Implementing OER

There are three ways to implement Open Educational Resources, as a faculty:

• Adopt what is already available, as-is.
• Adapt what is available to fit your own needs, so you are customizing.
• Create your own! (Or have your students create)

These all may be done as a faculty or group of faculty for your students, or you might also engage your students in adopting, adapting or creating open content.  This part of the book will address adoption, adaptation and creation of OER in general, and you’ll find links to how to do these specifically in the  Pressbooks platform in Part 3, especially in the chapter on Adopt, adapt, create in Pressbooks.

Why adaptation or adoption?

Many educators feel driven to create the “perfect” resources for their classes and it can be difficult put aside that perfection and use other people’s creations. However, the number, variety, and quality of OER available freely is such that any educator should be able to find resources they can readily (with or without adaptations) put to use within their classrooms. And adaptation or adoption of OER will almost always be more efficient than creating teaching materials from scratch.

Jan M. Pawlowski addressed one of the reasons behind this reluctance in his article, Emotional Ownership as the Key to OER Adoption.

Student-created work as open educational resources, or open pedagogy

Having students create work is another potential way to engage in the adoption, adaptation, or creation of open educational resources.  This is often referred to as Open Pedagogy.  See the campus library’s site on open pedagogy for more information.