OER 101: Go Open, Go Free!

Welcome!

In this textbook you will be learning about Open Educational Resources and how to find, evaluate, modify, and adopt them for use in your classes.

Learning Outcomes (LO)

Upon completion of this textbook you will be able to:

1. Apply OER and Textbook Cost $0 (TXT0) principles to lower textbook costs for students.         
2. Provide customized instructional materials that include indigenous, diverse and equity concepts and promote inclusiveness.
3. Apply basic concepts in copyright, fair use, public domain, and open licensing.        
4. Search for and locate OER that support the learning outcomes of your course.         
5. Evaluate and select high quality resources.         
6. Modify or create resources.         
7. Select accessible resources (or remediate/resolve compliance issues).
8. Share OER/free resources via Laulima or a public-facing platform.         
9. Connect to OER communities within UH and outside of UH.                         

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: What is OER?

• Define Open Educational Resources (OER) and the Textbook Cost $0 (TXT0) course designation. (LO1)
• Articulate the benefits of using Open Educational Resources. (LO1,2)

Chapter 2: Copyright & OER

• Understand copyright infringement and the fair use defense. (LO3)
• Distinguish between openly licensed, public domain, and all rights reserved copyrighted materials. (LO3)
• Distinguish between the different types and combinations of Creative Commons licenses. (LO3)
• Ability to properly use and attribute copyrighted and Creative Commons licensed materials. (LO3)

Chapter 3: Prep & Planning Your Course for OER

• Revisit course planning to identify content gaps that could be filled with OER. (LO4)
• Create a project goal after looking at OER options. (LO4)

Chapter 4: Find, Evaluate, and Create Resources

• Locate and search provided repositories for resources. (LO4,9)
• Conduct searches on the internet to locate resources. (LO4)
• Evaluate resources using a provided rubric. (LO5,7)
• Connect with a national/global OER community. (LO9)

Chapter 5: Adapt OERs, Create and Share with your Students

• Determine if adaptation is needed. (LO5,6,7)
• Determine if adaptation is possible based on OER type and source. (LO3,5,6)
• Adapt/modify and re-license a resource. (LO6)
• Identify ways OER can be indigenized, localized and made more diverse, equitable, and inclusive. (LO2, 7)
• Create and license a resource. (LO6)
• Ability to share content via Laulima and other public-facing platforms. (LO8)
• Ability to provide your students access to your resources. (LO8)

Chapter 6: Next Steps

• Ability to designate a class as Textbook Cost: $0 following campus procedures. (LO1)

Attributions:

Photo "OER Logo", by University of Hawaiʻi OER, is used under a CC-BY 4.0 License.

Licensing Info

The University of Hawai‘i Community Colleges' (UHCC) Open Educational Resources (OER) Group created this textbook to provide on-going professional development to those who teach and those who support teaching.

UHCC System OER Initiative

The High Performance Mission-Driven System (HPMS) Section of the UHCC 2015-2021 Strategic Directions explicitly lists the adoption of OERs as a strategy for reducing the cost of education for students (page 27). Tasked by our campus administrators to explore the opportunities presented by open educational resources in 2014, the UHCC OER campus advocates came together to share information and to develop common strategies and approaches where appropriate. In 2015, we were fortunate to receive funding from former Vice President Morton and the UHCC OER Initiative was born.

Campus Advocates

Individuals who have assumed or been assigned the responsibility to coordinate at the campus levels the following: implementing OER awareness campaigns; facilitating OER adoption and creation projects and related incentive programs; providing faculty support, training and OER-related workshops; coordinating campus TXT0 course marking program and associated data collection; managing expenditures; and submitting annual system-mandated reports. The campus advocates work to develop systemwide standards and guidelines and to coordinate training opportunities for faculty.

This textbook is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. unless otherwise noted.

Chapter 1. What is OER?

Welcome! We're excited to have you on this journey into Open Educational Resources (OER).

What Are Open Educational Resources?

So let's jump in. Watch the two videos below for a quick introduction to OER and why we should be using OER in our classes.

Open Educational Resources (OER) are any kind of teaching, learning, and research materials that you may freely use and reuse at no cost without needing to ask permission. The creators retain copyright, however they determine in advance the licenses they grant the public, such as copying, sharing, and modifying.

OER is one of many movements inspired by openness to learning and knowledge. You may be familiar with terms such as open door, open access, GNU licensing, open source software, open courseware, open data, and open pedagogy.

Examples of OER include:

• syllabi
• lesson plans
• presentations
• assignments
• exams
• textbooks
• videos
• images

That means you can download a resource and share it with colleagues and students. In other cases you may download a resource, edit it, and then share it as a remixed work. How do you know your options? OER often have Creative Commons licenses or other stated permissions to let you know how the material may be used, reused, adapted, and shared. (Creative Commons licenses will be covered in more detail in Chapter 2.)

The worldwide OER movement is rooted in the human right to access high-quality education. This shift in educational practice is not just about cost savings and easy access to openly licensed content; it’s about participation and co-creation. Open Educational Resources (OER) offer opportunities for systemic change in teaching and learning content through engaging educators in new participatory processes and effective technologies for engaging with learning.

Defining "Open" in Open Content and Open Educational Resources:

The importance of the ethos of access to education is reflected in the fact that the expression "Open Educational Resources" was first used by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). OER are "teaching, learning or research materials that are in the public domain or released with intellectual property licenses that facilitate the free use, adaptation and distribution of resources." According to opencontent.org, the terms "open content" and "open educational resources" describe any copyrightable work (traditionally excluding software, which is described by other terms like "open source") that is licensed in a manner that provides the public with free and perpetual permission to engage in the 5R activities:

1. Retain - the right to make, own, and control copies of the content (e.g., download, duplicate, store, and manage)
2. Reuse - the right to use the content in a wide range of ways (e.g., in a class, in a study group, on a website, in a video)
3. Revise - the right to adapt, adjust, modify, or alter the content itself (e.g., translate the content into another language)
4. Remix - the right to combine the original or revised content with other material to create something new (e.g., incorporate the content into a mashup)
5. Redistribute - the right to share copies of the original content, your revisions, or your remixes with others (e.g., give a copy of the content to a friend)

Definitions

Here are a few definitions from Open 101: An Action Plan for Affordable Textbooks (pdf) that we will use to guide our conversation:

• Traditional textbook
  A printed text, peer-reviewed and faculty-written, that is published under closed copyright. This is the basic product that has dominated course materials lists for decades. In 2021 80% of textbooks are published by commercial publishers and the market is dominated by five publishing companies (2021, Business Insider).        
• Open textbook
  A peer-reviewed and faculty-written text that is published with an open license, is freely accessible online, and available in print at the cost of printing. The open license means that anyone can freely download, edit, and share the content with attribution to the original author. OpenStax, based at Rice University, is a popular publisher of open textbooks, and the Open Textbook Library contains a collection of nearly 900 open textbooks.        
• Open educational resource (OER)
  The Hewlett Foundation extended the definition of OER as “teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use and re-purposing by others. OER include full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks, videos, tests, software, and any other tools, materials, or techniques used to support access to knowledge.”        
• E-textbook
  A digital version of a textbook. Typically, these are hosted on a secondary platform like VitalSource or RedShelf. While often available at a lower price point, these digital rentals come with limitations that students don’t like- such as copy-paste or print limitations. Additionally, many e-texts that are sold to students at the campus bookstore expire just like access codes do.
• E-book
  UHCC libraries have large collections of e-books. Depending on the cost to the college, they may be able to order e-books for faculty so that students have free access to required reading.
• Access code
  A code or a login that grants a user semester-long access to various supplemental resources like homework, quizzes, and exams. Students cannot retain the coursework hosted online at the end of their course.
• Bundling
  The act of combining a textbook (e-text or traditional) with an access code and/or other supplemental materials like a lab manual. Bundled textbooks with access codes means that students cannot resell the book or will receive pennies on the dollar for the resale.
• Custom edition
  A version of a textbook created by the publisher specifically for a school or professor, adding or rearranging content to suit their needs. These can only be bought and sold on-campus, reducing opportunities to cut costs by buying used versions online. In some cases, these are sold without a binding in loose-leaf (or “a la carte”) format that is impossible to resell. Custom editions can sometimes be conflated with bundles, since a book labeled “custom” may simply bundle with a “generic” textbook with a supplemental access code, rather than an actual custom edition of a book. Students report these arrangements leave them at a great disadvantage as they cannot resell these products to recoup their costs.        
• New edition
  An updated version of a textbook, typically every 2-4 years. Publishers claim this is to update facts, graphics, and other features, but our previous research found that these changes are merely nominal. The frequent revision of textbooks is a publisher tactic to undermine the used book market, since when faculty adopt a new edition, students cannot resell older editions at the end of the class. Sometimes, professors will assign an older edition of a textbook to help students find cheaper used versions, but after a few years the online used book market dries up and students must purchase higher-priced books from the campus bookstore.

