11 Creating OER
Getting started with creating your own OER
Looking to extend your academic profile? Save your students money? Provide more relevant and engaging materials for your students? Share your acquired knowledge with the world? If so, you might want to consider creating and publishing your own OER.
There are two important steps to getting started with creating your own OER:
- Gather your ideas. Begin by formulating a plan for the content you would like to develop and what format you will use (online module, textbook, etc.). Investigate what related OER already exists (do you need to create a new OER or just adapt an already existing one?). Visit the ncLibraries’ OER Subject Guide or our chapter on Adopting OER for a list OER repositories and libraries.
- Contact your campus library. Your campus library (see Chapter 3 for information on OER Support at Niagara College) can advise you on how to get started and move through the creation process. We can help connect you with the right contacts, advise you on Creative Commons licensing, assist you with software, such as Pressbooks, and our Exploratory Digital Media Lab can provide equipment and space so you can create your own content.
Tools Authoring/Remixing OER
- LibreTexts: Access, build and remix open textbooks across multiple disciplines from this open textbook platform.
- MERLOT’s Content Builder: Access templates for creating tailored websites with a variety of designs, including e-portfolio structures, lesson plans, online courses, and others.
- Open Author: Open Author provides a place where educators can build and share high-quality open educational resources (OER), such as courses, units, lessons, activities and presentations, to meet teaching and learning needs around the globe.
- Pressbooks: Easily create ebooks, typeset PDFs, and webbooks. Choose from professionally designed book themes. One button publishing.
- Softchalk: Create custom lessons by combining your own materials with interactive learning content. The mixture of personalized content, embedded assessment, and interactivity will increase student engagement and improve learning outcomes.
- TED-Ed: Build a lesson around any TED-Ed Original, TED Talk or YouTube video.
- WikiEducator: Become part of a collaborative community, while developing free content on WikiEducator for the purposes of e-learning.
Other OER Creation Resources
- The Rebus Guide to Publishing Open Textbooks (So Far): 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.
- Steps to Submitting Your Material to eCampus’ Open Library: Instructions on how to submit your material to eCampusOntario’s Open Library
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