Open Educational Resources (OER) Guide

UNESCO describes OER as “any type of educational materials that are in the public domain or introduced with an open license” (2016). OER come in many shapes and forms. For instance, they might come as a full course with lesson plans, lecture notes, readings, assignments, videos, and tests, or they might be a single module, textbook, or syllabus. Regardless of the format of your OER, accessibility and open licensing are crucial.

While there is no definitive definition of open educational resources (OER), OER Commons’ definition is widely accepted,

Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching and learning materials that you may freely use and reuse at no cost. Unlike fixed, copyrighted resources, OER have been authored or created by an individual or organization that chooses to retain few, if any, ownership rights. In some cases, that means you can download a resource and share it with colleagues and students. In other cases, you may be able to download a resource, edit it in some way, and then re-post it as a remixed work. How do you know your options? OER often have a Creative Commons or GNU license to let you know how the material may be used, reused, adapted, and shared. (2015)

"Open Books Image" by Sami Kerzel is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.

Open Oregon OER FAQ
Your librarians have collaborated with others throughout the state to create this guide for faculty on all things OER!

Curious about how much you could save by switching to OER? Use the calculator above, courtesy of Ecampus Ontario.

Content for this guide was developed by Sami Kerzel and Michaela Willi Hooper

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Below are some of the main places to find OER. An LBCC librarian can help you find the best resources to meet your learning objectives.

Top picks

• Open Textbook Library
  A collection of openly licensed full textbooks, many of which are peer reviewed.
• OER Commons
  A repository for open content in many different formats - whole courses, textbooks, videos, handouts, modules, and more. You can filter your search results by educational level and subject. Some of these materials have been reviewed.
• Open Oregon Educational Resources
  Use the search box to see OER that other instructors in the state are using in similar courses to yours. A name/email on the right means you have permission to contact the instructor for more information.
• LibreTexts
  Initially focused on the sciences, LibreTexts is rapidly expanding as they received a $5 million dollar federal grant. You can use their Remixer Tool to easily combine OER they have pulled in from other publishers.
• SkillsCommons
  Open digital library of workforce training materials (great for CTE!).

Repositories from specific states and institutions

• MERLOT
  The California State System hosts many free and open online materials.
• BC Campus Open Textbooks
  In addition to textbooks authored by faculty in British Columbia, this site also provides ancillaries and alternative formats of OER from other publishers.
• Oregon State University Open Textbooks
  Textbooks authored by OSU faculty.
• GALILEO
  GALILEO Open Learning Materials brings together open educational resources throughout the University System of Georgia, including open textbooks and ancillary materials.
• Portland State University OER
  Portland State University faculty-authored OER published by the PSU Library.

Search across many collections

• Mason OER MetaFinder
  A federated search (when you enter a search, it looks at other sites that collectively host 30 million+ items). It pulls in a lot of public domain (usually older) resources, so it may be particularly useful for history and other humanities.
• OASIS from SUNY Genesco
  A cross-repository OER search that breaks resources down into formats (textbooks, simulations, etc.).