In addition, here are a few more definitions used in our UH system:

• IDAP (Interactive Digital Access Program)
  Interactive digital course materials at the lowest publisher price (negotiated by the bookstore). Prices vary depending on course materials chosen by instructors, but will be lower than what is listed on the publisher's website. IDAP materials are integrated into Laulima (UH’s course management system), are made available one week prior to the start of class, and last until the end of the term. IDAP rental charges are automatically added to students' MYUH accounts but it is up to the students to understand this if they wish to opt out. If a student opts out before the established deadline (ex. Fall 2022 deadline is September 13), the IDAP rental charges are refunded to the student's MyUH account. If a student needs to retake the class, they will need to re-purchase access to the materials. Learn more about IDAP and read through Leeward CC's OER Committee's OER vs. IDAP vs. Cengage chart.
• Textbook Cost: $0 (TXT0)
  A designation indicating a class does not require the student to purchase textbooks or other course materials. Read more in the TXT0 section below.

Why Use OER?

There are many benefits to using OER in your classes.

Student point of view

How does the cost of textbooks impact students? For many years educators have noticed that commercial textbooks have become unaffordable for college students. In 2014 the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) and the Student PIRGs published "Fixing the Broken Textbook Market," which revealed that about 65% of students did not buy the textbooks for their classes because they cannot afford them. A more recent 2018 study of 21,000 students shows that percentage at 64% (2018 Student Textbook and Course Materials Survey). Other effects of high costs include students taking fewer courses or deciding to drop courses.

• 64.2% do not purchase the required textbook
• 42.8% take fewer courses
• 40.5% do not register for a specific course
• 35.6% earn a poor grade
• 22.9% drop a course
• 18.1% withdraw from a course
• 17.2% fail a course

Students on financial aid often do not get to buy their books until three weeks into the semester, making it almost impossible to catch up. And commercial publishers do not help. They issue new editions that do not have substantive improvements, forcing faculty to recommend new books for students and making it difficult for students to use second hand books. Books are published as loose-leaf materials so they cannot be resold back to bookstores. Publishers restrict libraries from purchasing copies of textbooks so that students are forced to buy them.

In the past few years, the nation and the University of Hawaiʻi have been paying close attention to the food insecurity issues for students. During the COVID pandemic, overall economic insecurity has further destabilized the lives of our students. A March 2019 study of California Community Colleges, California Community Colleges #Real Colleges Survey shows that out of almost 40,000 student respondents,

• 60% were housing insecure in the last year
• 19% were homeless in the last year
• 50% were food insecure in the prior 30 days

Inflation and Textbook Cost

It was discovered, using US Board of Labor Statistics, that from 1997 to 2018 commercial textbook prices had inflated by 200%, far exceeding the inflation rate of housing costs, which went up about 57%.

If we include data back to the 1970s, the inflation rate is over 1,000%. One of the main reasons for this trend is that, like patients and medications, students have no control over what textbooks to buy. Faculty make that decision, and if they are not aware of costs, textbook prices can inflate quickly. For a student with a loan, a $200 textbook, plus interest costs, would cost the student much more in five years. Student debt is a serious national problem and multiple generations of families are at risk.

Source: Fixing the Broken Textbook Market, U.S. PIRG Education Fund and the Student PIRGs. View text description

Student Views

Here is a short video of what some of our students are saying. In the second video, Kapiʻolani CC students left comments on an opinion whiteboard in spring 2019, which were then captured in the video.

Faculty point of view

How can you help your students? Of the five key expenses for students listed below, Books and Supplies is the only factor that faculty have control over.

Expenses for students

• Tuition and Fees
• Room and Board
• Books and Supplies
• Personal Expenses
• Transportation

Benefits to Faculty

Faculty who work with OER have described many advantages with using OER. They are finding the materials just as good or better than the material found in commercial textbooks. Faculty have mentioned that they feel they need to use additional and unnecessary chapters in their classes to justify the expensive textbooks that students have to purchase. There is no requirement to change versions every few years and they can customize the material to match their course outcomes.

Additional benefits:

• You can create materials that local students can relate to, replacing materials that are culturally insensitive with those that are relevant.         

• For example, an American history course in New York was developed to reflect the African American and Native American experience.

• You can create materials WITH your students (donated assignments, reviewing quiz questions, editing course materials).
• You can collaborate with other faculty on building textbooks that everyone shares,         

• And each faculty member can customize their own copy.
• For example, there is a collaborative online international learning grant where faculty from different countries cooperate on developing OER with the help of their students.

• You can design materials for co-requisite classes.
• You can create customized assessments using Universal Design for Learning.                 

In fact, when students were asked about their cost challenges, course materials ranked as the second most challenging cost.

College Expenses

Source: Student Watch: Attitudes & Behaviors toward Course Materials. 2017-18 Report

Faculty Views

Let's hear from a few faculty below.

📺  My OER experience by Christie Fierro, Tacoma Community College (4:48)

📺  Using Open Educational Resources - Jayne P. Bopp (5:52)

A recent AAC&U study shows a correlation between OER use, higher grade averages, and decreases in drop, fail, and withdraw rates. Underserved communities represented by PELL-eligible students and students of color show significant improvements. Cost reduction and customizing learning materials make learning equitably accessible for all students. The following discussion by Sheryl Shook, excerpted from a 2020 Kapiʻolani CC Summer Camp workshop, indicates how OER may help level the playing field in higher education.

📺  Excerpt from OER: Be a Textbook Hero! (_____)                                 

And what are the overall benefits?

Research is showing that OER use is correlated with improved results in student success. When comparing open to commercial textbooks in classes with the same learning outcomes, there are no significant differences in effectiveness and user perceptions (Hilton III. “Open Educational Resources, Student Efficacy, and User Perceptions: A Synthesis of Research Published Between 2015 and 2018.” Education Tech Research Dev, 6 August, 2019. ). A recent study Achieving the Dream study posted in 2020 shows colleges are reporting enrollment and tuition benefits, positive teaching impacts, and the recouping of development costs. Community college students taking multiple OER courses earn more credits and get similar grades to students in traditional courses. A high level of student engagement is reported. Faculty reported that OER affects the way they present and use materials in courses and this makes the materials more relevant for their students. For institutions and budgets, estimates suggest a 3 percent institutional return on investment after the initial OER course development period and enrollment increases.

Studies are also showing that classes taught with OER are positively correlated with student success metrics. A study conducted by the University of Georgia and sponsored by the AAC&U shows increases in grade point averages and decreases in drop, fail, and withdrawal rates.

Underrepresented students perform better with OER

Source: AAC&U, University of Georgia, The Impact of Open Educational Resources on Various Student Success Metrics, in International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 2018

Textbook Cost: $0

Now that you have a basic understanding about OER and how you have the power to help students afford college by using no cost instructional materials, let's now talk more about the Textbook Cost: $0 or TXT0 (the last character is a "zero") course designation. TXT0 is a designation used in Banner, STAR, and the Class Availability listing to inform students that a class has no costs for textbooks. All ten UH campuses have adopted the TXT0 designation agreed upon by members of the UH OER Committee and UH System. The following FAQs are taken and modified from Leeward CC's Go Open, Go Free Using Open Educational Resources website.

• What is a Textbook Cost: $0 class?
  A TXT0 class is a designation for a class that does not require students to purchase any course materials out-of-pocket. Course materials include textbooks, readings, online tutorial and quiz platforms, software programs, etc. Classes may use a variety of Open Educational Resources (OERs), online resources, library resources, and faculty-authored materials to replace commercially-produced textbooks.
• So, there is no textbook?
  Not necessarily.         

• A textbook may be required but the electronic version is free to the student. If a student wants a printed version they can print it for themselves or purchase a printed version for the cost of the printing.
• The textbook may be an electronic book either freely accessible or available via the library.

• Is Textbook Cost: $0 the same as OER?
  No. "Textbook Cost: $0" or TXT0 is a designation for classes that do not require students to pay for course materials. Materials in Textbook Cost: $0 classes can be entirely OER, include OER with other materials that are not OER but no cost to students, or use all no cost, non-OER materials. Essentially, students are not required to purchase course materials in TXT0 classes.
• Where does the Textbook Cost: $0 designation appear?

• The “Textbook Cost: $0” phrase and the TXT0 mark will appear on the UH System's class availability lists. You will often see the phrase in the Comments field for the class. You will also see the code (attribute) TXT0 in the class information. MOST importantly, your students will see this information in STAR when they register for classes. They will be able to search for TXT0 classes.
• All TXT0 classes are listed at this UH System TXT0 website. You can search classes listed by campus and subject.

• Would some of these Textbook Cost: $0 classes still require payment for Access Codes to online learning material like homework, exercises, additional reading, MyMathLab, MyWritingLab, etc.?
  No. TXT0 designated classes must use only course materials that are freely available to students from the first day of class.

