Adapting, Creating and Sharing OER

Kathy Essmiller

Adapting, Creating and Sharing OER

8 minute read

In the previous chapters, you have learned a great deal about open educational resources and how they can be used as effective teaching and learning material in your courses. In this module, you will gain experience in applying what you have learned to create a plan for successfully adopting, adapting, or creating an OER. Following are some helpful tips for putting together open educational resources so that you can be satisfied with an end product that is both effective and legal.

Adapting an Existing Open Educational Resource

The term adaptation is commonly used to describe the process of making changes to an existing work. We also can replace “adapt” with revise, modify, alter, customize, or other synonyms that describe the act of making a change.

One advantage of choosing an open educational resource is that it gives faculty the legal right to add to, adapt, or delete content from the open work to fit their specific course without obtaining permission from the copyright holder. As you learned in Module 7, this is possible because the copyright holder already has granted permission by releasing their work using an open — or Creative Commons — license.

If you are considering making changes to an open resource, such as an open textbook, ask yourself the following questions:

How much content do I wish to change? Do I want to remove chapters, or rewrite entire chapters of content?
What technical format is the original textbook – an MS Word doc, Google Doc, or PDF? A Word document is much easier to modify than a PDF document.
What type of license is the content released under? Does it have a Creative Commons license that allows for modification or adaptation of the content?
How comfortable are you with using technology and creating content?

If you decide to adapt an existing open resource, there are six recommended steps to follow.

Check the license of the work – does it allow for modifications or derivatives?
Check the format of the work – common formats are HTML files (webpages), Word or open documents (Google Docs), Text files, ePub, LaTex files (if the original book includes math or science formulas and equations).
Choose tools for editing an open textbook (or other open resource) – there are many available. Your choice of editing tool may vary depending on the original format of the resource. Pressbooks, the editing tool used for this book, is available to OCO Member Institutions. Sign up for an account at the Open OCO website.
Choose the output for the work – students like having material in multiple formats. This allows them to choose what works best for them. Some may prefer printed versions of the textbook; others will prefer using a website. Still others will like to use an e-reader or e-reading software. By offering multiple formats you are making your content more accessible.
Determine access for the work – how will your students access the content? Will it be available in an LMS, Google Classroom, OER Commons, or another online hosting service?
Choose a license – the open license you choose will depend on how the textbook you adapted was licensed. For example, if the original textbook was licensed with a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) license, then you must release your book with the same license to ensure it is compliant with the terms of use.

Creating Open Educational Resources

It is helpful to keep in mind some key factors as you move toward creating a new OER. Some in-depth tips for creating OER are outlined below.

Consider Your Tools

Most educational resources today are “born digital,” meaning they are digital files before they are put into print or any other format. There is a wide variety of software and platforms available to assist with creating or editing digital content that can be used as OER, but it can be confusing to decide on which platform to use

Low Tech

The simplest way to create educational resources is by using familiar word processing tools such as Microsoft Word, Google Docs, or Libre Office. This software includes most of the features needed for standard content, and the file can be easily exported as a PDF or printed. Additional low-tech options include:

LibreOffice Draw: Draw lets you produce anything from a quick sketch to a complex plan, and gives you the means to communicate with graphics and diagrams. Draw is an excellent package for producing technical drawings and other visual examples.
InkScape: An open source application that creates and edits PDFs and also works as a vector drawing and graphics tool. A better option for PDF editing if your document is image-heavy.

Medium Tech

Another common way to create or edit educational resources is to create a website or hosted resource. This could be in the form of a blog, a static website, or a wiki. WordPress can be a great tool for these sorts of medium-tech projects.

Think about ways you could use Low- or Medium-Tech resources in your class. Is there a Medium-tech resource you’re already using in your classes? Could you create and disseminate OER easily using that software, or do you need additional training to feel confident?

Look around your campus and see if there are workshops available on the software you want to learn.

Additional medium-tech options include:

Gnu Image Manipulation Program (GIMP): GIMP is an open source, cross-platform image editor available for GNU/Linux, OS X, Windows, and other operating systems.
OER Commons Open Author: Open Author helps you build Open Educational Resources, lesson plans, and courses to share openly on the OER Commons platform.
Pressbooks: Pressbooks is a simple book formatting software. Some institutions, like Oklahoma State University, provide author support for publishing in Pressbooks.

High Tech

There are a number of platforms that provide professional tools for authoring content, and some are very easy to use. A common tool used by OER projects is PressBooks (in which this text is published), a publishing software that makes it easy to produce interactive e-books and other text-based content. Other tools, like Jupyter Notebooks, may take time to master and require special expertise.

Additional high-tech options include:

GitBook: Created by GitHub, this open source tool allows you to create a book hosted on the GitHub platform. You can create your book in Markdown, add images and embed content from the Internet.
Bookdown: The bookdown package is an open-source R package that facilitates writing books and long-form articles/reports with R Markdown.
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 narrative text.

Be aware that some authoring platforms on the market include restrictions on how the final product can be published or shared. Before beginning, it is important to make sure you understand the terms of use and whether you will be able to move your work to a different platform if you choose.

Creating Open Educational Resources by Abbey Elder gives a helpful overview.

Check with your institution about institutional licenses and access to technology that can support your creation. Whichever creation tool or authoring platform you choose, be aware of any restrictions this tool may have on how the final work may be published or shared. Before creating your work, look closely at the terms of use for that product.

If you need help during your creation of an OER, reach out to staff at your institution, who may include but are not limited to Instructional Designers, Librarians, and Instructional Web/Technology staff. Explore the next chapter to learn more about OER in Oklahoma.

The capstone project for faculty, staff and instructors seeking the $250 OSRHE professional development stipend is to reflect and do some concrete planning for how you will implement what you have discovered. Gather any notes you have taken and work through the documentation tool. If you haven’t decided for certain what your project will look like, share a bit of what you might imagine. Export your results when you complete the activity; you will upload the file to complete the OER Deeper Dive quiz.