First Version Open Educational Resources: Adopting and Creating OER

Provide your students an alternative to expensive textbooks by following these steps:

1. Search for and select a textbook in your discipline, using the resources in this guide or consulting with your Liaison Librarian.
2. Bear in mind that searching across the different sites is complicated and options may not be immediately available.  Additionally, it may be possible to craft an ideal text by mixing together several open source options.
3. Review and evaluate available options based on the content and whether it suits your teaching style and your students.   
4. Decide if you want to use the textbook as is, edit, or modify the contents. One of the benefits of open textbooks is flexibility to customize them for specific course designs as much or as little as you desire. If you want to make edits or append content, make sure the licensing allows that. Different repositories will have different options for editing and publishing revised copies.
5. Distribute to your students by uploading into Blackboard. You can select the best format to distribute to your class such as online, or downloadable PDF. 

As faculty, you assess textbooks against a set of criteria that reflects your long experience and knowledge of student needs. You do the same with Open Textbooks, but there are a few additional considerations.

    * Content
         Accuracy of material, Richness, Depth, Breadth, Timeliness, Cultural context
    * Presentation
          Writing quality and tone, Reading level, Organization, Visual presentation, Hierarchy of information, Collateral materials

Additional Criteria

    * Accessibility online - Are the web pages for the textbook accessible?
    * Production options -  Is the book available in more than one format? Printed? Bound? PDF?
    * Platform compatibility - Is the textbook viewable and usable on both MAC's and PC's?
    * Delivery options - Is a bound copy available at a very low price? Will your bookstore be able to carry the printed version?
    * Interactivity - If the online version includes interactive software or multi-media files, are they accessible and cross platform?
    * Consistency between online and printed presentation -  Are the online and printed versions comparable in organization and basic appearance? Will you be able to identify locations in either with minimal confusion for students?

    * Collateral material - If there are test banks, interactive modules, or other enrichment materials, are they in a format you can use? Are they accessible?  Are they free or very inexpensive?