Making your class TXT0

Now that you have some of the basics and common questions answered, let's get a little more specific. Up until now we've been focused on OER. As defined earlier, OER includes works with no copyright or works that allow open licensing in five ways, known as the "5 Rs." However, to meet the definition of TXT0, classes simply must not require students to purchase any course materials out-of-pocket. There is no rule requiring TXT0 classes to use OERs (or only OERs). Here are some non-OER materials that can be used and provided to students at no cost to them:

• Instructor-created content. Whether or not the instructor chooses to openly license the copyright to the materials, the course can still be designated TXT0 as long as students are not required to purchase any of the content.
• Videos, e-books. and journal articles provided by the college library.
• Links to (copyrighted/restricted) materials, as this is an accepted practice by OER practitioners.

If you are looking to create a TXT0 class, you will have several options. You could adopt a single OER textbook to replace our current commercial textbook, you could take OER textbooks and modify them, you could choose to write your own content, you could curate and use free resources, or you could use a combination of OER and free resources. As stated above in the FAQs, the main thing is that students are not required to purchase any course materials out-of-pocket.

And now, for some additional FAQs for TXT0 at UHCC:

• What if students want a printed copy of an Open Textbook?
  Students may choose to buy a print version of the textbook or print out any part of or all of the OER textbook, at their cost. While this may seem to conflict with the TXT0 designation, printing is a student's choice. The e-version of the OER textbook is available to all students on the first day of instruction, at no cost.
• Can a class that uses instructional non-OER materials be designated TXT0?
  Yes. As long as there is no cost to students. Examples of non-OER (but free) materials could include copyrighted/licensed materials that are available through library subscription, in course reserves, e-versions purchased for multiple users by your library, or via links to copyrighted materials on the internet.
• If a class has mandatory fees (for supplies), or an equipment list (e.g., tools for a trade program), can it still qualify for TXT0 designation if the course materials (textbooks, manuals, etc.) are all open/no cost?
  Yes. Supply and equipment fees do not prevent classes from being listed at Textbook Cost: $0.

Designating your class TXT0

Where can I get more information about TXT0 designations for my campus?
Refer to your campus TXT0 Designation Procedures.

Chapter 1 Attributions

• Video: "An Introduction to Open Educational Resources" by Abbey Elder is licensed under CC BY 4.0.
• Video: "What is OER?" by The Council of Chief State School Officers is licensed under CC BY 4.0.
• "Open 101: An Action Plan for Affordable Textbooks" by Student PIRGs is licensed under CC BY 4.0.
• "OER vs IDAP vs Cengage" by Leeward Community College OER Campus Committee is licensed under CC BY 4.0.
• "Textbook Cost: $0 Frequently Asked Questions" by OER @ Leeward Community College is licensed under CC BY 4.0.
• Video: OER by Christina Kaleiwahea, by EMC Leeward CC on YouTube.
• Video: Kapiolani CC Whiteboard comments by Kapiolani CC, hosted by HawCC Instructional Technology Support Office on YouTube.
• Video: My OER experience by Christie Fierro, Tacoma Community College from OpenWa on Vimeo.
• Video: "Using Open Educational Resources - Jane Bopp" by EMC Leeward CC is licensed under CC BY 3.0.
• Video: Excerpt from OER: Be a Textbook Hero! by Sheryl Shook and Sunyeen Pai / CC BY 4.0
• "Open Textbooks Access, Affordability, and Academic Success" by Open Education Network is licensed under CC BY 4.0.

Chapter 2: Copyright and OER

Chapter 1 in Review

In the last chapter we went over definitions associated with OER and TXT0 and you now have a basic understanding of what they are, and how they are different from each other.

Chapter 2 Objectives

1. Understand copyright infringement and the fair use defense. (LO3)
2. Distinguish between openly licensed, public domain, and all rights reserved copyrighted materials. (LO3)
3. Distinguish between the different types and combinations of Creative Commons licenses. (LO3)
4. Ability to properly use and attribute copyrighted and Creative Commons licensed materials. (LO3)

Disclaimer

Chapter authors and course facilitators are not qualified to provide legal advice on copyright and licensing. This chapter presents information and resources to help you make decisions about your work.

Copyright

Copyright protection does not just cover physical materials (printed books and magazines, films, cds, etc.). The internet has made it easy for educators to research, find and share resources. But a common mistake many educators make is to believe that "if it is on the internet, there are no copyright restrictions." Proper use of copyrighted materials extends to electronic resources available on the internet, and the Higher Education Opportunity Act (HEOA) of 2008 includes provisions that are designed to reduce the illegal uploading and downloading of copyrighted works through peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing.

How do we stop making this mistake? Did you review the terms of use on the website or download? If no terms of use were available, did you assume it was ok to use since it was on the internet? Or did you review copyright guidelines to determine if your use was allowed?

This is why OER work is so important—the goal is to make valuable educational materials openly licensed for educators to use freely without fear of breaking the copyright laws. But before we start discussing OER in detail, let's take a step back and go over Copyright. Start by watching the next video.

📺  Copyright Tidbits: What is Copyright? (3:01)

The University of Hawaiʻi respects the intellectual property rights of others, and it is the responsibility of all members of all colleges to make a good faith determination that their use of copyrighted materials complies with the United States Copyright Law. However, copyright is not a set of black and white rules. In fact, copyright issues, guidelines, and interpretations are moving targets in a constant state of change as case law, litigation, and copyright infringement challenges settled in court.

Everyone using University of Hawaiʻi computing and network resources consents to the Use and Management of Information Technology Resources (pdf). These policies outline the responsible use of all college computing and network resources, and states that users are expected to abide by the guidelines set forth. Persons who violate the Responsible Use Policy, as well as other policies regarding the use of copyrighted materials, may be subject to revocation or limitation of their computer and network privileges, in addition to other disciplinary actions. MIT's Summary of Civil and Criminal Penalties for Violation of Federal Copyright Laws illustrates what could happen if a violation occurs

We've all heard the term "Copyright" before, but most of us have never really received formal training on copyright issues, especially as it pertains to distance education and digital content. As a result, many instructors upload content to Laulima assuming that because it is being used for educational purposes, and/or because the content is secured in a password-protected site, that permission to use copyright-protected material is not required.

However, these assumptions are not always true and permission may very well be required to legally upload content to Laulima. So let's take a closer look at Copyright, with a focus on digital, or online content. Watch the following two videos about copyright and the use of materials for education.

📺  Copyright Basics for Teaching (2:28)

📺  Copyright on Campus (6:30)

Public Domain

The term “public domain” refers to creative materials that are not protected by intellectual property laws such as copyright, trademark, or patent laws. The work may have been created to be in the public domain or copyright may have expired. The public owns these works, not an individual author or artist. Anyone can use a public domain work without obtaining permission or making attribution, AND no one can ever own it.

An important wrinkle to understand about public domain material is that, while each work belongs to the public, collections of public domain works may be protected by copyright. You are free to copy and use individual images but copying and distributing the complete collection may infringe on what is known as the “collective works” copyright.

There are four common ways that works arrive in the public domain:

• the copyright has expired
• the copyright owner failed to follow copyright renewal rules
• the copyright owner deliberately places it in the public domain, known as “dedication,” or
• copyright law does not protect this type of work (ex. works created by the Federal Government, ideas, facts)

Public Domain Frequently Asked Questions

Copyright Compliance

So, how do we go about making sure we do not violate copyright when selecting materials? First, determine if the materials you are considering are copyright-protected. Need help? Tools like the Copyright Genie, a tool developed by Michael Brewer and the American Library Association Office for Information Technology Policy can help you decide. If you are considering using a work that is copyright-protected (not in the public domain, and not a government produced work), you basically have four legal options:

1. Link whenever possible.

1. Placing a URL (web address) link on your page does not violate the copyright, and is often the simplest solution. This also includes embedding videos.
2. Legal Sources of Online Content

2. Use materials that comply with Fair Use.

1. Fair use is not an automatic exception to copyright compliance; it is more of a legal defense since only a federal judge can determine if your use is fair use. If you use a copyright-protected work and the copyright holder claims copyright infringement, you could use “Fair Use” as a defense in court, but you would be obligated to prove it. Fair use lists four factors to be weighed when analyzing the proposed use in order to determine whether it is a fair one. You should consider all four factors, even though all factors do not have to be in favor of a use to make it a fair one.

1. The purpose and character of the use, including whether it is for commercial use or for nonprofit educational purposes.
   This factor generally weighs in favor of fair use for nonprofit educational uses. However, educational use alone is not enough to constitute Fair Use. The other three factors must also be considered.        
2. The nature of the copyrighted work.
   This factor focuses on the work itself. This factor generally weighs in favor of fair use if the work to be used is factual in nature (academic, scientific/technical) rather than works involving artistic or creative expression such as fictional works, music, artwork, etc. However, some works, such as standardized tests and workbooks, will not qualify for fair use because by their nature they are meant to be commercially purchased.
3. The amount and substance of the portion used in relation to the copyright-protected work as a whole.
   This factor considers how much of the copyrighted work was used in comparison to the original work as a whole. It also refers to the essence of the whole work. If a single paragraph summarizes an entire article, quoting that paragraph could violate copyright law. The copyright statute itself does not give numbers or percentages.
4. The effect of the use on the potential market for or value of the copyright-protected work.
   Courts use this factor to determine whether the use of a work is likely to result in an economic loss that the copyright holder is otherwise entitled to receive. If the proposed use became widespread and would negatively impact the market for or value of the copyrighted work, the fourth factor likely weighs against a finding of fair use. Note: Although effect on the market is often cited as the most important of the four, the factors must be evaluated together.

