3 Processes

Finding OER

First, when looking for relevant OER for your course, please consult with your college OER champions (available in the ‘Read Me’ tab). They will help guide you through this process and find available options that will likely fit your needs. Note, that if your course is in general education that many well-developed and widely adopted resources already exist (e.g., OpenStax and Open Textbook Library). Alternatively, if your course is a career and technical education course, then open textbooks may already be developed for your subject area (e.g., Skills Commons Repository) or these could be lacking. Yet, know that open content is expanding daily, and thus if you are unable to find relevant open content today, that this may be developed and available soon.

For more information, consult The OER Starter Kit Workbook sections ‘Finding Open Content’, ‘Repositories and Search Tools’, and ‘Ancillary Content’. Also see the Community College Consortium for OER’s ‘Find OER’ guidance with helpful resources.

Adopting OER

The following Five Steps to OER Adoption is from the Community College Consortium for OER (CCCOER) and is licensed under CC BY 4.0. The five steps content below is a derivative of the CCCOER adoption process. Note, that college staff who can support faculty in this process are highlighted in bold text. 

Step 1: Review the Materials

The process for reviewing open textbooks is the same as commercial textbooks. Faculty are well-suited to review various options to select the best textbook (or sections from textbooks) for their course. Keep in mind that many open textbooks have been peer-reviewed by faculty or subject matter experts so you may use these reviews to narrow down choices before examining them yourself. If you want to evaluate the materials yourself, there are some existing rubrics that can guide you.

Step 2: Modify the OER (if necessary)

After completing an evaluation of the materials, you can determine whether any modification is needed. If you decide to modify materials, then the format of the material, the license type, and the potential for hosting a new digital version must be considered. BCcampus’ Open Textbook Adaptation Guide includes information that you may find helpful.

 

Formatting. If the open material is available in an editable format, then the easiest approach may be to use the same tool as the original author to add, delete, or modify it. Consulting with your college’s instructional designers is recommended, particularly if you have not done this kind of work before. They can make you aware of tools that will streamline this process. If you are remixing multiple OER in different formats, then you will have to decide which format you want for your final product, and convert the remaining resources to this format for remixing.

 

License considerations. When remixing OER with different licenses, it can be tricky to understand how they can be combined. If the resources have licenses with the ShareAlike (SA) and NonCommercial (NC) clauses, you should consult the Creative Commons Frequently Asked Questions for compatibility information and charts on which licenses are compatible. If you remix OER with different licenses, you need to make clear in your final product which sections have license restrictions that are different from the one you select for your remix. This Copyright and Open Licensing Policy guide, by the Washington State Office of Superintendent of Public Schools, provides a lot of information on using copyrighted and openly licensed work. Your librarian on campus may also be able to assist you. The Florida Virtual Campus produced a video on different remix scenarios that can be helpful in understanding how openly licensed resources can or cannot be combined.

 

Hosting. Now that you have a revised version of the OER, you will want to consider where to post it so students can access a digital copy. If you are only planning to share on campus, then you might post it to a college file server or in the Learning Management System (LMS). If you would like to share more widely, there are OER repositories with platforms that provide authoring tools and hosting to enable public access to your OER and maximize the impact of your work.

Step 3: Attribution of OER

Creative Commons licenses require that the user of a creative work attribute the creator or copyright holder. This is also a requirement of U.S. copyright law and is good practice in general, particularly to model the behavior you are trying to promote. If you plan to use images, videos, or other CC-licensed works in your own instructional materials or documents then you must include the required attribution. Read “How to attribute a Creative Commons licensed work” to learn more about attributing CC licensed materials as well as to receive tips and a free tool to help you automate the process. Again, your college librarians can likely help you in this attribution process.

After assessing the open materials and determining the proper attribution for any open resource that you may use or develop, take a look at the policies and processes at your institution relating to the selection of instructional materials. Seek support for your adoption.

Step 4: Curriculum Approval (if needed)

Consider whether you need to get approval from others at your college for instructional material choices such as the division or department chair, curriculum committee, articulation officer, disability services office, etc. Any institutional policies that are specific to your college district or department regarding course materials should be considered well in advance so you can make a smooth transition to OER.

Does your college have a textbook affordability initiative? Leaders of this initiative may be able to assist you with a transition to OER and help you spread the word to other faculty members. These sorts of initiatives can motivate other faculty and staff to get involved in OER as they highlight the potential benefits to the college and students.

Step 5: Delivery of OER to Students

There are several stakeholders on campus involved in delivering instructional materials to students, including the bookstore, library, IT help desk, disability support services, instructional technologist, and possibly on-site print services. It is important to engage these stakeholders in your move to OER as they can all assist in the smooth delivery of open materials to students. Your college may have a policy requiring faculty to notify the college bookstore of any textbooks required for courses they are teaching by a certain date. In this case, you may need to work to broaden the policy so that an open textbook (digital or printed copy) selection can also be made available through the bookstore.

Online

The simplest and most economical method of delivering OER to students is to provide a link for students to view the OER online or to download it.  Most open textbooks are available in a few different downloadable formats, such as PDF, ePub, Mobi, or DAISY formats. Keep in mind that certain formats may be preferable for students with visual impairments.

Offline

Downloadable options may also be useful for students without reliable Internet access so they can download the material to their computers or mobile devices for offline viewing. You could also download a copy of the OER and integrate it into the Learning Management System (LMS) at your college.

Print

Low-cost printing is another option for open textbooks. Some OER textbook providers offer low-cost printing services directly from their websites, in which case you may be able to work with your institution’s bookstore to acquire printed copies. Other printing options could include institutional printing services or students using free printing allowances to print chosen sections of the textbook.

Creating OER

The OpenRN Project is a Department of Education funded project to develop 5 OER Nursing Textbooks with 25 virtual reality scenarios. This project is led by Chippewa Valley Technical College with members from each WTCS college providing varying levels of support.

The OpenRN process for developing and creating open textbooks is as follows:

  1. Librarians curate OER based on course curriculum
  2. Faculty group develops detailed outline of the textbook
  3. Developer writes the textbook module in the group’s collaboration platform (e.g., Google Docs)
  4. Work group reviews each module within the textbook and provides feedback
    • Project director meets with Advisory Committee for input. This committee could include program advisory committee members and other subject matter experts within the field, as well as advisors of open content (disability services, diversity, equity, and inclusion advocates, etc.)
  5. Instructional Designer creates interactive learning activities in H5P
  6. Proofreader and content experts review modules within the text
    • Librarian reviews for accessibility, Copyright, and attributions
  7.  Textbook is uploaded into OER platforms (e.g., Pressbooks, OER Commons, LibreTexts, etc.)

To learn about this process in more detail, watch the below video from the OpenRN Project Director, Kim Ernstmeyer, MSN, RN, CNE, CHSE, APNP-BC, Chippewa Valley Technical College.

 

Processes: Resources and Examples

License

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WTCS OER Field Guide for Sustainability Planning Copyright © by WTCS OER Network is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

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