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OER Toolkit : Curating
Tips for Getting Started
- Consider collaborating.
With the shared aim of meeting student learning outcomes, faculty and library staff can work together on constructing searches and evaluating fit of OER. - Conduct your searches in recognized repositories.
Search recognized OER repositories and aggregated content collections to explore what already exists. - Become familiar with open licensing and accessibility requirements.
If you are faculty, remember that most campus libraries have staff with accessibility (AODA) expertise and open licensing expertise. - Determine your evaluation criteria.
Criteria should incorporate learning objectives and outcomes, content quality, rigor, and even format. See the evaluation rubrics offered in this module for help.
With the shared aim of meeting student learning outcomes, faculty and library staff can work together on constructing searches and evaluating fit of OER.
Search recognized OER repositories and aggregated content collections to explore what already exists.
If you are faculty, remember that most campus libraries have staff with accessibility (AODA) expertise and open licensing expertise.
Criteria should incorporate learning objectives and outcomes, content quality, rigor, and even format. See the evaluation rubrics offered in this module for help.Collaborative OER Curation
Library staff bring specific knowledge and skills to the OER curation process, as outlined below.
What Libraries Can Do
- Help faculty identify existing OER materials, including alternatives to textbooks
- Use advanced search skills to find exactly what faculty need
- Give options for ways that students can access resources
- Advise on how to make resources more accessible
- Advise on issues of copyright and fair dealing
- Advise on use of Creative Commons licences
What Libraries (Likely) Cannot Do
- Be completely knowledgeable of your subject area
- Make the final call on the quality of a resource
- Choose your textbook or course material
- Interfere with your academic freedom
Attribution:
Text a derivative of “How Libraries can Help”, in CCCOER: Faculty and Librarians Selecting High Quality OER - Opens in a new window, by Tina Ulrich, licensed under CC BY 4.0 - opens in a new window
This webinar discusses the four key roles that libraries play in faculty adoption of OER: Researcher, curator, educator, and content creator. It also addresses the tools that library staff use in their OER-related work.
The Library role in OER CCCOER webinar Video transcript - RTFVideo from CCCOER, CC BY 4.0 - opens in a new window.
How to Curate OER
Overview of OER Curation
More than merely collecting content on a specific subject, strong curation involves carefully selecting content and evaluating it for a specific purpose. When OER are part of the curation process, content deemed useful during the evaluation process can then be customized by the curator, and re-shared for future users.
Below is a high level overview of the processes and steps involved in curating OER.
Find
- Search dedicated OER repositories and collections, including the eCampus Open Textbook Library - Opens in a new window
- Build searches around keywords and material types, such as “organic chemistry textbooks," and “videos on substitution reactions”
Evaluate
- Assess quality of the resource using robust evaluation rubrics, such as the Comprehensive OER Evaluation Tool - Word - Downloads in a new window
- Assess use permissions and accessibility to meet campus requirements. Use tools like the Accessibility Checklist - Word - Downloads in a new window
Adopt or Adapt
- Adopt the resource "as is" by downloading it, printing it, or linking to it.
- If needed, adapt or remix the resource using OER authoring tools such as PressBooks (if you are located in Ontario) - Opens in a new window and Open Author - Opens in a new window, or seek support from library staff
Attribution:
Introductory text is a derivative of Content Curation: Finding the Needles in the Haystacks, - opens in a new window, by Christopher Lister, Roaming Educator, licensed under CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 International. - Opens in a new windowProcesses for Curating OER by ISKME, licensed under CC-BY 4.0. - Opens in a new window
Finding OER
There are a multitude of OER out there to choose from, including open textbooks, courses, multimedia resources, and data. These can be found by searching regular search engines (like Google), but it is much easier to find them through dedicated OER repositories or libraries. Below is a sampling of such repositories and libraries.
The eCampus Open Textbook Library - Opens in a new window offers a curated collection of textbooks, many of which have been reviewed and vetted by educators across Canada.
In addition to the eCampus Open Textbook Library, other websites offer collections of open textbooks. Below is a sampling of these libraries, from both Canada and the U.S.
- BCcampus Open Textbooks - Opens in a new window - Lists open textbooks in a number of subject areas, many of which are included in Ontario’s own eCampus Open Textbook Library. It also includes a directory of other open textbook sites and a guide to using open textbooks
- OpenStax Textbooks - Opens in a new window - Provides open textbooks that are peer-reviewed by educators, and can be reused and remixed to align with general course requirements.
- Lyryx Learning - Opens in a new window - Offers free open textbooks combined with affordable high quality online homework in the areas of Calculus, Linear Algebra, Business Math, Financial Accounting (Intro and Intermediate), and Micro and Macroeconomics.
- The NOBA Project - Opens in a new window - Ready made textbooks that can be used as-is or customized to fit your needs.
The collections of aggregated OER below are some of the larger known initiatives that are utilized by educators and library staff in Canada and elsewhere. Many of them have overlapping resources, as they curate and aggregate their content from the same content providers.
- SOL*R - Opens in a new window - Sharable Online Learning Resources is a BCcampus collection that provides guest access for browsing and downloading its Creative Commons Licensed resources.
- Merlot II - Opens in a new window - A curated collection of free and open online teaching, learning, and faculty development services contributed and used by an international education community.