2. Fair Use Resources

1. Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Open Educational Resources was released in February 2021 by American University (AU) Washington College of Law and AU’s Center for Media & Social Impact. This guide was created to support people evaluating when and third party copyright materials can be incorporated into Open Educational Resources to meet their pedagogical goals. Accompanying videos of presentations on Fair Use are available.
2. Fair Use Evaluator is a tool developed by Michael Brewer and the ALA Office for Information Technology Policy to help you understand how to determine the "fairness" of a use under the U.S. Copyright Code.

3. Use materials that comply with the TEACH Act.

1. Face to Face Classroom Teaching - Section 110 (1)
   This section allows educators and students to perform or display works in the course of face-to-face teaching activities (not just for entertainment) at a nonprofit educational institution, in a classroom or similar place devoted to instruction. There is no limitation on the types or amounts of a work that can be performed or displayed except that an audiovisual work that is not lawfully made cannot be shown. This section authorizes, for example, displaying a picture, drawing, or photograph; showing an entire movie; acting out or performing a play or opera; and performing musical compositions as well as sound recordings.
2. Distance Education Teaching – Section 110 (2)
   This section was amended in 2002 to account for distance education. It applies to displaying images, playing motion pictures or sound recordings, or performing works in online classes. It would seem logical that you should be able to transmit the same performances and displays that you were lawfully able to use in your face to face classroom. However, some lawyers argue that digital sharing involves the act of retaining, distributing, and digital transmission. Because of this, the rules are more strict for distance education than for face to face classes. For example, you can't show an entire movie in online classes.
3. The new exemptions under TEACH specifically do not extend to:

1. Electronic reserves, coursepacks (electronic or paper) or interlibrary loan.
2. Commercial document delivery.
3. Textbooks or other digital content provided under license from the author, publisher, aggregator or other entity.
4. Conversion of materials from analog to digital formats, except when the converted material is used solely for authorized transmissions and when a digital version of a work is unavailable or protected by technological measures.

4. A few rules to keep in mind are:

1. Don't use materials that are sold or licensed for online education (e.g. materials by Wiley or Cengage)
2. Don't use materials that students can download and retain unless the copyright allows this
3. Limit access to the works to students enrolled in the course (Louisiana State University)

5. For more information about the TEACH Act, view the Brandeis University's Copyright in the Classroom website.

4. Obtain permission from the copyright holder.

1. Should you decide that you want to seek permission to use the material from the copyright holder, start early and obtain permission in writing.
2. To learn more, read "Copyright Permissions Sample Letter" by Copyrightlaws.com. This article goes over how to contact a copyright owner to obtain permission to use their copyright-protected work. You can also use this sample letter template. We recommend you send the letter with a self-addressed stamped envelope, or email it with an Adobe form formatted to allow a digital signature from the copyright owner.

Common Scenarios

Scenario 1: An instructor wants to scan and post on Laulima, a PDF of a copyrighted textbook that her students have complained is too expensive.

Fair Use? No. Scanning (digitizing) constitutes copying. Copying an entire book and distributing it to students (even electronically on a password-protected platform such as Laulima) would adversely affect the market for that work, thus weighing heavily against Fair Use.

Possible solution(s): The instructor should consider placing a copy on course reserve at the library. Or, identify an open (or less-expensive) textbook..

Scenario 2: An instructor wants to scan an article from a the Honolulu Star-Advertiser (local newspaper) and post it on his course site in Laulima.

Fair Use? Yes. This would probably be considered “spontaneous copying” and is permissible as long as it is a one time use. A Fair Use analysis would need to be done if the instructor wanted to reuse the article in subsequent semesters.

Have more questions about Copyright Compliance?

If so, we don't blame you. Take a look at the University of Texas Libraries' Copyright Crash Course website, and/or The Copyright for Libraries: General Information website from the Association of Research Libraries.

A good resource is also this “Using Copyrighted Works in Your Teaching—FAQ: Questions Faculty and Teaching Assistants Need to Ask Themselves Frequently,” by Peggy Hoon, downloadable as a PDF file.

If you'd like more information/help deciding whether you can use a particular copyrighted material, you can also check out Delaware Community College's Can I use it? Fair Use & TEACH Act webpage.

Have more questions about Copyright Compliance? Library Copyright has a fun list of copyright checking tools.

Open Licensing

Open licenses work with copyright to promote shared use.

Open licenses fall between the public domain and all rights reserved (copyright). An open license specifies the conditions for using a copyrighted work. It grants permissions and states restrictions. Broadly speaking, an open license is one that grants permission to access, re-use and redistribute a work with few or no restrictions (definition from Open Definition).

The diagram below explains how an author can exercise their rights over their work by choosing between public domain, open licensing, and an all rights reserved copyright statement.

Creative Commons

In the past, creators of copyrighted content would need to be found and contacted for permission to use their works. This was a difficult and often impossible task. Illegal copying and modifications would take place, even in cases when the creators would not have objected to having their works used. The only other alternative was for creators to waive copyright upfront and release the work into the Public Domain, which meant waiving all their copy rights. Content creators wanted a better system where they could retain the copyright but also share their works with specified limits. This inspired lawyers to create a system of open licensing. One such system is managed by Creative Commons (CC). Creators can use Creative Commons licenses to give others the right to share, use, and build upon a work that they have created. In the first video below, some of the leading thinkers behind open licensing describe how the organization is helping save the world from failed sharing through free tools that enable creators to easily make their work available to the public for legal sharing and remix. (The Creative Commons video page has a transcript of this video.)

📺  A Shared Culture  (3:21)

📺  What are Creative Commons Licenses?  (1:58)

Creative Commons Terms

Creative Commons (CC) licenses are based on four terms (rules) represented by four icons:

 
View Extended Text Description 

Creative Commons Licenses

The six Creative Commons (CC) licenses are formed by using one or more of the four rules. The following describes each of the six main licenses offered when you choose to publish your work with a CC license. They are listed starting with the most open license type you can choose and ending with the most restrictive license type. This license selection tool asks the author a few questions and generates the appropriate license that you can add to your work.

View Extended Text Description

Click on the image above to enlarge

Example

These simple codes tell the user, up-front, what permissions the copyright owner has given for their work. For example, Kawika is looking for an image of a dog for his biology class. He finds an image of a dog on Flickr with the Creative Commons license CC BY-ND. By understanding that code, he knows immediately that the copyright owner has given everyone permission to use that image but people may not alter the image. Kawika is also required to attribute the image to the creator. If the image had a CC BY code, he would know that he could alter the image, for example by editing the image and adding another dog to the image.

Giving Credit - Attribution

CC licenses require us to use the work according to the copyright owner's license conditions. The first and primary condition of all CC licenses is attribution to the creator.

Citations and Attributions: Is there a Difference?

"Citation" and "Attribution" are often used as synonyms, but they mean two different things. Citation is a scholarly practice for tracking the underpinnings of a work, usually referencing sources like published books, articles, government documents, etc. Attribution is about crediting a copyright holder according to the terms of a copyright license, for example crediting artistic works like music, fiction, video, and photography.

Click on the image below to open the slide presentation and learn more about the differences between citations and attributions.

Best practices for attribution

A good rule of thumb is to use the acronym TASL, which stands for Title, Author, Source, License.

Title - What is the name of the material? If a title was provided for the material, include it. Sometimes a title is not provided; in that case, don't worry about it.

Author - Who owns the material? Name the author or authors of the material in question. Sometimes, the licensor may want you to give credit to some other entity, like a company or pseudonym. In rare cases, the licensor may not want to be attributed at all. In all of these cases, just do what they request.

Source - Where can I find it? Since you somehow accessed the material, you know where to find it. Provide the source of the material so others can, too. Since we live in the age of the Internet, this is usually NOT a separate piece of the attribution. Instead, it is common to hyperlink the title of the material to where the material resides.

License - How can I use it? You are obviously using the material for free thanks to the CC license, so make note of it. Don't just say the material is Creative Commons, because that says nothing about how the material can actually be used. Remember that there are six different CC licenses. Name and provide a link to it. For example, stating CC BY and linking it to http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. And, if the licensor included a license notice with more information, include that as well.

Example

For the slide presentation above, the attribution is:

"Citations vs. Attributions" by Amy Hofer for Open Oregon Educational Resources is licensed under CC BY 4.0.

Examples of attribution

(Source: "Best practices for Attribution" by Creative Commons is licensed under CC BY 4.0)

Here is a photo. Following it are some examples of how people might attribute it.

