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For Staff

Finding, Using & Sharing OER

A Libguide dedicated to all things MU Staff, bringing together useful resources, tools and services available to MU Staff in one place.

Integrating OER into your teaching

1. Search for OER.

2. Assess the OER for quality and content suitability.

3. Check the CC-licensing and/or copyright status of the OER and any content reproduced within it.

4. Modify the OER by editing it (consider formats needed) to your needs (including accessibility level required), integrating your own content and material (consider co-creation with your students), to align the material with the needs of your module.

5. Disseminate it: publish it within your Moodle space, in your Institutional Repository (IR), and in any suitable OER platforms.

[Source: "Creating Open Educational Resources" by Abbey Elder https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DV-HiWtMq1U&feature=youtu.be Licensed  CC BY 4.0 International license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...]

 

OERs offer you the opportunity to use co-creation of material in the development of your OER. This can improve your student's information skills and engagement with the module. 

Accessibility considerations in OER should be no different than the provision of any written, digital or spoken communication. However, many of the existing proprietary products (eJournals/ Databases) come with a variety of levels of accessibility compliance. In many cases, the end user utilises software or services to access the information, such as text-to-speech screen readers or apps. However, when creating OER, it gives you as the author an opportunity to create truly accessible material for your students, such as providing "alt tags" to describe images for students using screen readers, or in providing for customising text size for different visual needs. 

The Irish Centre for Excellence in Universal Design (CEUD) has produced, and maintains the thorough Customer Service Toolkit for the Public Service: a Universal Design Approach. The Toolkit contains sections on the design of Written, Spoken & Signed and Digital Communication, with examples, tips, checklists and links to learn more.

CAST is a nonprofit education research and development organization that created the Universal Design for Learning framework and UDL Guidelines , now used the world over to make learning more inclusive.  They have a dedicated webpage on OER and Accessibility which provides an overview of the topic here: http://udloncampus.cast.org/page/media_oer for further reading.

Creative Commons (CC) Licensing

What you can do with an OER will depend on the licence associated with it. The majority (although not all) of OERs are licences under Creative Commons (CC) licensing. A CC licence is used when an author wants to give others the right to share, use, and build upon their work.  

Use the CC Licence Chooser to see which level of licence works for you: https://creativecommons.org/choose/

 

CC licences have four elements, which can be combined to create six different CC licenses:

Attribution logo Attribution (BY): Proper attribution must be given to the original creator of the work whenever a portion of their work is reused or adapted. This includes a link to the original work, information about the author, and information about the original work’s license.
Share-Alike symbol Share-Alike (SA):  Iterations of the original work must be made available under the same license terms.
Non-Commercial logo Non-Commercial (NC): The work cannot be sold at a profit or used for commercial means such as for-profit advertising. Copies of the work can be purchased in print and given away or sold at cost.
No Derivatives Symbol No Derivatives (ND): The work cannot be altered or “remixed.” Only identical copies of the work can be redistributed without additional permission from the creator.

The four CC license elements can be combined to create six different CC licenses, listed here from most to least permissive:

 

CC BY: This license allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use.

CC BY includes the following elements:
BY  – Credit must be given to the creator

 

CC BY-SA: This license allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use. If you remix, adapt, or build upon the material, you must license the modified material under identical terms.

CC BY-SA includes the following elements:
BY  – Credit must be given to the creator
SA  – Adaptations must be shared under the same terms

 

CC BY-NC: This license allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. 

It includes the following elements:
BY  – Credit must be given to the creator
NC  – Only noncommercial uses of the work are permitted

 

CC BY-NC-SA: This license allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. If you remix, adapt, or build upon the material, you must license the modified material under identical terms. 

CC BY-NC-SA includes the following elements:
BY  – Credit must be given to the creator
NC  – Only noncommercial uses of the work are permitted
SA  – Adaptations must be shared under the same terms

 

CC BY-ND: This license allows reusers to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in unadapted form only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use. 

CC BY-ND includes the following elements:
BY  – Credit must be given to the creator
ND  – No derivatives or adaptations of the work are permitted

 

CC BY-NC-ND: This license allows reusers to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in unadapted form only, for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. 