Subject	Website	Resource Type	Description
	Encyclopedia of Life	Mixed	EOL is an online encyclopedia which provides content freely to the public for reuse and linking.
CTE	WISC-Online	Mixed	OER from Wisconsin's technical colleges. Extensive content in manufacturing, welding, and automation.
​Chemistry	ChemCollective	Mixed	ChemCollective provides a collection of course materials (virtual labs, tests, etc.), under a creative commons license, created by faculty and staff at Carnegie Mellon.
	OpenChemistry Lecture Videos	Videos	OpenChemistry Lecture Videos provides lectures created and taught by UC Irvine instructors, which covers a wide range of topics and levels.
​Computer Science	Green Tea Press	Textbooks	Green Tea Press books, covering a variety of computer science topics, are created under an open license which allows users to download, use and modify content freely.
Economics	The Economics Network	Mixed	This guide put together by the University of Bristol links to numerous textbooks, lectures, etc. which cover economics topics.
	Open Data Institute	Mixed	The Open Data Institute provides loads of open data focusing on five main sectors: agriculture and nutrition, data infrastructure, finance, global development, and open cities.
​Geology	GES DISC	Mixed	The NASA Goddard Earth Sciences (GES) Data and Information Services Center (DISC) provides Earth science data, information, and services to researchers and students.
​Health	JHSPH Open		JSPH provides health and medical courses, including full course materials for instructors. Courses are often paired with free or affordable textbooks.
​History	Smart History	Mixed	Smart History provides online materials for the study of art and cultural heritage. Content is created by art historians, archeologists, curators and other specialists.
​Humanities	American Memory	Mixed	The Library of Congress' American Memory project provides free access to mixed material types which document the American experience.
	LibriVox	Audiobooks	LibriVox provides free, public domain audiobooks read by volunteers from around the world.
​Language	Center for Open Education and Language Learning - University of Texas at Austin	Course Materials	Center for Open Education and Language Learning produces and links to resources for the teaching and learning of foreign languages.
	Open Culture	Mixed	Open Culture brings free online cultural & educational media content together in one location.
​Mathematics	American Institute of Mathematics	Textbooks	The American Institute of Mathematics has produces a list of approved open textbook which cover all types of mathematics.
	GeoGebra	Mixed	According to their website, "GeoGebra is dynamic mathematics software for all levels of education that brings together geometry, algebra, spreadsheets, graphing, statistics and calculus in one easy-to-use package." They use an open source software and have interactive authoring features.
	MyOpenMath	Course Materials	MyOpenMath provides everything an instructor may need to teaching mathematics, and can act as a central location for assignments, discussion, etc. MyOpenMath is partnered with the OpenTextBookStore and uses those online textbooks.
	Online Statistics: An Interactive Multimedia Course of Study	Course Materials	Online Statistics: An Interactive Multimedia Course of Study provides resources for teaching introductory statistics at the college level.
	OpenTextBookStore	Textbooks	The OpenTextBookStore has created a catalog of online open math textbooks. They provide a description of the book, table of contents, supplemental materials, licensing information, a review and link to the content.
	SageMath	Mixed	SageMath is a free open-source mathematics software system available online or for download.
Psychology	Noba	Textbooks	Noba has textbook modules that you can compile into your own course textbook. Print books are available.
Sociology​	The Society Pages	Mixed	The Society Pages (TSP) is an open-access social science project which provides articles, blogs, and podcasts.
	The Sociological Cinema	Videos	The Sociological Cinema provides videos for sociology instructors to include in their courses.
​STEM	OU Engineering Media Lab	Course Materials	The eCourses portal contains course material, including textbooks and interactive illustrations. Material is only available through course sites, which instructors can access after creating an account.
	PhET	Interactive Simulations	The PhET Interactive Simulations project at the University of Colorado Boulder creates and provides free interactive math and science simulations. Simulations are available in a range of subjects at varying levels up to university.
​Writing	Writing Commons	Course Materials	Writing Commons provides open-education materials for the instruction of writing and information literacy.

Want open images? This Open Oregon FAQ suggests sources and strategies.

• Explore a sampling of grant-funded LBCC Faculty Textbook Affordability Projects.
• Find OER materials created at LBCC in CommunityArchive@LBCC, our institutional repository.
• Search for OER and free materials adopted throughout the state of Oregon, including at LBCC, at Open Oregon.
• OER and library ebooks used in LBCC courses are indexed in the Library Catalog. See something missing? Contact Michaela Willi Hooper (willihm@linnbenton.edu | 541-917-4660)

OER come in all shapes, and sizes - or rather all topics and formats. Reviewing other OER is a great way to start understanding what your OER could or should look like. Getting a general idea of what is out there will help you feel more confident about creating, developing, remixing or adopting OER for your courses. Remember, you don't need to start from scratch, and you can adopt someone else's OER.
Examples from around Oregon:

