OER

What are open educational resources?

Find

Tips on searching for OER

Evaluate

Ensuring OER is high-quality and sustainable

Create

Make your own OER at IU

Affordable

Affordable educational resources

FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

pencil icon Creating OER

 

Are you having trouble finding quality OER or eTexts for your course? Interested in creating an OER or eText? Would you like your students to curate and annotate their own materials? We can help

Pressbooks

IU Pressbooks, supported by UITS and Unizin, is an easy-to-use book publishing platform available to all IU affiliates. Pressbooks offers the following:

  • Mobile-friendly online reading and editing
  • Web content accessibility features
  • Embedded practice and assessments with H5P
  • Annotation with Hypothes.is
  • LaTeX typesetting for scientific and technical content
  • Book exporting for print and e-readers
  • Easy editing of existing OER

 

cover of Teaching with Technology textbook                              Survey of Cellular Biology textbook                            cover of A Quick and Dirty Guide to Art, Music, and Culture by Clayton Funk

 

Students and OER

Students can create OER as a final project! In fact, instructors often find that when they move beyond “disposable assignments,” which aren’t used after the course ends, toward openly available, immediately relevant assignments like textbook, activity, and book creation, student buy-in increases. Students can curate, write, annotate, and adapt materials to create OER in Pressbooks.

Resources for student OER creation:

  • A Guide to Making Open Textbooks with Students: a Pressbook about creating Pressbooks in partnership with students!
  • Open Pedagogy Notebook: examples, tools, techniques for building course materials with students
  • Information Literacy Course Grant: Apply for funding for your students to create an OER and learn information and digital literacy concepts! For this year's application cycle, the grant committee is particularly interested in proposals that support approaches to open pedagogy, using assignments that engage students in their own learning, such as asking students to create and share some kind of digital object or exhibit publicly. (Digital objects include, but are not limited to videos, blogs, textbooks, and digital exhibits). Proposals that emphasize a shift away from the "disposable assignment" and center students' works as worth sharing are especially welcome.
  • Contact iusw@indiana.edu to get started!

Other Considerations

  • Consider Format: In the planning stage of developing an OER, it is essential to consider the devices and systems you and your students will be working with. Many students use a variety of platforms. Will they need specific software? Do you aim to integrate your OER with learning management systems, like IU’s Canvas?
  • Think Accessible: Make sure that any OER you create can be accessible to all and is readable by a screen reader. Check out the BCCampus OER Accessibility Toolkit for tips and tricks for ensuring accessibility.
  • Understand Copyright: Understanding copyright plays a role in both the creation and distribution of an OER. When compiling materials for your OER, it is important to only use works that fall under fair use, are available under an open license, or are in the public domain. For copyright concerns or questions, contact the Copyright Program Librarian.