This is an ideal attribution

"Creative Commons 10th Birthday Celebration San Francisco" by tvol is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Because:

• Title? "Creative Commons 10th Birthday Celebration San Francisco"
• Author? "tvol" - linked to his profile page
• Source? "Creative Commons 10th Birthday Celebration San Francisco" - linked to original Flickr page
• License? "CC BY 2.0" - linked to license deed

This is a pretty good attribution

Photo by tvol / CC BY

Because:

• Title? Title is not noted (it should be) but at least the source is linked.
• Author? "tvol"
• Source? "Photo" - linked to original Flickr page
• License? "CC BY" - linked to license deed

This is an incorrect attribution

Photo: Creative Commons

Because:

• Title? Title is not noted.
• Author? Creative Commons is not the author of this photo.
• Source? No link to original photo.
• License? There is no mention of the license, much less a link to the license. "Creative Commons" is an organization.

Don't make it too complicated

The license tells you to be reasonable:

You may satisfy the conditions in (1) and (2) above in any reasonable manner based on the medium, means and context in which the Licensed Material is used. For example, it may be reasonable to satisfy some or all of the conditions by retaining a copyright notice, or by providing a URL or hyperlink associated with the Licensed Material, if the copyright notice or webpage includes some or all of the required information.

There is no one right way; just make sure your attribution is reasonable and suited to the medium you're working with. That being said, you still have to include attribution requirements somehow, even if it's just a link to an About page that has that info.

Derivative Works

If you change the original work in any way (e.g., cropping an image, changing the colors, replacing words, etc.), you are creating a derivative work of the original. you should always attribute the original work in any derivative work. Although there are different ways you could attribute the work, an easy way to do this is to start the attribution with "This work is a derivative of..." then add the attribution as you normally would. You may also include the changes you made.

This is a good attribution for material you modified slightly

"Creative Commons 10th Birthday Celebration San Francisco" by tvol, used under CC BY / Desaturated from original

Because:

• Title, Author, Source, and License are all noted
• Modification? "Desaturated from original"

This is a good attribution for material from which you created a derivative work

This work, "90fied" is a derivative of "Creative Commons 10th Birthday Celebration San Francisco" by tvol, used under CC BY. "90fied" is licensed under CC BY by [Your name here].

Because:

• Original Title, Author, Source, and License are all noted
• Derivative? "This work, "90fied", is a derivative of..."
• New author of the derivative work is also noted

Note: If you're at a point where you are licensing derivative works, go to Marking your work with a CC license.

Other guides and resources related to attribution

• How To Attribute CC Photos poster by foter
• Attributing Creative Commons Material (pdf) - Creative Commons Australia's publication is full of examples with colorful imagery.

Attribution Tools

Now that you have an idea of the information you need to create a good attribution, we'd like to share two to help you with attributions.

1. Source Tracker - Clicking on this link will make a copy of this file in your Google Drive to help you keep track of materials you might use as you explore resources.
2. Open Attribution Builder from Open Washington - This is a great online tool that will help you build your attributions once you have all of the information.

Considerations for Images, Sound, and Videos

Inevitably you will want to use images and videos in your teaching materials. Images and videos can be in the public domain, carry open licenses such as CC, or be copyright protected, and it is important to be sure of the status of an image or video before using it.

📺  Copyright on the Internet (4:37)

Below are some tips to help you identify and use images, sound, and videos correctly.

Images

• Assume all images on the internet are copyright protected unless you can find out otherwise (usage terms, licensing info, etc.)
• You can conduct an advanced image search in Google to filter results by usage rights
• You can use the Creative Commons Search engine to search other sites, such as Google Images or Fotopedia, using a Creative Commons filter.

Sound

• Assume all sound files on the internet are copyright protected unless you can find out otherwise (usage terms, licensing info, etc.)
• Refer to Creative Commons Legal Music for Videos for places to look for openly licensed sound files

Videos

• Assume all videos on the internet are copyright protected unless you can find out otherwise (usage terms, licensing info, etc.)
• For YouTube videos, expand the description under the video and look for the license info. A standard YouTube license allows you to link (and embed if code is provided), but the video is copyright protected. If it has a Creative Commons license, it is licensed under a Creative Commons CC BY license. You can also filter your searches for videos with Creative Commons licenses.
• You can also filter your searched videos on Vimeo by CC license.

Chapter 2 Attributions

• Video: "Copyright Tidbits: What is Copyright?" by USF Library Instructional Video - Tampa Campus is licensed under a Standard YouTube License.
• Video: "Copyright Basics for Teaching" by CRC Library is licensed under a Standard YouTube License.
• Video: "Copyright on Campus" by Copyright Clearance Center is licensed under a Standard YouTube License.
• Original Content from "Welcome to the Public Domain" by Stanford University Libraries is licensed under CC BY NC 3.0.
• Image: "Difference between open license, public domain and all rights reserved copyright" by Boyoung Chae via Wikimedia Commons is licensed under CC BY 4.0.
• Video: "A Shared Culture" by Creative Commons is licensed under a Standard YouTube License.
• Video: "What are Creative Commons Licenses?" by U of G Library is licensed under CC BY NC SA 4.0.
• Image" Key License Terms" is modified (cropped) from "Creative Commons Licenses" by BockoPix that is licensed under CC0 1.0
• "The Licenses," by Julie Kent for Thompson Rivers University Williams Lake Faculty is licensed under CC BY NC 4.0.
• Google Slides Presentation: "Citations vs. Attributions" by Amy Hofer for Open Oregon Educational Resources is licensed under CC BY 4.0.
• Original Content from "Attribute Open Content" by Open Michigan is licensed under CC BY 4.0.
• Original Content: "Best practices for Attribution" by Creative Commons is licensed under CC BY 4.0.
• Video: "Copyright on the Internet" by U.S. Copyright Office is licensed under a Standard YouTube License.

Chapter 3: Prep & Plan your Course for OER

Chapter 2 in Review

In the last chapter we tackled several topics: copyright, open licenses (specifically Creative Commons licenses), and attribution. It was a lot of ground to cover, and maybe a little confusing, but as with everything new we learn, it will get easier with practice.

Chapter 3 Objectives

1. Revisit course planning to identify content gaps that could be filled with OER. (LO4)
2. Create a project goal after looking at OER options. (LO4)

Course Planning

Before diving head first into an OER search, it is important to start your search with a clear idea of what you are looking for. Are you looking for a textbook replacement, or are you looking to replace or supplement portions of your current materials? Regardless of your goal, anytime you contemplate changing your instructional materials, it's a good time to take another look at your course planning. Although this may take some time, we believe you will find this time well spent. Proper course planning will ensure your course assessments, activities, and materials are aligned to the course/student learning outcomes. It will also help you identify the OER materials you want to search for.

Backward Design

We highly recommend using a framework called "Backward Design" for course planning. Backward Design was developed by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe. It is based on the premise that you can’t plan your course or how you’re going to teach until you know exactly what you want your students to learn. There are full length courses on Backwards Design, but we'll just be focusing on the basics. Here are two videos to give you a better understanding.

📺  Introduction to Backward Design (2:33)

📺  Alignment & Backwards Design (2:53)

By planning your class using the Backward Design principles, you will select your content based on the outcomes and assessments. And, by letting go of the commercial textbook, you are freed to really tailor the content to meet your and your students' needs. Using free/open resources means you could select an entire textbook, you could use resources from multiple textbooks, and/or use any of the open/free resources already available on the internet. Excited? Let's get to the planning.

Planning Your Class

It's now time to plan out your class. You will use the basic principles of Backward Design, except that instead of starting with a completely clean slate, you'll start with the current course outcomes and the topics listed in your campus' official course outline (for e.g., "Course Outline of Record"). You'll then use the principles of Backward Design to identify the outcomes for each week (or modules, or units, or topics) then plan your assessments, and finally, look at what instructional content/resources/activities you'll need.

To help you through this creative process, we have provided several example worksheet templates that you can use. These worksheets will become the blueprint for your new class. As you work through the worksheets using the principles of Backward Design, you will probably find your course plan shifting from your current course plan, and maybe even being transformed. This is the freeing aspect that we spoke of before. Since you are not tied to your current textbook, you have a lot more control over what you teach, and how you teach it.

Worksheet templates:

1. Hawai‘i CC Course Planning Worksheets and Completed sample (PDF)
2. UH Maui College/Kapi‘olani CC Course Map Template

Setting Your OER Goals

Reevaluating your course design, you now have a sense of what resources you need to support your learning goals. Knowing this will help you with the next few chapters, which address Finding, Assessing, & Creating OER, Adapting and Sharing OER, and Next Steps. You may have found that you have small content gaps in your learning materials that you would like to fill with OER. Or, you may be interested in replacing all commercial content with OER to make your class Textbook Cost: $0 (TXT0). Either way, it will be very helpful to establish your OER goals.

Goal setting for TXT0 projects

Start by assessing where you are now. Calculate what the current cost of your textbook is and multiply it by the number of students you teach each year. This will give you a larger sense of how much you will be helping your students. You may be able to convert to TXT0 simply by asking the library to purchase an e-book or put a textbook on reserve if it will help your students. But if not, let's move forward with looking at OER as a solution.

