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Open Educational Resources

A Staff Guide

Adapt or create

Adopting existing OER and using as-is in your classroom has the lowest time commitment. But if you’re unable to find OER that suit your teaching needs then you may decide to:

  • ADAPT a resource by customising some of the content, e.g., add local examples; OR
  • CREATE a resource
    • remix a variety of sources to create a new resource.
    • author and license a new resource, created from scratch using your own materials.

Learn about considerations when deciding whether to adopt, adapt or create an OER.

Play video: Adopt, Adapt, Create [2:17 mins]

Sometimes you will find OER that might need to be adapted to fit specific needs and requirements for your classroom. Adapting OER means making changes to already existing open content.

Reasons for adapting OER

  • Adapt the material to make it more accessible for people with different disabilities
  • Insert cultural specific references to make a concept easier to understand
  • Translate it into another language
  • Correct any errors or inaccuracies
  • Update the book to add the latest research discoveries or theories
  • Insert more media or links to other resources or materials
  • Adapt it for a different audience/level
  • Adapt it for different teaching situations

Basic steps for adapting OER

While the following information from Modifying an Open Textbook: What You Need to Know outlines a process for adapting an open textbook, the guidance can be generalised across other types of OER.

Tip! If your OER combines or modifies existing open material use Open Attribution Builder to help generate proper author attribution. Find out more about attribution best practices.

STEP 1: Find existing OER material

STEP 2: Consider your adaptation needs

  • Before adapting an OER it helps to think about how, and how much, your content needs to be modified. Do you have access to the technology required to edit the OER? Learn more about basic considerations for modifying an OER.

STEP 3: Follow the adaptation process

This section is adapted from "Adapt an Open Educational Resource” by Queens University Library and "Modifying an Open Textbook: What You Need to Know" by Open Education Network and is shared under a CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.

Additional reading

Do you have teaching materials created for your classroom you want to share with other educators? Or are you considering writing an open class text from scratch?

Whether it's a textbook, lesson plan, H5P activity, assignment, or other types of coursework materials, the following video offers a handful of important tips for new creators of OER.

Play video: Creating Open Educational Resources: Tips for New Creators [5:17 mins]

A production workflow for OER

This workflow can help you understand the major steps in the production of an OER project and manage your progress. Key questions are asked at various points, and directions to suggested support are included.

A production workflow for OER projects with the stages of research, pre-production, design, development and publication. The first stage 'research' contains the following questions: have you explored OER in your subject area?; Have you been trained in OER and Copyright?; Are you confident to begin working with OER? If you select ‘no’ to any of these questions, the workflow recommends you consult a librarian. The second stage 'pre-production' asks 'Have you defined your OER project goals?' If you select no, the workflow recommends to consult an OER specialist. If you say 'yes' it lists the following actions: curate existing OER, creating working docs, plan assessment, and call for volunteers. The workflow then ask 'do you have enough support?' If you don't consult an OER specialist. If you do continue to the 'design' phrase. The design phrase contains the following actions: flesh out OER outline and scope production. It also recommends to consult an OER specialist if you need help. The next phrase ‘development’ ask you to write and revise content, check intellectual property and accessibility and undertake peer review. It also recommends you consult an OER specialist about format and style and final quality assurance. The last stage is ‘publication’ where you disseminate and share via appropriate channels, and distribute to students.

"A Production Workflow for OER Projects" by Abbey Elder is adapted from "Production of OER" by Billy Meinke and University of Hawai'i at Manoa Outreach College and shared under a CC BY 4.0 licence.

Link to information about OER authoring tools.

OER tools

Tools and applications for creating, modifying, and sharing different types of OER.

Link to information about authoring open textbooks in Australian universities.

Author an open textbook

Creating open textbooks in Australian higher education.

Best practices and guidance for making your OER content open, available, findable, and (re)usable by other educators.

Before publishing your OER

To ensure that your OER can be sustainably used into the future it needs to be:

  • Openly licensed
  • Openly developed

Openly licensed

Select and apply an open licence to your OER. The most commonly used licences for the publication of OER is the Creative Commons licence suite.

Tip! Use online decision tool Creative Commons License Chooser.

Openly developed

Consider the tools, editability, source, and expertise required to create, adapt and maintain your OER. Poor technical choices can make open content less open and harder to work with.

Tip! Use the ALMS Framework to help guide thinking about technical requirements.
The ALMS Framework
ACCESS TO EDITING TOOLS

Can you edit the OER without the need for specialised or expensive tools? (e.g. proprietary software, discontinued platforms)
LEVEL OF EXPERTISE

Will colleagues be able to edit the OER at their current skill level? (i.e. does someone need training in a particular software to work with the content?)
MEANINGFULLY EDITED

Can all parts of the OER be edited? (e.g. a scanned image of a handwritten document contained in a pdf is essentially not editable)
SELF-SOURCED

Can you edit the OER directly or is a separate editable file needed?

Publishing your OER

Hosting your OER

When it's time to share your OER project you will need somewhere to host it. This allows other educators to find and build on your materials.

Explore resources

University of Tasmania Institutional Repository

Check to see if your open educational materials can be hosted on our own platform for UTAS staff outputs. Contact oa.repository@utas.edu.au for more information and guidance.

CAUL OER Collective Catalogue

UTAS Library offers our teaching staff an open textbook publishing program that includes hosting your content in the Collective's online library.

OER Commons Open Author

Allows you to build and self-publish OER teaching materials such as courses, units, lessons, activities and presentations on your own.

GitBook

A platform for creating and hosting a "book" format. It can output your content as a website or as an ebook (PDF, EPUB or MOBI). View an example of a GitBook.

Google Drive

Set up a free Google account and create publicly shareable URL links to teaching materials (lesson plans, activities, instructional materials, etc.) you upload or create, and store, on the Drive platform. Learn more about sharing a file publicly on Google Drive.

Discovering your OER

Increase the discoverability of your OER and submit the URL link to your hosted resource to one or more Open Educational Resources repositories.

Explore resources

Add a Material to MERLOT

Register for a free account on MERLOT and submit the URL link for your hosted OER.

Add a Resource to OER Commons

Register for a free account on OER Commons and submit the URL link for your hosted OER. Your resource is sent to the OER Commons Librarians to be reviewed and approved before it is added to the site.

Submit a Textbook to Open Textbook Library

Check your textbook addresses the Open Textbook Library's inclusion criteria and submit the URL link for your hosted book.

Additional reading

Popular OER guides

Accessibility Toolkit by Amanda Coolidge, Sue Doner, Tara Robertson, and Josie Gray

CAUL Open Educational Resources PD Program: Foundations by Council of Australian University Librarians

Enhancing Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Accessibility in Open Educational Resources by Nikki Andersen

OER Capability Toolkit by RMIT University

The OER Starter Kit by Abbey Elder

The Rebus Guide to Publishing Open Textbooks (So Far) by Apurva Ashok, Zoe Wake Hyde, and Kaitlin Schilling