- OER Commons - Opens in a new window -This international, extensive OER library aggregates a variety of OER across learning levels and subjects, and has an embedded authoring tool for remixing and localizing content.
The collections listed below offer a range of multimedia resources for use and integration into teaching and learning. .
- University of British Columbia's Aggregated List of Image Sources - Opens in a new window - Offers a comprehensive list of image collections that are either in the Public Domain or Creative Commons licenced.
- Creative Commons Image Search - Opens in a new window - Users can search across several repositories, including YouTube, Google, SoundCloud, and more, for CC licenced still images, music, and videos.
- Flickr Images - Opens in a new window - Browse or search through Flickr’s images under each type of CC licence.
- Getty Institute Open Images - Opens in a new window - Searchable database of Creative Commons licensed images under Getty’s Open Content Program.
- TED Talks - Opens in a new window - TED’s videos are all Creative Commons licensed, unless otherwise indicated.
- YouTube - Opens in a new window – Videos with a CC license can be found through Advanced Search options
Open data may include non-textual material such as map-based data, mathematical and scientific formulae, medical data, demographic data, financial data, and so forth. The collections listed below are all freely available to use, integrate, modify and manipulate to meet local needs.
- Open Data Canada - Opens in a new window - Government of Canada’s open data sets, covering demographic, financial, map data, and more.
- EU Open Data Portal - Opens in a new window - A portal housing a variety of open data across EU policy domains, including the economy, employment, science, environment and education.
- Data.gov - Opens in a new window - Comprises U.S. federal data with links to U.S. states, cities and counties with web sites that provide open data. Note that non-federal data available through Data.gov may have different licensing than open licensing.
Attribution:
Introductory text a derivative of BCcampus Faculty OER Toolkit, - opens in a new window by BCcampus, - opens in a new window, licensed under CC BY 4.0 - opens in a new window.
Evaluating OER
The best OER evaluation rubrics include traditional evaluative criteria that address a resource’s editorial quality. They also include criteria that address resource portability, and resource effectiveness in engaging learners. Below is a sampling of rubrics that are recommended for use in evaluating OER.
Use or adapt this OER Evaluation Tool, which was originally created by Achieve, Inc. Achieve is a US-based education nonprofit, and a leader in the development of OER evaluation rubrics.
The tool has been tailored for the OCLS post-secondary context. It is comprised of eight rubrics for assessing OER—ranging from how well the resource is aligned to learning outcomes, to the degree to which the resource meets local accessibility standards.
You can download the tool in the following formats:
For open textbook reviews, you may wish to use the BC Open Textbook Review Criteria. This rubric contains criteria that much of the field uses in evaluating open textbooks. Specific criteria listed include the comprehensiveness of the textbook, the organization and flow, and the cultural relevance of the textbook content.
You can download the rubric in the following formats:
The Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) requires that institutions provide all resources in an accessible format “on demand”. There are no specific guidelines for what is accessible-- other than it must meet the need of the student requesting the accessible format. However, as educators, we a have ethical obligations to ensure that courses are fully accessible to all learners, including those with disabilities.
Unless carefully chosen with accessibility in mind, instructional resources can erect barriers that make learning difficult or impossible. Use the Accessibility Checklist, which has been aligned to accessibility standards. The Checklist will help to ensure that the resources you curate are accessible to all learners.
You can download the checklist in the following formats:
Adopting or Adapting OER
If you identify changes or additions you want to make to your resource based on your evaluation results, you can use the field-tested guides and tools below to help you in your alignment effort.
- Faculty OER Toolkit - Opens in a new window is guide to adapting and adopting Open Educational Resources. Included are definitions and examples, information about Creative Commons licensing, and tips on how to adapt and/or adopt OER for classroom use.
- The BC Open Accessibility Toolkit - Opens in a new window offers resources and guidelines to support content creators in creating truly open and accessible textbooks. The BC Open Accessibility Toolkit is a collaboration between BCcampus and the Centre for Accessible Post-secondary Education Resources BC (CAPER-BC).
Pressbooks: - Opens in a new window
Free access to a Pressbooks EDU account for anyone currently affiliated with one of our member institutions - Opens in a new window.
Pressbooks is an online formatting and publishing system that makes it easy to create professional, well-formatted print and digital resources. Pressbooks is a Canadian-built, open source tool built on WordPress.
Module Builder - Opens in a new window is a tool that allows authors to create both student and instructor facing content views. Authors are encouraged to include overviews, pedagogical supporting text, and instructions for both students and other users of the resource.
Module Builder is a tool available through OER Commons - Opens in a new window and its suite of Open Author tools.
MERLOT’s Content Builder - Opens in a new window provides templates for creating tailored websites with a variety of designs, including e-portfolio structures, lesson plans, online courses, and others.
Tools
- OER Evaluation Tool (Word)A comprehensive evaluation tool based on the Achieve OER Evaluation Tool. It is comprised of eight well-defined rubrics, each with a robust rating system for assessing OER.
- BC Open Textbook Rubric (Word)Rubric from BCcampus that contains a checklist to aid in evaluating open textbooks.
- BC Open Textbook Accessibility Toolkit - Opens in a new windowProvides resources to support content creators, instructional designers, educators, and librarians in creating open and accessible textbooks.
- Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 - Opens in a new windowCovers recommendations for making Web content more accessible to a wider range of people with disabilities.