Details_OERs for teaching

This part of the Library Research Toolbox website introduces Open Educational Resources (OERs) Links to an external site. that are open, free, and available for you to use in your teaching. OERs can include textbooks, videos, web pages, courses, teaching handouts or lessons, syllabi and other resources, that have a Creative Commons license. Links to an external site.Free internet resources can be viewed on the internet but not changed or adapted. Free does not equal OER. OER or open means they are licensed (the 5 Rs) so you can revise, remix, reuse, redistribute and retain and not just look at them (Wiley & Hilton, 2018 Links to an external site.).

You can create OERs from scratch yourself and add them to an OER repository or use in your courses and share with others, adapt the work of OERs of others to customize for your teaching or just use the OER as it is. OERs can be used in place of expensive textbooks, or used to supplement your textbook or other course resources.

August 2022: A presentation for the University of Utah CTLE Annual Teaching Symposium: Open Up your Teaching Practice: Strategies for Finding and Using Open Educational Resources (OERs)

Powerpoint Download Powerpoint

Other Resources:

OER Jamboard Links to an external site. used in the presentation
David Wiley video webinar Links to an external site.about OER vs.free and copyright
from a University of Buffalo Conference
UEN Pressbooks login page Links to an external site. to get access to the
Pressbooks OER Creation Tool (authenticate
with UNID & password)
UEN and State-wide faculty development open canvas course
to learn more about OERs and Pressbooks in a self-directed way
- My developing Pressbook Links to an external site. that will get integrated with Canvas

Q & A from the 2021 CTLE ATS presentation

Question on where to publish your OER, which repository to choose? Can you publish your OER to more than one repository?
- But here is my opinion, I would recommend adding your OER to one location - but you can create in one location and a link to add your OER in other large repositories. For example you can create and make it available in the Pressbooks directory but also link it to the OER Textbook repository.
- It also depends on what type of OER you are creating - where would it fit best? If you are creating a tutorial or an animation or a teaching object, look at the OER repositories and find where it fits best. You can also search [OER repository:topic] to find disciplinary locations for example.
- Also if you edit the OER and then republish it with the same CC license, I would put it in the same place (some advice I received in the past)
- You could also publish in your institutional repository an then link it to another repository search tool
- I would say having only one version would be less confusing and then link to other locations.

Evaluation of OERs

University of Illinois OER evaluation library guide Links to an external site. (I like the 5 questions they ask).
iRubric Links to an external site. for evaluating OERs
6 criteria for evaluating OER textbooks from the Affordable Learning Georgia website Links to an external site.
A literature review Links to an external site. about quality indicators of OER repositories

Some Additional Sources for resources

OER Books about finding, using and teaching with OERs (CC licenses)

This course content is offered under a CC Attribution Share AlikeLinks to an external site. license. Content in this course can be considered under this license unless otherwise noted.