• CS160 Reader at Chemeketa Community College
  Andrew Scholer developed the CS160 Reader for Chemeketa Community College's CS 160 using DISQUS, a free online platform for publishing content.
• Basic Electronics 1: DC Circuit Analysis at Columbia Gorge Community College
  Jim Pytel at Columbia Gorge Community College developed an online lecture series for EET 111: DC Circuits. The lecture playlist is available on YouTube.
• About Writing at Klamath Community College
  "About Writing: A Guide" was created by Robin Jeffrey at Klamath Community College for writing courses (WR 121, 95, 122, 123, and 227)

Examples from around the world:

• PhET Simulations at the University of Colorado
  PhET Simulations at the University of Colorado are free interactive math and science simulations which can be integrated into courses to diversify curriculum.
• Teaching With Documents at the National Archives
  The National Archives have put together lesson plans for instructors for teaching history and eras with primary documents.
• The Periodic Table of Videos at the University of Nottingham
  Chemists at the University of Nottingham developed "The Periodic Table of Videos" which provide information about each of the Periodic Table's elements.
• Cultural Anthropology/Human Rights at Wikibooks
  Wikibooks is a source for open books which range from brief texts to in-depth, multi-chapter texts.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

When choosing materials for your course, quality and relevance are essential. The rubrics below may help you evaluate the OER that you find to choose the highest quality and most relevant materials for your students. 

• Open Oregon Faculty Checklist for Evaluating Course Materials
  Faculty can use this 2-page checklist to assess whether the materials or platform they are considering for adoption will meet student needs. One of the most important questions reflected in this checklist is whether the materials are flexible enough to accommodate student choices about how to acquire and interact with course material.
• Achieve's Rubrics for Evaluating Open Education Resource (OER) Objects
  Achieve's OER evaluating rubrics.
• BCcampus' Faculty Guide for Evaluating Open Education Resources
  BCcampus' Faculty Guide for Evaluating Open Education Resources provides a checklist to evaluate resources.
• Affordable Learning Georgia's Selecting Textbooks
  Affordable Learning Georgia's Selecting Textbooks tool provides a handful of evaluation areas with specific questions to contemplate.
• eBook - Interactive Open Educational Resources : A Guide to Finding, Choosing, and Using What's Out There to Transform College Teaching
  Written by John Shank and "Sponsored by the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL), this one-of-a-kind book demonstrates the best tools, resources, and techniques for discovering, selecting, and integrating interactive open educational resources (OERs) into the teaching and learning process. The author examines many of the best repositories and digital library websites for finding high quality materials, explaining in depth the best practices for effectively searching these repositories and the various methods for evaluating, selecting, and integrating the resources into the instructor's curriculum and course assignments, as well as the institution's learning management system."

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

While there are several types of open licenses, Creative Commons (CC) licenses are widely used to give permission to reuse educational materials. Creative Commons licenses are typically used when creators want to give others the right to share, use, build upon or adapt their work. A CC license protects the creator's copyright while providing greater flexibility to those who wish to use the work.

There are six types of Creative Commons licenses which provide different levels of protection and reuse. All the licenses (public domain and the public domain dedication are not licenses) include the Attribution (BY) element, which means you must give a specific type of credit (learn more under Attribution). If you're simply copying content and using it in your courses at LBCC, you generally don't need to worry about the Sharealike (SA), Noncommercial (NC), and No Derivatives (ND) elements. If you're remixing content with different licenses and sharing publicly, it's a good idea to talk to a librarian about license compatibility.

"Creative Commons: Free Photos For Bloggers" by Foter is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Creative Commons has a unique tool to help people wanting to license their own materials under Creative Commons. The Choose a License tool will help you decide which license is best for your wants and needs.