OER can be adopted, modified, created, and shared at all levels. You could

• Adopt a textbook and the ancillaries it might have
• Develop a class session using open materials
• Modify a textbook (example)
• Develop a reader
• Use open pedagogy to work with your students to develop a book
• Create an online textbook
• Convert a course to OER
• Team-develop a textbook or course

Here are more examples.

Just as we benefit from OER created by other institutions, we encourage our instructors to share their work with the world. OER can be created, delivered, and shared in many ways using a variety of technology platforms. Depending on your needs and technology skills, MS Word or Google Drive might be sufficient. Many instructors use Laulima. Although the University of Hawaiʻi has no required technology platforms for OER, the UH OER community encourages the use of three OER development/publishing platforms. UH Pressbooks is a highly popular book publishing tool developed from WordPress. It is very easy to work with, especially if you have experience with online platforms. LibreTexts is a national platform that incorporates more interactive tools and has a more "modular" feel than Pressbooks. UH OER Commons is our newest shared platform, providing an easy-to-edit writing interface. You can even upload Word documents. Take a look at these sites and think about what would be best to work with. Your OER college advocate can help you decide.                                 

SMART Goals

One last thing to consider before you set your goals. Make your goals realistic and achievable by creating SMART goals (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-specific). The SMART goal technique will make it easier for you to succeed in your project. It will help you define what steps you will need to take, how you will measure your progress, and how you will measure the achievement of your ultimate goal.

For example, if you wish to write a textbook, that is your ultimate goal. Use the SMART technique to write out your goal so that it is Specific (PSY 100), Measurable (published), Achievable (e.g., I have all my teaching notes and will use those), Relevant (e.g. this will improve class participation), and Time-specific (e.g. I want to teach with this book in three semesters).

Then, create SMART "sub-goals" or objectives that will get you to the ultimate goal (e.g. I will complete a draft outline of the textbook in three months.) In our experience, developing an OER class session may take up to two weeks to complete. Adopting a textbook may take three months. An original textbook may take 12 or more months.

📺  SMART Goals - Quick Overview (3:58)

📺  SMART Goals for OER Action Plan (5:35)

Chapter 3 Attributions

• Video: "Introduction to Backward Design" by Tracey Cole is licensed under CC BY 4.0.
• Video: "Alignment and Backward Design" by MaryAnne Nestor and Carl E. Nestor is licensed under CC BY 4.0.
• Original Content: "Sample Course Design Worksheets" by a former OCDP participant is used by permission.
• Video: "SMART Goals - Quick Overview by DecisionSkills is licensed under a Standard YouTube License.
• Video: "SMART Goals for OER Action Plan" by Open Education Network is licensed under CC BY 3.0

Chapter 4: Find and Evaluate Resources

Chapter 3 in Review

In Chapter 3 you revisited your course planning to identify content gaps and set your goals. Hopefully, you found the exercise helpful and you now have an idea of what you will be looking for once you begin your search. We also discussed the different paths you can take in looking for resources, whether you are looking for an entire textbook, a collection of chapters, or individual resources.

Chapter 4 Objectives

1. Locate and search provided repositories for resources. (LO4,9)
2. Conduct searches on the internet to locate resources. (LO4)
3. Evaluate resources using a provided rubric. (LO5,7)
4. Connect with a national/global OER community. (LO9)

Finding Resources

Where to Start

You are finally ready to start looking for resources. But where should you start? While there are free (e.g., links to websites, YouTube videos with standard licenses) and open (e.g., CC licensed resources, public domain resources), we'll focus this week on looking for open resources—those that you can retain, reuse, revise, remix, and redistribute. We'll also cover different types of resources. Watch this six minute video for an overview.

📺  How to Find and Evaluate OER (6:05)

Source Tracking

The video above suggests that you COMPILE your potential resources as you conduct your searches for potential content. Use the Source Tracker linked below to document and keep track of your findings. Include everything that looks interesting, ranging from images to books. The information you will be prompted to enter will include what is necessary to attribute and find the original source of the resource, which is Title, Author, Source, and License (see Chapter 2.) There is also an added field for "alt text" for images to make them accessible. Click on the link below to make a copy of this Google Doc file in your Google Drive account

• Source Tracker

Open Textbooks

Wouldn't it be nice if there was one place you could go to research and find all available open textbooks? Unfortunately, we're not quite there yet. But, as the OER community continues to grow, people and organizations have started to create repositories. It's probably just a matter of time before the repositories merge and soon pare down to a few if not one. Think of how there used to be many internet search engines, but now almost everyone uses Google. We start by covering in more depth the two sites recommended in the Finding Resources video you watched above.

Open Textbook Library

The Open Textbook Library contains nearly 900 open textbooks as of 2021. These textbooks are licensed under Creative Commons, have been reviewed by college and university faculty, and can be downloaded at no cost. All textbooks are developed and used at institutions of higher education and many are affiliated with a scholarly society or professional organization. The following video will demonstrate how to find textbook on the Open Textbook Library website.

📺  Introducing the Open Textbook Library (1:30)

OER Commons

One of the organizations leading this effort to collect and organize OER is the OER Commons. You can search this repository by Subject and Grade Level. OER Commons includes content for all levels of education starting with K-12 through graduate school and also includes career technical and adult education materials. OER Commons also has a support center. The following video will demonstrate how to search for content on OER Commons.

📺  OER Commons: How to search on OER Commons (2:00)

OpenStax

OpenStax is a nonprofit based at Rice University. Their materials were funded by large grants from philanthropic foundations such as the Hewlett Foundation and the National Science Foundation, and they strategically focus on the highest enrolled courses in higher education. Although it does not have a large collection of textbooks, OpenStax is well respected and all textbooks are openly peer reviewed. Impact data show 60 percent of higher education institutions in the US use their textbooks. They work with The National Association of College Stores, so you can order hard copies at your bookstore. Most textbooks have OpenStax ancillary materials available or ancillaries shared by other faculty members. The best way to get to know their materials is to apply for an Educator user account. They will confirm your position with the University of Hawaiʻi and in a few days send you login information. This way you will be able to review book details, instructor resources (e.g. LMS cartridges, tests, slides), and student resources (e.g. videos, notetaking guides).

Other Repositories

Here are several other repositories and aggregators that we recommend looking through before conducting an open search on the internet.

• BCcampus supports the post-secondary institutions of British Columbia. Their open textbook project began in 2012 to create a collection of open textbooks aligned with the top 40 highest-enrolled subject areas in the province. A second phase began in spring of 2014 in which an additional 20 textbooks targeting trades, technology, and skills training would be developed.          
• Mason OER Metafinder (MOM) simultaneously search OER repositories. Created by George Mason University’s Mason Publishing Group. Because it is a real-time search, it can take a bit longer than searches of pre-indexed content; however, as compensation the results returned are absolutely up-to-the-minute for each search target. Additional results continue to trickle in as the search continues running and you begin examining your results.
• San Bernardino Valley College hosts a webpage that lists OER by discipline.
• Portland Community College houses a collection of Google Docs that list OER by subject that were created by PCC librarians in response to requests for help from instructors.
• Open Educational Resources Used in Various Colleges and Universities is a webpage maintained by Dr Larry Green from Lake Tahoe Community College that contains lists and links collected from the CCCOER (Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources) listserve conversations and a few other sources.
• Open Kapiʻolani Resources is maintained by Kapiʻolani Community College Digital Initiatives Librarian and provides a list of sites where one can find books, courses, course materials, images, and videos.

While this may already seem like an overwhelming list of places to search, this could just be the beginning. You may find the same materials listed in multiple locations, and that's okay. At this initial stage of searching, we recommend you start that Source Tracker discussed above. You could even take a few notes for each resource. But don't start evaluating or judging them. Consider this like brainstorming—add everything to your list and don't exclude any resources just yet. Later in this lesson we'll talk about evaluating resources and will provide you with a rubric to go back and evaluate the sources you find.

Not finding much?

If you've gone through all of the repositories shared here and you haven't found much, you may need to do an internet search.

You can narrow a Google search to find openly licensed resources:

1. Conduct your search on the Google website.
2. Once you see the list of search results, Click on the Settings (gear) icon in the top right of the screen.
3. Choose Advanced Search from the settings menu
4. Scroll down the page to the Usage Rights drop down. Click on the field to see the filter options.
5. Select your desired license and then perform your search.

What do the usage rights permit?

• Not filtered by license: results will contain all content, including content that are "all rights reserved" copyright protected.
• Free to use or share: you may copy or redistribute its content if the content remains unchanged
• Free to use or share, even commercially: you may copy and redistribute its content, even commercially
• Free to use share or modify: you may copy, modify, or redistribute in ways specified in the license
• Free to use share or modify, even commercially: be sure to select an option that includes the word "commercially" if you want to use content for commercial use

Regardless of the usage right you select to conduct your advanced search, always double check the usage rights after finding a resource.

