Steps for creating an OER
Steps for creating an OER:
1. Plan
2. Pick a Tool
4. Share
Text adapted from Not Just Another Textbook by Lauri Aesoph, which is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 International License.
Plan your OER
As you are developing your OER project, take some time to explore the following guiding questions:
- Does the OER you need already exist?
- Could your own teaching materials be adapted for use as OER?
- How do you define your student and faculty audiences?
- For which course(s) could your OER be used?
- Do you plan on developing additional materials (i.e., exercises, workbook) to accompany your OER?
- What expertise is required to create your OER?
Adapted from The OER Starter Kit by Abbey K. Elder, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Pick a Tool
What to consider
You can use many of the same tools that you currently use to create educational resources for your courses to create OERs, but you may want to consider using tools that were developed especially for creating OERs, which contain features that will facilitate openness, discoverability, accessibility, and sharing. Below is a list of criteria to consider when choosing which tool you would like to use to create your OER:
- Types of OER Supported: Does this tool allow you to create text-based or multimedia resources, or course modules that may contain both?
- Special Characters: If you plan to create a resource that will include special character/equations, does this tool support that?
- Accessibility: Does this tool facilitate creating content that is accessible?
- Sharing/Licensing: Does this tool allow you to easily apply a Creative Commons license?
- Hosting: Does this tool allow you to host your OER on an existing OER platform, with a permanent link for sharing?
- Export Options: Does this tool allow you to export your content to a format that others can reuse and share? Could your students export to a printable format, if they so choose?
- Cost: What will this tool cost to use? For you? For students? Will students have to create an account in order to view your OER? If so, what are the tool's terms of use, and how does it manage your students' personal data?
We will be exploring some of this tools used in creating OER. We have quite a number of them but for now let’s take a look at these few.
Open Author
Open Author is Created and hosted by OER Commons. Open Author has a Resource Builder for creating text-based resources using a Google Docs-esque editor and a Module Builder for creating a course module that could include student and instructor instructions, sequenced tasks, and supporting resources. Special features include the ability to embed multimedia content, a Google Docs import option, authoring tools that make it easier to create accessible content, and MathML support. Once published, OERs are hosted on OER Commons, making them easily accessible and discoverable online. You can export your OER in a variety of formats.
What you will need: Free OER Commons account.
When to Use It: If you are creating a text-based OER that you want others to be able to easily find, read, and re-use
Pressbooks
Based on Wordpress, Pressbooks is an ebook creation tool, which also provides a number of helpful features for creating a textbook, including automatically generated front and back matter, a collection of themes for easily modifying the appearance, LaTeX support, and hosting on Pressbooks.
What you will need: Pressbooks account. With the free account, your finished book will contain a watermark on each page, but the paid version will get you watermark-free files. The web version of your book will also be private, unless you upgrade your account.
When to Use It: If you're creating an open textbook, Pressbooks is one of the best tools available--but note that you will have to pay a fee in order to get files that you can share.
Gitbooks
Created by GitHub, GitBooks is an open source tool that allows you to create a textbook that is hosted in a GitHub repository. You can create your content in Markdown or embed rich, multimedia content. There is currently no PDF export option. This tool was originally developed for creating technical documentation guides, so it does not have as many of the features of other OER tools.
What you will need: Free account with Gitbook (or GitHub). There are some limitations on number of collaborators and spaces for the free account.
When to Use It: If you're creating an open textbook, are familiar with GitHub, and want to use the features provided by GitHub (versioning, collaboration, etc.) but in a "book" format
Bookdown
Bookdown is an open source R package that allows you to write books and long-form articles/reports with R Markdown. Bookdown supports a wide range of programming languages, as well as graphics and interactive applications. You can export your content in multiple formats: PDF, LaTeX, HTML, EPUB, and Word. Can be published to GitHub, bookdown.org, or any web server.
What you will need: Free account with GitHub, R Markdown and associated software packages
When to Use It: If you're creating an open textbook, are familiar with R and Markdown, and want an open source solution
Jupyter Notebook
Jupyter Notebook is an open source web application that allows you to create and share documents that contain live code, equations, visualizations, and text. Jupyter supports over 40 programming languages and can be shared through GitHub or the Jupyter Notebook Viewer.
What you will need: Python 3, Jupyter (Anaconda can be used for installation)
When to Use It: If you're creating a computational OER that involves users interacting with code or visualizations, and you want an open source solution