Review the following resources:

• Creative Commons: About The Licenses
  Learn about Creative Commons Licenses and how they work.
• Creative Commons: Licensing Types
  Learn about the various terminology that goes with CC licenses.
• 7 Things You Should Know About Creative Commons
  EDUCAUSE wrote a brief article outlining the top 7 things you should know about Creative Commons licenses.
• Guide to Open Licensing
  Open Definition has a great guide focusing on open licenses and what all they entail.
• Open Oregon: Open Licenses Step By Step
  This slideshow from Amy Hofer walks you through applying an open license to your work.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

All Creative Commons licenses require that reusers give credit to the original--specifically noting Title, Author, Source (link), and License. Even though attributions are not required for public domain materials, acknowledging the original source is not only standard academic practice (we want to model citing sources for students!), but also enables you to find the content again if needed. 


This work by Michaela Willi Hooper, "Example Creative Commons Attribution," is a derivative of "Oregon" by benmacaskill, used under CC BY 4.0. "Example Creative Commons Attribution" is licensed under CC BY 4.0 by Linn-Benton Community College. Use the following spreadsheets to keep track of your attributions:

• Tracking Attributions (Google Docs)

While all Creative Commons-licensed resources allow sharing of content (with attribution!) without permission, some license elements restrict some uses. If you want to use a CC-licensed resource in a way not permitted by its license, you will need to ask for permission, just as you would with an "all rights reserved" resource.  For example, works with a No Derivatives license may not be modified and shared without additional permission. 

If you find content online that is free but not openly licensed or in the public domain, you can link out to it, but will need permission to modify or redistribute (beyond fair use). You can ask the author for permission for your own use, or better yet, request that they put an open license on their page so that others can make the same use without seeking permission in the future.

Keep in mind that authors who share out educational material are already interested in sharing. They are likely to be open to your request!

• Copyright permission request example from Open Oregon FAQ.
• Sample permissions request letter from OERCommons.

Use an attribution tool!

• Open Washington provides an Open Attribution Builder for creating Creative Commons attributions.
• Open Attribute is an add-on for web browsers which helps simplify attribution creation.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

• Digital Accessibility 101 from CFAR
  
• Cheatsheets from the National Center on Disability and Access to Education
  One-page accessibility resources developed to assist less-techy people (mainly faculty and staff) creating accessible content. Find sheets for Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Adobe, web content, and YouTube captioning.
• Open Washington: Accessibility Module
  Open Washington has a module on Accessibility which provides steps for choosing and using: accessible video, accessible images, accessible course material, and accessible open textbooks.
• BC Open Textbook Accessibility Toolkit
  The Accessibility Toolkit is a collaboration between BCcampus and CAPER-BC, to provide the resources needed so content creators have the ability to create open and accessible materials.
• Universal Design for Learning in Higher Education: Accessibility and OERs
  UDL on Campus covers accessibility, under the umbrella of universal design, for OER.
• Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) Overview
  Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) was developed by W3C to provide a shared standard for web content accessibility.
• The 6 Simplest Web Accessibility Tests Anyone Can Do
  

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Open pedagogy (also called open-enabled pedagogy) occurs when faculty work with students to create or improve openly-licensed content like OER. Rather than creating something only for the eyes of their instructor, students engaged in open pedagogy contribute non-disposable assignments (read more about this term from David Wiley) that benefit the public. Some examples of open pedagogy include:

• Students edit and create content on Wikipedia (Wikiedu provides support and training for faculty)
• Students generate ancillaries like quiz questions, slides, or worksheets for future iterations of the course
• Students work with faculty to create or modify an open textbook
• Students contribute to a blog or video channel on their topic

Some benefits of open pedagogy include:

• Bringing more diverse perspectives to course materials
• Enabling students to practice digital literacy, critical thinking, collaboration, professionalism, and information literacy skills
• Engaging students in work higher up Bloom's Taxonomy (creating and synthesizing rather than just remembering and recalling).
• Helping students gain skills and create quality resources they can showcase in job searches

• Open Pedagogy Notebook. Examples of open pedagogy from faculty and students practicing it.
• Renewable Assignments (Pt. 1) Worksheet. Step-by-step process for making your assignments renewable through open pedagogy.
• The Values of Open Pedagogy from Educause Review.
• Open Pedagogy slides from a 2019 in-service session provide two case studies here at LBCC.
• A Guide to Making Open Textbooks with Students. An open book from the Rebus Community.
• Open Pedagogy Approaches: Faculty, Library, and Student Collaborations. An open book from Milne Library.

