OER & ZTC: Creating OER

If you would like to create (retain), revise, or remix an OER, the following publishing tools are available: 

• OER Commons (Open Author) - Create Open Educational Resources (OER) with our publishing tool, Open Author. Open Author helps you build Open Educational Resources, lesson plans, and courses (on your own, or with others) - then publish them, to the benefit of educators and learners everywhere.
• LibreTexts - Curate your own book using a wide selection of existing open resources and adding your own content.
• Pressbooks - Easily create e-books, typeset PDFs, and web books. Choose from professionally designed book themes. One button publishing." Free and priced options.

Can you print OER? Yes! Visit the ASCCC OERI page for information about printing and print-on-demand services.

ASCCC OERI: OER Basics (Self-Paced Course) - OER Basics serves as an introduction to Open Educational Resources (OER) providing faculty with new options for selecting textbooks and other resources so they can make the best decisions for their students.

BC Campus Open Ed (Support Resources) - this page provides a robust list of OER publications, including the following eBooks:

• Adoption Guide – 2nd Edition
• Adaptation Guide
• Accessibility Toolkit – 2nd Edition
• Self-Publishing Guide
• Pressbooks Guide
• OER Student Toolkit
• OER Toolkit for Trades Instructors
• Working Group Guide

• Authoring Open Textbooks, by Melissa Falldin and Karen Lauritsen - This guide is for faculty authors, librarians, project managers and others who are involved in the production of open textbooks in higher education and K-12. Content includes a checklist for getting started, publishing program case studies, textbook organization and elements, writing resources and an overview of useful tools.
• A Guide to Making Open Textbooks with Students, Ed. Elizabeth Mays - A handbook for faculty interested in practicing open pedagogy by involving students in the making of open textbooks, ancillary materials, or other Open Educational Resources. This is a first edition, compiled by Rebus Community, and we welcome feedback and ideas to expand the text.
• The OER Starter Kit by Abbey Elder (Iowa State University) - This starter kit has been created to provide instructors with an introduction to the use and creation of open educational resources (OER). The text is broken into five sections: Getting Started, Copyright, Finding OER, Teaching with OER, and Creating OER. Although some chapters contain more advanced content, the starter kit is primarily intended for users who are entirely new to Open Education. The OER Starter Kit Workbook (Abbey Elder, Stacy Katz) also available which includes worksheets to help instructors practice the skills they need to confidently find, use, and create OER.
• The Rebus Guide to Publishing Open Textbooks (So Far) by Apurva Ashok; Zoe Wake Hyde; and Kaitlin Schilling - The Rebus Guide to Publishing Open Textbooks (So Far) is a living repository of collective knowledge, written to equip all those who want to publish open textbooks with the resources they need. Representing two years of collaboration, innumerable conversations and exchanges, and a wide range of collective knowledge and experience, the Guide is a book-in-progress and will evolve and grow over time.

This video is intended to help you choose compatible resources and choose a valid license for your work. Suppose you are developing an open educational resource (OER), and you want to use some other OER within yours. If you create a derivative work by adapting or combining works offered under Creative Common licenses, you must not only follow the terms of each of the licenses involved, but also choose a license for your work that is compatible with the other licenses.

Copyright: Florida Virtual Campus. CC BY-SA 3.0.

Remixing an OER refers to revising, adapting, and editing an existing OER to meet the needs of your course. This can include adding new content, reordering content, combining chapters -- as long as the license on the existing OER allows for remixing, you are all set!

Tools and Resources for Remixing:

• Creating a Remix on OER Commons
• Remixing OER: A Guide to License Compatibility
• LibreTexts Remixer
• Modifying an Open Textbook: What You Need to Know (Pressbooks)

Need images, video, simulations, or other open content for your OER?

• CC Search - Searches 12 major repositories of CC image content online. This collection includes 300 million images. New version of this tool which allows you to create an attribution statement, save to lists and more. 
• Google Advanced Search - Search by Usage Rights
• Flickr (Creative Commons) - Search for user-generated images under CC license.
• Pixaby - royalty free, high quality stock images and videos
• The Noun Project - a platform empowering the community to build a global visual language of icons and symbols that everyone can understand. 
• ClipSafari - Public domain images you can freely use for personal and commercial use without attribution to the original author.
• DigCCMixter - music for videos, games, app, podcasts or just for listening
• PhET Interactive Simulations - Provides fun, free, interactive, research-based science and mathematics simulations.
• ScreenPal (Screencast-o-matic) - Easily record and edit videos of action on your computer screen.