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/...]
A reference for instructors, institutions, and students on adopting open textbooks (produced by BC Campus)
A list of platforms and repositories that host open content or help you to discover Open Access content - compiled by Open Book Publishers.
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
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 (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 (SA): Iterations of the original work must be made available under the same license terms. | |
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 (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
All CC licences require attribution. Just like academic referencing, CC attribution has some basic elements:
For more information on attribution, including modifying material for your own re-use, take a look at this article on Creative Commons:
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:
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.
Seek direct permission for specific use of any copyrighted material in your OER from the copyright owner.
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.
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.
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.
Excellent Wikibooks entry with a listing of various software tools that will assist you in adapting and/or creating your OER.
These two OER metafinder sites below are a brilliant place to start your search for suitable OER as they search many repositories in one go.
Open textbooks are licensed to be freely used and adapted. Sources include:
Podcasts
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:
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.
Coronavirus and copyright - or, the copyright concerns of the widespread move to online instruction (in Ireland), Eoin O’Dell, cearta.ie
Libraries 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:
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:
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