Project report as coffee table book

I've mentioned before I was part of the Sidecap project, which looked at OER use in Fiji, West Indies and Mauritius. The project has now finished and instead of producing the standard EU report (which, let's face it, no-one ever reads) Frank Rennie from UHI decided to create it as a book in Blurb. We all contributed sections and gathered photos from the duration of the project. My book turned up today:

It's a small, and undoubtedly obvious point, but the glossiness of it and the approachability of the layout made me want to read it. In almost exactly opposite to the way I'd approach a normal project report. With almost no shame I am going to mention affordances – a nice glossy book affords you picking it up and looking through it, it extends an invite to you. A project report printed on A4 paper and stuffed in a binder says the opposite, it says 'move on, nothing to see here.'

You can order the book if you want online (no profit goes to us, it just covers the cost of printing). I think all publicly funded projects should mandate this as a deliverable. On my output as collateral damage riff, this is exactly the sort of thing that means a project report destined to be tucked away in the database equivalent of the final scene of Raiders of the Last Ark, becomes a findable, accessible resource.

Or was everyone doing this anyway and I've just caught up?

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International