And If you want to dry it as a big log, One thing to make it dry evenly is place the log horizontally, and two if you don't want any splits in the end, you could put somekind of sealer on the buts, allot of materials work for this, glue, paint, hairspray even helps allot. but indeed leave the bark on, and if your really serious about not wanting to let it split you can cover the piece of wood/ roll it into an plastic tarp or something like that, but don't use an air tight plastic bag, this will almost freeze the drying process.
Hope that helps ^^