IF what you need is copyrighted with all rights reserved, consider asking the author for permission to use their work. You can also ask your librarian whether they can purchase copies to put on reserve or purchase an e-book with the appropriate access license for your course.

If you are still not able to locate any resources after searching the internet, please contact the class facilitator via the Email tool.

Open Courses and Course Materials

In this section we'll provide some places where you can find entire courses and course materials. Think of course materials as building blocks. It could be a syllabus, a lesson plan, activity, presentation, worksheet, quiz, test—you get the idea. While videos and images certainly are course materials, these will be covered separately.

• Saylor Academy offers full-length courses at the college and professional levels, each built by subject matter experts.
• Skills Commons is the official repository of all deliverables from the US Department of Labor (DOL)’s Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) Grant Program. This program has thus far made grants to nearly 800 community and technical colleges nationwide.
• Merlot II is a peer reviewed collection of open educational materials, including course assignments. Merlot is an initiative of the California State University system.

Again, if you are looking for an open course (or specific course materials) and can't find it in one of the repositories shared above, try an internet search.

Images and Videos

Inevitably you will want to use images and videos in your teaching materials. Remember that you should assume all images on the internet are "all rights reserved" copyright protected unless you can find out otherwise (usage terms, licensing info, etc.). In this section we'll go over some repositories and search strategies to help you find open images and videos.

Images

• Pixabay, Pexels, Unsplash, and Openclipart are repositories that provide images and clipart that are either openly licensed or in the public domain. Be sure to read the usage terms/licensing information so that you provide proper attributions if necessary.
• PikWizard offers high quality images that you can download and re-use for free. You will find licensing and attribution information posted to the right of any picture that you select from search results. You can even edit images in PikWizard to tailor them for your use.
• #WOCinTech Chat, Images of Empowerment, and Disabled And Here have diverse and inclusive images. See Open Kapiolani for more sites.
• Conduct an advanced image search in Google to filter results by usage rights.
• Use the Creative Commons Search engine to search other sites, such as Google Images or Fotopedia, using a Creative Commons filter.

Videos

• Filter your search results for CC licensed videos on YouTube. To check the licensing of a YouTube video, expand the description under the video and look for the license info. A standard YouTube license allows you to link (and embed if code is provided), but the video is copyright protected. If it has a Creative Commons license, it is licensed under a Creative Commons CC BY license.
• Conduct a search for CC licensed videos on Vimeo.
• Wabash University Lilly Library Open Streaming Video Collections is a curated page of freely accessible collections of online video such as BBC Online Media; AP Archive Video; Civil Rights Digital Library; Frontline, NOVA, Great Performances, and other PBS collections; the Moving Image Internet Archive; National Film Board of Canada; the Smithsonian Institution Collection; and YouTube Movies.
• Your librarian may be able to show you subscriptions that your library has to streaming video services, such as Kanopy or Alexander Street. These are copyrighted materials but your institution has paid for the subscription.

Public Domain

Last but not least, there is a rapidly growing and immense collection of public domain materials that archives, museums, and libraries are digitizing and making available as public domain. There is no need to think about copyright, attribution, and licenses. Open Washington gives an excellent recap of Public Domain. Here are a few resources to check:

• Smithsonian Open Access: Millions of the Smithsonianʻs images are available for download, sharing, and reuse, including 3 million 2D and 3D digital items. This includes images and data from across the Smithsonian’s 19 museums, nine research centers, libraries, archives, and the National Zoo.
• New York Public Library Public Domain: The Library makes it possible to download high resolution images directly from the Digital Collections website.
• Library of Congress: This page features items from the Library's digital collections that are free to use and reuse. The Library believes that this content is either in the public domain, has no known copyright, or has been cleared by the copyright owner for public use.
• Europeana: Digitized materials placed in the public domain by museums and libraries in Europe. Here are the Public Domain Usage Guidelines.

Evaluating Resources

Now that you've created a list of possibilities, let's go back and evaluate them to start narrowing down your possibilities. To help you be as objective as possible, and to make sure you are consistent in what you are evaluating about each resource, we've developed a rubric-like worksheet for you to use. But, before we share the rubric, we'd like to discuss a very important factor of the evaluation - accessibility.

📺  Everyone is Different! (3:56)

Accessibility

Using digital content makes it easy to distribute content. However, accessibility for students with disabilities can also be one of its greatest challenges. Accessibility describes the degree to which a person can access products, services, devices or environments. Accessibility in education is not only morally and ethically the right thing to do; it is also a Federal mandate. Website and digital content accessibility is mandated for public institutions under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. When selecting and using digital course content, it is critical to think about and plan for accessibility from the start.

Until recently, the existing federal and state laws did not clearly require educational materials be accessible from the point of creation, and was only required if/when a student with a documented disability had a need for accommodation. However, this changed when the United States Access Board updated the accessibility requirements for information and communication technology (ICT) in the federal sector covered by Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 on Jan. 18, 2017. Section 508 now requires all public facing online content be WCAG 2.0 Level A and Level AA compliant, and any non-public facing content (e.g., intranet content such as that within course management systems) must be compliant, if it falls under one or more of nine categories. Educational and training materials is one of the nine categories. To read more about the 508 refresh, please view the 508 refresh page on UH's Accessibility website.

When evaluating resources for accessibility, first check to see if the hosting site or the resource itself has a statement about the resource's accessibility compliance. If none is available, you'll need to manually check for things. Although there are numerous accommodations, we'll focus on the most common, based on content type.

Watch the video below from the BCcampus. The presentation slides are also available for downloading.

📺  How to Create Inclusive and Accessible OER (33:15)

Visual Content

For content meant to be seen, you need to consider people who have sight related limitations. This includes having poor eyesight, a color vision deficiency, or being completely blind. Many people with visual disabilities opt to use screen reader technologies that read aloud on-screen content. To make content accessible to students with visual disabilities, look for the following:

• Images have alternative text (Alt Text) or captions. Alternative text provides a short text description of non-text content which will be displayed if the item cannot be displayed or seen. To check for alt text, you can check the source code if you are familiar with html coding. Otherwise, try right clicking on the image to see if it is included in the image info.
• High color contrast of text to background. Consider that reading black text on white has the highest contrast and is therefore the easiest to read, while something like this "can you easily read this?" has low contrast and is much more difficult to read.
• Text does not use color alone to convey meaning. Consider readers who may have color deficiency. Using color alone to convey meaning may be difficult. For example, "click on the red checkmark icon  to stop and the green checkmark icon  to continue." If both icons are identical, someone who is red-green color deficient (the most common color deficiency) would have difficulty distinguishing between the two. Also, if a blind student were using a screen reader, you'd need to make sure that the ALT Text is provided so that the screen reader will read out which is red and which is green. A better solution would be to use different icons, or use words rather than icons.
• Links should be descriptive. Links such as click here are not helpful to those using screen readers. Screen reader users can use a command to skip from link to link, with the link text being read aloud. If the screen reader just reads, "click here" out of context, the user will not know where "here" is. Create descriptive links that are meaningful out of context.

Audio Content

For content meant to be heard (including videos), you need to consider people who have hearing related disabilities. To evaluate the accessibility of audio content, look for the following:

• Accurate closed captions are available for the video. Note: If you are evaluating a YouTube video, do not just rely on auto-generated captions. You need to check that the captions are accurate.
• A text transcript is available for audio only content such as a podcast or an audio recording.

PDFs and Presentations

PDFs and presentations are particularly tricky to evaluate. Although you can check the visual content items (font size, contrast, use of color, etc.), other issues are difficult to check without a screen reader or the proper software. Issues include the use of header styles for formatting (rather than using a large, bold, colored font to distinguish headers), having a proper reading order set for screen readers, and having ALT Text for any images. For PDFs, it is crucial that it was created using a program (Word, Adobe Acrobat, etc.) and not just digitized using a scanner. Scanned PDFs function as images and would need to have the appropriate ALT Text. For now, if a PDF or presentation does not have accessibility information, mark it as "unknown/not sure" on the rubric.                         

More Accessibility Tips and Resources

• Basic Accessibility Tips from the University of Illinois
• Creating Accessible Course Materials from the Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges
• McMaster University Web Page Checklist (Interactive checklist for WCAG 2.0 Level AA)
• W3C WCAG 2.0 Checklist (HTML)

Evaluation Rubrics

UHCC Rubric for OER

You will be using a review form with criteria based on rubrics developed by Open Education Network and John D. Shank (Penn. State Berks) to help you sort through and evaluate the resources you have found in your searches. It is available below as a Google Doc (clicking on the link will prompt you to make a copy in your Google Drive account), and as a Word Document. If you need an alternate format, please let us know.