CC BY-NC-ND includes the following elements:
BY  – Credit must be given to the creator
NC  – Only noncommercial uses of the work are permitted
ND  – No derivatives or adaptations of the work are permitted

 

  •  Attribution (BY): Allow to copy, adapt, modify, share the work as long as the original creators are credited for any  purposes. 
  •  Attribution (BY) - Share Alike (SA): All rights as Attribution (BY) license and new creations have to be licensed under same terms as the original work. 
  •  Attribution (BY) - No Derives (ND): Allow to copy, share but keep the work unchanged and in whole for any purposes.​
  •  Attribution (BY) - Non-commercial (NC): Allow  to copy, adapt, modify, share the work for non-commercial purposes only.
  •  Attribution (BY) - Non-commercial (NC) - Share Alike (SA): All rights as Attribution (BY)-Share Alike (SA) license but for non-commercial purposes only.
  •  Attribution (BY) - Non-commercial (NC) - No Derives (ND): All rights as Attribution (BY) - No Derives (ND) license but for non-commercial purposes only.

 

Why share materials as OER? 
  • Opportunity to showcase your work to an international audience 
  • Enhances your/your department’s/Maynooth’s educational reputation  
  • Opportunity for peer review of your work 
  • Opportunities for innovative pedagological approaches, if you co-create content with your class.
Useful Resources:

 

 

All CC licences require attribution. Just like academic referencing, CC attribution has some basic elements:

  • Title:
  • Creator: with a link to their profile page
  • Source: a link to online material
  • License: “CC BY-ND 2.0”—with a link to the license deed

For more information on attribution, including modifying material for your own re-use, take a look at this article on Creative Commons:

Creating OER: what you need to consider

You've found your CC-BY OER that will form the basis for your OER work, but maybe you want to include other material in it during customisation?

If it's material that you've created yourself and you own the copyright (check the status of any published articles with the publisher, as the author is not necessarily the copyright owner in every case)l that is fine.

If it's other people's work, material from online resources, articles, films, illustrations, artworks or podcasts, then you'll need to make sure that you are legally incorporating this material into your OER. These suggestions may assist you with the process:

  1. Use CC-licensed material in your OER: check your obligations under the CC-license level. Ensure that copyrighted material (images/graphs/figures/illustrations etc.) that were included in the OER (and given permission for reproduction in the OER) are not included in your work in turn, without seeking the relevant permission.

  2. Seek direct permission for specific use of any copyrighted material in your OER from the copyright owner.

  3. In preference, link to online content (ensure it’s a “deep link”), rather than reproducing it, and in the case of material within a subscription-only product, flag this as such for users outside your university.

  4. If material is open access or copyright-free material then you can use it, but still attribute sufficient ownership and source attribution in your OER.

  5. If the reprographic rights are protected (for out of copyright source-material) consider creating your own version – consider typing out the content (subject to Copyright legislation limits) and create your own reprographic version. Sufficiently acknowledge original source.

UCD has an excellent online guide to determining the legal re-use of material in your teaching (including your VLE) as they also use the *ICLA License however consideration needs to be given to re-publishing copyrighted material within your OER. Explore the sections here.

In MU we currently don't have a dedicated copyright advisory service or licensing section. The law is very complex but we will update this guidance as the situation changes. A new ICLA licence is anticipated in the coming months but in the meantime, this A4 poster gives a very clear overview of what you can do.

Sharing your OER

  1. Ensure you deposit your OER in MU's Institutional Repository (MURAL): http://mural.maynoothuniversity.ie/
  2. Promote your OER via Social Media channels.
  3. Once your OER is ready to publish and be shared, make sure to map your involvement on the OER World Map here: https://oerworldmap.org/

Creating OER: software tools

Excellent Wikibooks entry with a listing of various software tools that will assist you in adapting and/or creating your OER.

Finding OER

Open textbooks are licensed to be freely used and adapted.  Sources include:

  • Open textbook library 
  • OpenStax. To start using OpenStax, review the textbook online, and if you decide to use it in your class, let them know here. To access instructor-only materials, you can create an OpenStax account and request instructor access. Once they manually verify that you’re an instructor, you will have access to all instructor content. Include the textbook URL in your course materials, and from there, students can choose how they want to view the book.
  • MIT Open Courseware Online Textbooks
  • Google Images. To search for Creative Commons licensed images on a Google Image search:
    • Go to Advanced Google Image search https://www.google.com/advanced_image_search to search for images.
    • Select Tools > Usage Rights > Creative Commons licences to limit your results to images which are Free to use, modify or share under a Creative Commons (CC) licence.   
  • Pexels. Huge, searchable repository of high-quality, diverse photos. Excellent resource, attribution-free.
  • Flickr. To search for Images published on Flickr using a Creative Commons license:
  • Bing. To search for Creative Commons licensed images on a Bing Image search:
    • Go to https://www.bing.com/images
    • Search for images by keyword.
    • Select Filter > Licence > All Creative Commons to limit your results to images which are Free to use, modify or share under a Creative Commons (CC) licence.  
  • IIIF International Image Interoperability Framework: IIIF digital collections free to end-users.  
  • Ireland-Information.com images. Public domain photographs of Ireland, Irish history, landmarks, scenery etc.
  • Unsplash.  Unsplash images can be downloaded and used for free for Commercial and non-commercial purposes. 
  • Pixabay.  Pixabay images can be downloaded and used for free for Commercial and non-commercial purposes. 
  • Free Images.  Free images that can be downloaded and used for free for Commercial and non-commercial purposes.
  • findicons.com. Free icons and icon packs
  • OER Commons is a public digital library of open educational resources, including images.
  • Use the Creative Commons Search to search open content across a range of databases. 
  • Wikimedia commons is a collection of 65,001,595 freely usable media files to which anyone can contribute.
  • The Public Domain Review is a collection of images, books, films and audio files that are available in the public domain. 
  • Wikipedia Public Domain Image Resources. Wikipedia maintains a page of online resources for finding public domain images and other content online.

