Nursing Skills Textbook

In late 2024, I was invited to assist a group of nursing academics as they co-authored an open-access educational resource, the Foundations of Nursing Skills: A Comprehensive Guide for the Australian Context. This online textbook was written to prepare nursing students for clinical practice in diverse healthcare settings. My initial role with the project involved creating graphics, guiding authors’ creation of interactive H5P elements, and altering the format of digital book elements.

As the project continues in 2025, I have adopted additional design tasks. These tasks have included updating or creating more complex graphics, reviewing the author’s drafted text, and creating other documentation tools or video H5Ps to provide a consistent visual style across all chapters. The project has also presented new opportunities for me to practise writing alt-text for the Pressbooks platform while concentrating on the licensing, accessibility, and educational accuracy of different visual media.

A key highlight for me during this project has been a positive collaboration between the library team,  authors and other professionals. For example, in early 2025 I pitched the idea of updating the book’s photos to represent the Australian nursing context. The authors agreed to this idea and helped organise the appropriate settings, nursing equipment, and consenting volunteers who enthusiastically acted as nursing staff and patients on the day. I am grateful for the hard work of all collaborators, including local photographer Ben Green from GHMedia.