Hi there,
I’m supporting a large class that is creating a book using Pressbooks this quarter. Students are working in groups of 3 to create one chapter per group. The instructor would like to have one student per group add the group’s content to a book chapter. However, all students in the class have been added to the book as users, and have gotten instruction from me on how Pressbooks works, editing interface, etc.
The instructor and I had questions about the difference between “Chapter Authors” (under Chapter Metadata) and “Owners” (below Chapter Metadata). I’m looking at the Pressbooks User Guide chapter about this. Does assigning a chapter author for a chapter simply make it so that that person’s name will appear in beneath the title of the chapter and chapter-level license statement? I’m assuming that if we just want one person in the student group to be able to add/edit content in their group chapter, we should have that person listed as Owner of the chapter and then have all three students listed under Chapter Author - is that right? Or will users listed under Chapter Authors also be able to get in and add/edit content in that chapter?
Knowing this will also be really helpful in setting up future book projects for classes working in groups. Thanks!
-Lauren
Hi @olray, yes, that’s exactly right. Listing users as “Chapter Authors” in the Chapter Metadata doesn’t give them the ability to add/edit content in the chapter. It only leads to their names appearing beneath the title of the chapter (both in the chapter itself and in the TOC) as well as in the chapter-level license statement. Thanks for this question – I see that this can be clarified in the guide chapter on the topic.
One more clarification - are book Administrators and chapter Owners the only people who can add/edit the Chapter Owner and Chapter Authors? Or can people in other roles do this? Wondering about what myself and the class instructor can do to clean up/modify who is listed as Chapter Owner and Chapter Author in case students are confused…
thanks!
Also a good question. Anyone with the ability to edit a chapter can edit its Chapter Author(s) metadata field; the User Roles chart at Users – Pressbooks User Guide breaks down which users in a book will have chapter edit permissions.
But when it comes to changing the Chapter Owner, this is only possible for users in a book with the role of Administrator or Editor (or for network managers).