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Open Educational Resources: Adopt

A guide to Open Educational Resources (OER) - discover, adopt, adapt, or author free shareable educational content.

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How do I adopt an Open Textbook?

Below are suggested steps to find and adopt an open textbook for your teaching.

  1. Search the OER textbook collections for your subject areas to find the relevant textbooks.  We have created lists of content for you on this page.
  2. Evaluate your chosen OER textbook in terms of accessibility, accuracy, inclusion and diversity, relevance to your course, production quality, interactivity, and (if required) local content. You can find more tips on evaluation in this video tutorial.
  3. Check the copyright licensing to see how you can use it: eg CC-BY-NC-SA.  You can find more information on copyright licensing on the copyright page in this guide.
  4. Once you are satisfied with your choice, add it to the Library Course Readings system for that course.
  5. Embed it in your Canvas course content areas.
  6. Need help? Check out the OER Collective Publishing Workflow, or contact your Teaching Liaison Librarians.

What if I find something that almost meets my needs, but not quite?

If an open textbook meets most of your criteria, consider whether you could make some modifications to improve its quality and usefulness (for example, through editing, revising or replacing content). For more information in this Guide, go to the Adapt OER page.

To help you decide on the best option for your project, you’ll need to weigh up the scope of any changes against the work involved in producing a new textbook

For further information go to Copyright and permissions for reuse of materials.

What if I'm adopting something that isn't a textbook?

If you'd like to make use of a smaller OER, such as an infograph, image, or similar, that's great!  Where you are making use of these resources, be aware that, at a minimum, you will need to follow the requirement for attribution.  The Licensing and copyright page on this guide has more information.

The Library has a page on open-licensed and other free resources (images, video, audio) that might prove helpful.