Term | Definition in the context of OER |
Accessibility | The ability of all users, regardless of physical or cognitive abilities, to access OER. Direct (unassisted) and indirect (compatible with assistive technology such as screen readers) access must be ensured. Accessible content is essentially barrier-free content and can be used by everyone, at any time. |
Copyright | A collection of rights designed to provide content creators with protection for their own material, while allowing others to access it for legitimate public good. It is a form of intellectual property that protects a variety of works. For more information, go to the library’s Copyright page, or use our online request form to contact the Copyright Advisor. |
Diversity | The practice of including perspectives and content from people from a range of different social, ethnic and other backgrounds. Making OER diverse gives students from different backgrounds a feeling of belonging and aspiration, which increases student engagement and retention. (Lambert & Fadel, 2022, p.9) |
Inclusion | The principle that all individual thoughts, ideas and perspectives matter. The differences among individuals and groups are explored and celebrated so that barriers are not created. Readers of OER content should feel valued and welcomed. |
Interactive resources | Content which uses technology to engage the student in activity, such as a video with an embedded quiz which will not progress until the student has answered all of the questions correctly, or received feedback on their incorrect responses. Proven to increase student engagement and improve learning but must keep accessibility in mind. |
Licence/license |
Licence - noun. 'This is my driver's licence.' License - verb. 'I am licensed to drive.' In the context of OER, the most common form of licensing is Creative Commons, which allows content creators to take control of their copyright and choose the licensing conditions for their works. Creative Commons licences provide standardized permissions for users to share, reuse, and remix content. |
Open | Content which is free to read, share, adapt and/or modify. |
Peer review | A rigorous quality control process in which subject experts review the content to ensure that it is accurate, up to date, and appropriate for use in the classroom. |
Remix | The process of curating and combining content to create something new. |
Reuse | The right to use the content in a wide range of ways (e.g., in a class, in a study group, on a website, in a video) - from Wikipedia's definition of Open Educational Resources. |
For more terms, take a look at the glossary in RMIT's OER Capability Toolkit.
OER have been proven to support quality education which is equitable, inclusive, open and participatory. Student engagement, motivation and retention is improved by the provision of low-cost, interactive resources which are tailored to include diverse perspectives and locally relevant content such as case studies.
There are lots of 'open' resources, but true OER allow for the 5Rs shown in the infograph below: Retain, Reuse, Revise, Remix, Redistribute.
OER is sharing by Giulia Forsythe. CC0 (Public Domain)
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 collections for you on the OER for Schools 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 the video tutorial on the Adopt OER page in this guide, or you can use the evaluation rubric provided by the OER Collective Publishing Workflow.
3. Check the copyright licensing to see how you can use it: e.g. CC BY-NC. You can find more information on our Licensing and 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.
Need help? Check out the OER Collective Publishing Workflow or contact your Teaching Liaison Librarian.
UNESCO's OER Recommendation emphasises that "... an open license is one that respected the intellectual property rights of the copyright owner, while granting the public the rights to access, re-use, re-purpose, adapt and redistribute educational materials....". This means that you can contextualise content, create or copy interactive activities, change content to ensure that it is inclusive, or even choose content from different OER and combine them into a new artefact, all without damaging the original creator's intellectual property rights.
Most OER platforms provide a review process to ensure that their texts are of high quality. If you're still not sure, try using the evaluation rubric provided by the Collective Publishing Workflow.
Consider: "... the change is not happening in quality, but rather in rights that can help more people to access, spot and improve resources." (Open Educational Resources mythbusting, Grodecka and Sliwowski 2014, p. 18).
The University of Newcastle Library has joined the OER Collective Project, which gives us two Pressbooks shells per year. You can apply for a grant of $1500 to assist you with buying out marking time, paying someone else to transfer existing content into Pressbooks, and any other support you can think of. Contact your Teaching Liaison Librarian for more information.
Some examples of how you can demonstrate your OER textbook's impact are:
The more feedback you give us, the more relevant these 'Frequently Asked Questions' will be! Go to our feedback page if you have questions or suggestions.