OER Initiatives at Drake

Before You Start

When planning to use an open textbook or other OER in your course, it is important to plan ahead and ask yourself the following questions below.   

• Are there high quality OER available in my field?

• Do I know how to effectively evaluate the OER available to me?

• Do I want/need to adapt an existing OER to tailor it to my course?

• Do I want to piece together a variety of resources, or find a whole textbook replacement?

• Do I have the time and/or resources to create new OER for my course?

Searching

• Be prepared that the search process is often messy and may feel never-ending! Be sure to ask a librarian or ask colleagues for ideas on resources they've used.

• Use a backwards design approach and work from your course learning objectives to keep your search organized and on track.

• Try several different sources (we have many indexed under the "Find OER by Discipline" section (scroll down), and keep track of the search terms you've tried and the sites you've searched. 

• If looking for a worksheet to help you with the search process, here is a Google Doc you can use. 

Identify & Evaluate

• Evaluating OER is similar to evaluating possible textbook adoptions, like assessing the reading level and how well it matches your learning objectives. But remember that with open-licensed materials you have the flexibility to adapt the content to what works for you.

• Other items to consider:

  • Peer review of material available on many OER sites

  • Reputation of author or institution

  • Pedagogical approach

  • Accuracy of content

  • Alignment with course objectives or learning outcomes

  • Appropriate reading level (see https://readable.io/text/)

  • Technical quality (clear visuals, production value)

  • Clear licensing declaration: Creative Commons license, public domain, or your own fair use determination for copyrighted works. **This might be a good time to create an attribution statement as your decide on resources you know you'll want to use. Try this attribution builder from Open Washington.**

Adopt

If there are high quality, vetted Open Educational Resources available on the topic your course covers, and you do not feel the need to edit or otherwise alter them for use in your course, you might consider adopting them for use "as is." Adopting is the simplest way or including OER in your course, and the least time intensive.  Consider other possible stakeholders in your choice of course materials, such as your disciplinary colleagues and your dean.

Adapt/Build

If there are OER available on the topic your course covers, but they are dated, too broad, or contain information which is beyond the scope of your course, you may want to consider adapting the materials. After checking that the Creative Commons license attached to the materials allows for adaptation, you may choose to edit the materials to tailor them to your course.

Alternately, if there are OER available on the topic your course covers, but no single resource is broad enough to cover the needs of your course, you may want to consider building a "course pack," a selection of various OER, free online materials, and websites which make up the resources for use in a course. These packs can be extremely versatile and adaptable resources.

Create

If there are no high quality OER available on your topic or if you have course materials which you believe are superior to the OER available to you online, you may want to consider creating or licensing your own course materials. Creating Open Educational Resources can be as simple as openly licensing and sharing a syllabus you currently use or sharing lesson plans on OER repositories like OER Commons.

Additional questions to consider with regards to use:

• How will students access and use these resources?  Will you post a link or links to materials in Blackboard?

• Will students need paper copies, such as for a lab book or readings to be used in class? There are many options for having materials printed, reach out to your librarians for options regarding resources for printing at a very low cost. 

Adapted from  "Open Educational Resources (OER): Where to Start" by Abbey Elder, Iowa State University and "OER Basics" by Kate Hess, Kirkwood Community College.