Podcasts

  • MERLOT. Curated online learning and support materials and content creation tools, led by an international community of educators, learners and researchers.
  • MIT Open Courseware. Access to MIT online course content
  • OER Commons is a public digital library of open educational resources.
  • WikiEducator. A community project working collaboratively with the Free Culture Movement towards incremental development of open educational resources.
  • Open Course Library. Creative Commons Licenced course materials, including syllabi, course activities, readings, and assessments. OCL courses and materials have undergone testing for accessibility and have been designed using the industry-standard Quality Matters (QM) rubric for assessing the quality of online courses.

Introduction to Copyright, Open Licenses & Fair Use

What you can do with an OER will depend on the licence associated with it, and on any copyrighted material that may be reproduced in it: 

  • Public Domain:  The term “public domain” refers to creative materials that are not protected by intellectual property laws such as copyright, trademark, or patent laws.  This may be because the resource was created a long time ago and the author is now deceased, or because the author specified that their work was to be made available in the public domain. Anyone can use a public domain work without obtaining permission or attributing the author. Be aware that material that seems out of copyright, may in fact still be protected by the reprographic representation of the material - the typography, layout, and features on the page/screen, so you should check the permissions for re-use very carefully.
  • Open Licences:  Open licences specify how you can use or modify existing resources, including whether you need to credit (attribute) the original author. Open content and resources are typically made available under a Creative commons (CC) licence (details below), but some repositories have their own licensing terms, so remember to check the licence terms before using or re-using a resource. Also be aware that some graphs, figures, photographs, artwork or data that is not original to the resource may not be covered by the CC license, if the original author was granted permission for including the item in their CC-licensed work. Check this carefully.
  • Fair dealing: Short excerpts of copyrighted material can be used within an OER, subject to the provisions of section 51 of the Copyright and Related Rights Act, 2000, where material may be used for the purposes of criticism or review, so long as they are fully acknowledged and not to an extent where the rights of the owner would be infringed (and is non-commercial). This means that the amount copied should be a brief excerpt for the purpose or critical analysis or review only, and the amount reproduced in the work should not stop a user from purchasing a copy of the original. Copying all of a work (or, in a classroom setting, making multiple copies) would not be considered "fair dealing".

  • In addition to Section 51 allowing for criticism and review, see section 15 of The Copyright and Other Intellectual Property Law Provisions Act 2019 covers “Illustration for education, teaching or scientific research". 

  • Irish Copyright Licensing Agency (ICLA): copying and reproducing material in universities is governed by the terms of the ICLA license but this mainly relates to copying material for your classroom or VLE, rather than for including material within an OER.

How Libraries can support OER

External Shot of MU LibraryLibraries work to source, asses, purchase, integrate and disseminate academic content to library users.

Although the publishing model of OER is very different to traditional academic publishing, and it can come with additional work to adapt and publish OER, the potential is there for libraries to:

  • facilitate informed discussion around OER,
  • aid "findability" of OER resources by tagging material within their Library Management System or Institutional Repository (in MU, this is MURAL)
  • by advising on where to find suitable OER resources, often by the creation of dedicated webpages.
  • by providing training to faculty on OER adoption.

In the case of universities that have a dedicated office or staff, whose role exists to implement OER within an instituion, they can advise and assit with:

  • licensing and copyright issues,
  • technical aspects of adoption,
  • ePublishing and
  • dissemination, and promotion.

MU currently does not have an office or staff assigned to an OER role, but there are ways in which we, as academics, can begin the conversation and adoption of OER materials in a limited way.

Read more: Statement from International Federation of Library Associations: Open Educational Resources and Libraries - a briefing