open Textbook and its evolving companion-text, the UW-Madison OER Sourcebook.

Q: I’d like to take a more active planning and coordination role in creating this resource. Is there a way to do so?

A: Enthusiastically yes. Please contact Naomi Salmon (nsalmon [at] wisc.edu)

No Q, Just A: This English Department Resource Guide is a personal side-project, but as a part of a PA position at UW, I have also proposed the construction of a formal resource guide for the College of Letters and Sciences. If this proposal is accepted, this resource will highlight some best practices departments, faculty, and other TAs can incorporate into their approach to supporting TAs in the workplace.

Provisionally titled Inclusive Design for Teaching Assistantships, this guide will include suggestions about how to address access disparities for TAs who have disabilities, outline inclusive language considerations that can help reduce the microaggressions LGBTQIA+ TAs face in the workplace on an everyday basis, and more. If you’d be interested in contributing suggestions for inclusion in a document of this type, please email Naomi Salmon (nsalmon [at] wisc.edu).