The Textbook Affordability Steering Committee is now accepting proposals for OER grants through May 24, 2021! LBCC OER grants must be completed within a year (by May 2022). In the past, grant opportunities from Open Oregon Educational Resources have generally been announced in the spring, as well. Open Oregon grants are on a biennial cycle, so the next round is expected to be for 2021-2023. Announcements about open grant opportunities are sent to faculty email groups. Contact committee co-chairs (Michaela Willi Hooper: willihm@linnbenton.edu or Dionna Camp: campd@linnbenton.edu) to talk more about funding your project and drafting your proposal.

Contact a librarian with general questions or for help finding resources and understanding licenses/copyright.

OER & Textbook Affordability Librarian: Michaela Willi Hooper

willihm@linnbenton.edu

541.917.4660​

Contact  Dionna Camp in the Center for Accessibility Resources (CFAR) with questions about accessibility.

cfar@linnbenton.edu

541.917.4690

Contact your department/division admin with questions about payments.

Contact the Campus Store with questions about printing and textbook adoptions.

Manager: Nancie Meyer

meyern@linnbenton.edu

541.917.4952

Contact Jessica Winans to discuss instructional strategies or schedule an SGID (focus group) to get feedback from your students.

winansj@linnbenton.edu

Contact Mike Randolph to discuss incorporating OER into the design and teaching of online and hybrid courses

randolm@linnbenton.edu

Grant applications will be evaluated by a sub-group of the Textbook Affordability Steering Committee using the following criteria:

• Student savings and impact (new student savings aren't expected for grants in the update category. Instead, please address impact).
• Number of students impacted
• Quality considerations (such as use of peer-reviewed resources, attribution/copyright clearance, and ADA compliance)
• Department support (for example, entire dept. agrees to redesign all sections of a course; or all courses in a sequence).

• Explore a sampling of grant-funded LBCC Faculty Textbook Affordability Projects.
• Find OER materials created at LBCC in CommunityArchive@LBCC, our institutional repository.
• Search for OER and free materials adopted throughout the state of Oregon, including at LBCC, at Open Oregon.
• OER and library ebooks used in LBCC courses are indexed in the Library Catalog. See something missing? Contact Michaela Willi Hooper (willihm@linnbenton.edu | 541-917-4660)

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

• Schedule an initial meeting with the OER Librarian, Michaela Willi Hooper (willihm@linnbenton.edu) and Dionna Camp  (cfar@linnbenton.edu) from the Center for Accessibility Resources (CFAR) within the first month of the project.
• Participate in an online (Moodle) Open Practices for LBCC Faculty course (estimated time commitment: 5-10 hours)
• Check in with Dionna or Michaela mid-way through the project.
• Track the author, title, license/copyright status, and source URL of all resources being used or remixed to ensure their work is copyright compliant. The OER Librarian is available to consult on copyright and licensing questions.
• Follow recommendations and implement any changes requested by CFAR to ensure accessibility.
•  Share the materials created (at minimum, a syllabus or reading list with links and/or a citation to the free or open materials) under a CC Attribution (BY) 4.0 license (or other license agreed upon with the OER librarian).
• Deliver materials to the Michaela (willihm@linnbenton.edu) and Dionna (cfar@linnbenton.edu) by May 15, 2022 for sharing via Community Archive@LBCC and the Open Oregon Resources page.
• Report OER usage to the Campus Store and, when possible, work with the Campus Store to offer print copies to students.

