Open educational resources (OER) can be anything from textbooks, syllabi, lecture notes, presentation slides, videos, podcasts, modules, and more. Any material used for instruction within a classroom is an educational resource, and any type of educational resource can be open as long as it fits the criteria.
The process of creating an open educational resource is:
- Choose your tools
- Create the content
- Make sure it follows accessibility guidelines
- Choose and apply an open license
- Publish your resource on an open platform
BCIT Library can offer advice and support for your OER project. Email Ian Linkletter (Ian_Linkletter@bcit.ca) or contact Open BCIT.
Adapting a resource
If you don’t have the time or energy to create your own open educational resource (OER), consider adapting an already-existing resource! OER are, by design, created with licenses that allow for other people to modify the resource to meet their own needs. There are many reasons to adapt, including:
- Adding more content (for example, adding exercises, problem sets, material contributed by students, links to other resources)
- Editing the content (for example, correcting errors or inaccuracies, updating with current information)
- Modifying the content (for example, adjusting for a specific course, framing with a Canadian context, translating into another language)
- Improving accessibility, learning, and inclusivity (for example, addressing diversity needs, adding alt text to images, addressing a particular teaching or learning style)
Steps for adaptation
- Find a potential resource to adapt
- Check the license for permissions and restrictions
- Check the file format (needs to be editable)
- Choose your tools
- Adapt the resource
- Choose a new license (make sure it’s compatible with the original license)
- Attribute the original source
- Upload the new resource where it can be openly accessed (for example, in BCIT’s OER Collection)
– Adapted from the Open Textbook Adaption Toolkit by Open UBC CC-BY- SA 4.0 License