Open Educational Resources: Home

Why use an Open Educational Resource?

• Affordable - Increasing cost of textbooks has led some students to forego buying the text at the expense of learning, often accepting a lower grade as a consequence. Therefore, OERs can promote student learning and retention.
• Accessible - Electronic texts are available immediately -- No more waiting for the mail or out-of-stock books at the bookstore.
• Adaptable - Most texts are adaptable to the needs and interests of the class/ instructor
• Currency - Texts can easily be updated and made available in less time than print publication

Concerns with using an OER

• Locating/ Quality - Faculty frequently express concerns about the difficulty of finding resources, evaluating the quality of the resources they find, and the respect of their peers for the resources they choose that are not mainstream. (This is getting much easier!....see "Where to find OERs," below.)
• Copyright - Instructors are often uncertain what the restrictions are on various types of materials. While librarians aren't lawyers (at least, most of us aren't!), faculty benefit from basic explanations of Creative Commons licenses, Fair Use, and Copyright.
• Bookstores - Questions often arise about the impact of OERs on the college bookstore and the revenue they generate for the college. The role of bookstores is changing, not only because of OERs, but because of competition from online booksellers and other factors.

On-Campus: The Library is located on the lower level of the Humanities building.

Days & Hours: Mon-Fri  8am-4:30pm

Off-Campus  Resources are accessible 24/7 using Portal username & password

Phone:  (530) 251-8830

Email: lcclib@lassencollege.edu

Website:

lassencollege.libguides.com/ARChome

Open Educational Resources (OER)

Copyright law grants, by default, "all rights reserved" to authors (or other copyright holders) to protect their claim to a work and profits generated from it.

Open Educational Resources differ because their author has waived some or all copyright protections. But any use of OERs still requires attribution (footnotes). They can take any format, but most are digital. They can be

Used,                       Distributed,                   Modified

without asking permission of the creator. A creator only needs to designate their creation open through a Creative Commons designation.  

   The symbol describes which rights they retain and waive.

OER Evaluation Criteria

  Clarity, Comprehensibility, and Readability

• Is the content, including any instructions, exercises, or supplemental material, clear and comprehensible to students?
• Is the content well-categorized in terms of logic, sequencing, and flow?
• Is the content consistent with its language and key terms?

  Content Accuracy and Technical Accuracy

• Is the content accurate based on both your expert knowledge and through external sources?
• Are there any factual, grammatical, or typographical errors?
• Is the interface easy to navigate? Are there broken links or obsolete formats?

  Adaptability and Modularity

• Is the resource in a file format that allows for adaptations, modifications, rearrangements, and updates?
• Is the resource easily divided into modules or sections, which can then be used or rearranged out of their original order?
• Is the content licensed in a way that allows for adaptations and modifications?

  Appropriateness

• Is the content presented at a reading level appropriate for higher education students?
• How is the content useful for instructors or students?
• Is the content itself appropriate for higher education?

  Accessibility

• Is the content accessible to students with disabilities through the compatibility of third-party reading applications?
• If you are using Web resources, does each image have alternate text that can be read?
• Do videos have accurate closed-captioning?
• Are students able to access the materials in a quick, non-restrictive manner?

  Supplementary Resources

•  Does the OER contain supplementary materials, such as homework resources, study guides, tutorials, or assessments?
• Have you reviewed these supplementary resources in the same manner as the original OER

Check the icon by freepik.com – CC-BY 3.0. List adapted from CCCOER Review Guidelines: http://collegeopentextbooks.ning.com/page/review-2

WHERE TO FIND OERs

There are many sources for OERs, but here are a few popular sites. (There is often a fair amount of overlap in the materials in these sites.)