Question: I’d like to have my OER translated, copyedited, or peer-reviewed. What support is available?
Answer: LBCC is not a publishing house, so while training and support is available for grantees, grant recipients are responsible for identifying collaborators for functions like copyediting, translating, and peer-reviewing. You can even have a collaborator to handle the technology for you! Michaela Willi Hooper or Dionna Camp can provide you with more details and help pair you with collaborators who have complementary skills.

Question: How much time does it take to create, customize, or adopt an OER?
Answer: Time to create an OER varies widely based on discipline, individual work style, and how much content you will need to create or revise. If you’ve never created an OER before, you might talk to other people in your discipline who’ve used OER to get a sense for the time they’ve spent. You might also identify core materials that are necessary for students to achieve their learning goals, versus supplemental materials you will create if you have time. Adopting existing OER is generally less work-intensive than creating resources from scratch.

Question: What other funding opportunities will be available for OER development later in the year?
Answer:  Each biennium Open Oregon puts out a call for proposals, which the OER librarian will forward to the faculty email group. The Open Oregon fund is bigger and you can request more money per grant, so it’s a great opportunity to collaborate with your colleagues or even across institutions.

Question: What category does my OER work fall into?
Answer:
Adopting work might involve reviewing and selecting an OER or library resource, working with a librarian to ensure copyright compliance,working with CFAR to ensure the resource is accessible, modifying your syllabus to align with an existing OER textbook or library e-book, and/or working with the Campus Store to ensure the link for your OER is in their system and students can purchase a print copy.
Revising/remixing work might involve creating a syllabus, Moodle course, or reading list that provides links to open, free, or library-licensed resources; bringing existing open resources together into a new delivery platform (Moodle, Word doc, Pressbook, etc.); making substantial improvements and additions to one or more existing OER; and/or  working with CFAR and the library to ensure copyright compliance and accessibility for resources created or used
Creating work might involve creating an entirely new resource to meet course learning outcomes because existing materials in the subject are inadequate or expensive and working with CFAR, the Library, and the Learning Innovation Center to select the best delivery method, ensure copyright compliance, and make the resource accessible
Updating or expanding might involve making needed improvements to a course that already uses free/open/library-licensed materials, working with CFAR and the Library to expand available resources or make the resource more accessible, creating additional resources for a course that already uses free/open/library-licensed materials (such as quizzes, worksheets, class activities, audiovisual materials, etc.).

What is the quality of open textbooks?

There is essentially no difference in the faculty vetting process carried out for open textbooks, compared to commercially published textbooks. As with all textbooks, open textbooks vary in quality. Faculty selection of open textbooks, (as in the selection of commercial textbooks) is often a collaborative process driven by departmental faculty. Quality of a particular open textbook can be determined in several ways: 1) recommendations by faculty who have used the open textbook, 2) vetting by faculty reviewers, and 3) faculty use of review guidelines created to standardize the open textbook review process. For more information on reviewing open textbooks and other OER, plus a recommended rubric, please visit the Review section of the LBCC OER guide.

How can my students get a copy of the open textbook that I adopt?

Most open textbooks are available for viewing on a computer via the Internet or as a document that can be downloaded for off line viewing or printing by students. Faculty can provide their students with the webpage address where students can access the open textbook.  Alternatively, several print-on-demand services are available via the Internet that will provide students printed copies for a minimal fee. Additionally, you may be able to work with the LBCC bookstore to provide printed copies of the open textbook for sale.

What will my students think about using an open textbook?

Students traditionally have a fair amount of discretion in using textbooks that are assigned to them by faculty; open textbooks do not change that equation.  Open textbooks can provide the same quality and variety of content as commercially available textbooks, with the additional advantage that open textbooks will be more easily customized by faculty (to meet localized education needs), more accessible to people with disabilities, and available for sale to students for significantly less cost (free, or as low cost print versions) than commercially published textbooks.

