TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Changes to Endorsements
- What is an Endorsement?
- Endorsements and Collections
- Add an Endorsement (now Reviewer)
- See Endorsement (Now Review) Criteria
- See All Resources Reviewed by an Organization
December 2023 Changes to Endorsements
If you created or used the Endorsement function on OER Commons prior to December 2023, you may have noticed that this section now appears as “Reviewers”. We hope that the term "Reviewers" will communicate the intended usage of this feature more clearly.
The Endorsement feature was created as a way to mark resources as having earned an organization’s “seal of approval” based on specific review criteria. We had hoped that the term Endorsement would resonate with users as a familiar concept, and help to build confidence that a piece of OER content had been vetted and considered high quality by a reviewing body users could trust.
However, our user research indicated that the term “Reviewers” may be more likely to resonate with end users, and more effectively communicate that content has been vetted and approved based on objective quality criteria. We hope that this change will provide more clarity to our end users and ensure that the time and resources our partners invest in vetting collection content is more transparently communicated.
What is a Reviewer Badge?
Reviewer badges were created as a way to mark resources as having earned an organization’s “seal of approval” based on specific review criteria.
Reviews can only be added by users who have been recognized as trusted reviewers by an organization, and have been granted permissions to review and approve content for that specific organization. Users who have been given reviewer permissions can add reviewer badges to resources and will see an option to "Add Reviewer" when logged in to the platform.
Reviewers and Collections
Reviewer badges are often used by site Administrators and trusted reviewers to organize resources into collections that are featured on the Featured Collections page of a site, or on a Hub. When users click on a Reviewer badge, users are able to see the criteria used to review and approve the content, as well as a link that enables users to review the entire collection of content reviewed and approved by an organization's reviewing body. Sometimes, one organization may have multiple reviewing bodies. For example, different subject matter experts may be enlisted to review ELA and STEM content, and to add content to collections specific to their expertise.
Add a Reviewer Badge
Log in to your site.
On a resource’s landing page, select Add Reviewer in the Reviewers section.
Choose the desired reviewer(s) from the list of organizations, and then select Add. In this example from OER Commons, we will choose OERC Reviewed Textbooks.
Now your Reviewer badge is visible. To remove the badge, select the X in the top right corner of the endorsement.
See Reviewer Criteria
To see information about the review criteria for reviewed resources, simply click on the reviewer icon.
See All Resources Reviewed by an Organization
To see a list of all resources with this Reviewer badge, click the "See all Reviewed Resources" button in the Review Criteria window.