Use of an open textbook for course readings may also lead students to think that you are concerned with the financial burden of higher education. 

Will my course transfer to other colleges and universities if I use an open textbook?

Articulation agreements between community colleges and universities generally do not include specific requirements about textbooks except to specify that the title or samples of the textbook should be included in the course outline. 

How will the adoption of open textbooks impact faculty authors of textbooks that are for sale?

Overall, introduction of open textbooks can create more opportunity for faculty who wish to publish commercial material, because faculty who wish to write commercial (for sale) material will be able to leverage open content by providing commercial (for sale) addendums to that open content.

For traditional textbooks sold at a reasonable price, adoption of open textbooks will likely have a limited impact.  However, if you can buy a printed version of an open textbook for $20 when the equivalent commercial version sells for $120, it is more likely that sales of the commercial textbook will be affected.

How will the adoption of open textbooks impact my campus bookstore?

Campus bookstores can profit from obtaining print copies of open textbooks and selling them just as they do for of publishers’ textbooks but only if the open access copyright allows commercialization. 

What are the advantages of using OER?
Some advantages of OER include:

• Allows instructors to customize materials, incorporating local information, new research, and diverse perspectives.
• OER are often created by educators and experts in the field
• Diversifies curriculum
• Reduces the cost of learning for students
• Engages a wider community and creates new partnerships
• Materials can be universally designed for divers learners
• Supports a learner centered approach. Students can even get involved in creation!
• Students can prepare for a course ahead of time and continue to access materials after the course is over.

What are the disadvantages of using OER?

Some disadvantages of OER include:

• Quality of available OER materials is inconsistent. However, this is also true of commercial textbooks, which vary widely in quality. As the number of open textbooks increases, there will be a concomitant increase in overall quality.
• Materials may not meet Section 508 ADA accessibility requirements and must be modified to bring into compliance. In fact, this is true of many commercial textbooks. Open textbooks will ultimately meet and exceed Section ADA accessibility requirements, as currently fulfilled on commercially available textbooks.
• Faculty need to check for accuracy of content of open content, just as they do with commercially available content.
• Customization may be necessary to match departmental and/or college curriculum requirements. However, customization of content will ultimately be more flexible in open content than it currently is in commercially available content.
• Technical requirements to access the content vary. Interoperability standards that permit transportability across many technology platforms are now in the making.

How can I get help with my OER question that wasn't answered here?

For additional help, contact OER & Textbook Affordability Librarian Michaela Willi Hooper at willihm@linnbenton.edu, or (541) 917-4641

This text is a derivative work of the FAQ on Open Textbooks from CCOER, which is licensed under a Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution License.

The Open Education Group is "an interdisciplinary research group that (1) conducts original, rigorous, empirical research on the impact of OER adoption on a range of educational outcomes and (2) designs and shares methodological and conceptual frameworks for studying the impact of OER adoption." The Open Ed Group uses the COUP Framework (Cost, Outcomes, Usage, Perceptions) to study the impact of OER. Use the links below to learn more:

• Bibliography of articles and book chapters by Open Ed Group members.
• A review of all known empirical research on the impacts of OER adoption

 

The Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources has many case studies of how other community colleges are leveraging OER to transform their institutions and benefit their students.

SPARC's OER Mythbusting Handout "Debunk[s] the top myths about OER in North American higher education,"

These OER organizations provide listservs, webinars, reports, and more. OER works best when we work together as communities!

• Open Oregon Educational Resources. Oregon's state-funded textbook affordability advocacy group. Join an online or in-person event, read the FAQ, sign up for the email list, or browse resources adopted across the state.
• Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources (CCOER). Watch a webinar, join the email group, and find out how other community colleges are leveraging OER.
• The Rebus Community. An emerging group that distributes detailed "how-to" guides on OER and allows creators to post their emerging OER and ask for support..