• Google Doc Rubric
• Word Doc

Connect with a local/national/global OER community                 

Open Educational Resources is a movement that has grown exponentially since its early beginnings in the 1990s. In support of this growth, in October 2019 governments attending the United Nations Scientific Educational and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) General Conference, held in Paris, adopted legal and technical standards that support the sharing of open materials across international boundaries. The 2020 Educause Horizon Report on Teaching and Learning states that Canada, Western Europe, South America, and the Middle East are leaders in this effort. OER is growing rapidly at all levels of education (2020 Educause Horizon Report.) The Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education has started an OER committee to support growth in western states. The Association of American Colleges & Universities has come out in support of OER and has started a program to train institutions and higher education systems in OER. Achieving the Dream is an active sponsor and supporter of OER programs. The U.S. Federal Government has supported several multi-million dollar grants for the development of OER, such as LibreTexts and OpenRN. State governments such as Washington, Oregon, California, and Texas are engaged in supporting OER at all levels.

The community is welcoming. The University of Hawaiʻi System's ten institutions comprise a consortial member of the Open Education Network and the UH Community Colleges are a consortial member of the Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources (CCCOER). The seven colleges, as members of CCCOER, are members of OEGlobal. Disciplines such as nursing, communications, and language education are forming OER communities that encourage collaboration to create materials (OpenRN, Communications, Center for Open Educational Resources for Language Learning.)

There are many ways to connect to these communities. You can

• subscribe to a community         

• University of Hawaiʻi System OER blog
• OpenStax (scroll to the bottom)
• Consortium of Community Colleges for OER
• Get the British Columbia Campus Newsletter by subscribing to BCCampus

• attend a future online workshop or conference         

• List of conferences

• review and view a video training or conference presentation from sites such as         

• OEN's YouTube Channel
• CCCOER's webinar series
• OEGlobal's conference YouTube Channel
• Best Practices in Fair Use webinar series

• use Twitter to follow any of these institutions and many inspiring OER leaders

Dip your toe in at least once! You will find a galaxy of ideas and resources.

Chapter 4 Attributions:

• Video: "How to Find and Evaluate OER" by Abbey Elder is licensed under a CC BY 4.0.
• Video: "Introducing the Open Textbook Library" by David Rose is licensed under CC BY 4.0.
• Video: "OER Commons: How to search on OER Commons" by UH Online Innovation Center is licensed under a Standard YouTube License.
• Original Content from "Open Education Resources (OERs)" by TRU Libraries is licensed under CC BY 4.0.
• Video: "Everyone is Different!" by UX Mastery is licensed under a Standard YouTube License.
• Video: "How to Create Inclusive and Accessible OER" by Canadian Association of Research Libraries is licensed under CC BY 3.0.
• Presentation: "Accessibility in OER" by BCcampus is licensed under CC BY 4.0.

Chapter 5: Adapt, Create, and Share OERs with your Students

Chapter 4 in Review

In Chapter 3 you revisited your course planning to identify content gaps and set your goals. Hopefully, you found the exercise helpful and you now have an idea of what you will be looking for once you begin your search. We also discussed the different paths you can take in looking for resources, whether you are looking for an entire textbook, a collection of chapters, or individual resources.

Chapter 5 Objectives

1. Determine if adaptation is needed. (LO5, 6, 7)
2. Determine if adaptation is possible based on the OER type and source. (LO3, 5, 6)
3. Adapt/modify and re-license a resource. (LO6)
4. Identify ways OER can be indigenized, localized and made more diverse, equitable, and inclusive. (LO2, 7)
5. Create and license a resource. (LO6)
6. Ability to share content via Laulima and other public-facing platforms. (LO8)
7. Ability to provide your students access to your resources. (LO8)

Adapting, Creating, and Sharing

In the previous chapters you’ve learned a great deal about open educational resources and how they can be used as effective teaching and learning materials in your courses. You have had a chance to search, find, and evaluate them. Oftentimes a textbook can be adopted as is. In other instances a book might be "almost perfect" or there may be two books, a few articles, and a number of exercises that would comprise a perfect course. Sometimes an instructor is trying something for which there is no precedent. For example, a textbook using a new pedagogy. In this chapter, you will gain experience in applying what you’ve learned to successfully adapt or create an OER. And, in keeping with those who shared their materials with the public, we will address how you can share your work with the public.

Adapting your OER

The term "adaptation" is commonly used to describe the process of making changes to an existing work. We also can replace “adapt” with revise, modify, alter, customize, mashup, or any synonym that describes the act of making a change.

Adapting a single work is a good place to start our discussion. If the license permits, you may choose to change examples or questions by using a local or Hawaiian context. You can rearrange the chapters, shorten a chapter, take out a chapter, or add chapters.

When an existing OER does not have all the content you need or there is no single OER that will work for most of your course, you can pick and choose from several OER to build the perfect resource for your class.

Below are further reasons why adaptation is a good option:

• Save time and work by mixing OERs with your own material to make something richer.
• Make the material more accessible.
• Make a concept easier to understand by inserting culturally specific references.
• Help students see themselves in your content by making it more equitable, diverse, and inclusive.
• Correct errors or inaccuracies.
• Keep the content up to date by adding the latest discoveries or theories.
• Insert media or links to other resources.
• Adapt it for a different audience or educational level.
• Change the format of an OER (e.g., Word to Google Doc, text content to video).
• Translate an OER to another language.

Things to Consider Before Adapting an OER

There are several factors to consider when adapting an OER. The more you want to change, expand, or edit an OER, the more time you will need. Below are some important considerations.

• How much content do you wish to change? Do you want to remove chapters, or rewrite entire chapters of content?
• What technical format is the original textbook in? A Word document is much easier to modify than a PDF document.
• What type of license is the content released under? Is it in the public domain or does it have a Creative Commons license that allows for modification or adaptation of the content?
• How comfortable are you with using technology and creating content?
• Remember that students prefer format flexibility with their textbook. You may need to find additional conversion tools to convert your final textbook to a different format, for example from website to print PDF.
• If you wish to edit or create graphics, images, charts, and/or multimedia content, you will need to use additional specialized tools to create these.
• Keep it simple. Think of the textbook as a living resource that you can improve incrementally over time.

Six Steps to Adapting an Open Textbook

Step 1: Check the license

First, check the license to make sure you have the permission to adapt the contents. If the license type is ND (No Derivatives) then you can redistribute the material in any format. However, you cannot remix, transform, or build upon the material (you have to use it "as is"). If the Creative Commons license does not have a No Derivatives clause, you are able to change the contents of the resource. For more information about specific license types see the Creative Commons license page.

If you are combining several Creative Commons licensed works, it is good to do so in a way that respects the licensing wishes of the original creators. And remember, you can always contact the creator to ask for permission if the Creative Commons license is not open enough for your needs. The video below, Creating and Combining Licenses, will give you an overview of what is involved in combining openly licensed works.

Step 2: The format of the textbook

If you wish to adapt an open textbook, you need to be able to have the textbook in a format that you can work with. This usually means the original source files used to create the textbook.

Common source formats for open textbooks that you should look for are:

• HTML files (webpages)
• Word, OpenOffice, Google documents
• ePub
• LaTeX files (if the original book includes math or science formulas and equations).

What tools you will use to create your version of the textbook will depend greatly on what format you find the original textbook in and what you feel comfortable working with.

Sometimes an open textbook may only be available as a PDF document. However, PDF documents are not easily editable. If you want to adapt an open textbook that is only available in PDF format, you will need to convert the PDF document to a format that can be edited. However, before you consider converting a PDF version of the textbook, you should contact the original author to ask for a copy of the textbook source files. It can be surprising how happy academics can be with sharing their teaching materials. Converting a PDF document to an editable format is a difficult, time consuming and imprecise process.

Step 3: Tools for editing an open textbook

Once you have a source format that you can edit, you can begin to adapt the textbook. What tools you will use to do this will depend greatly on what editable format you are working with, and your comfort level with working with that format. Review the Public Platforms for OER section below for ideas.

Step 4: Choosing a license

Once you have finished creating your own version of the textbook, you should decide which Creative Commons license you will use to license your book. This will depend a great deal on how the original textbook was licensed.

For example, if the original textbook was licensed with an SA (Share Alike) license, then you must release your book with the same license as the original source material to ensure it is fully compliant with the original CC terms of use. More information about licensing and marking your content can be found at the Creative Commons site and on this brief guide (pdf). If you need advice, check with your institution's OER advocates.

Step 5: Output

Students like flexibility when it comes to their textbooks. Some may prefer printed versions of the textbook, others will prefer using a website. Still others will like to use an e-reader or e-reading software. To make your book as accessible as possible, consider making your textbook available in multiple formats so students have the ability to choose the format that works for them. At the very least, it is important that there is a free online version of the textbook and a version that can be printed..

Step 6: How do my students get my textbook?

Once you have edited your version of the textbook, you will need a place to put your textbook where your students can access it. This could be as simple as a hyperlink in the course syllabus and/or in Laulima. Your campus UH bookstore or campus printshop may be able to take a PDF of your textbook and make print copies for your class.

For the ten institutions in the UH System, we can adopt, adapt, and create textbooks on special online e-textbook platforms called Pressbooks, UH OER Commons, and LibreTexts. Many instructors build their classes in Laulima, and there is always Google Docs and PDF. These options are discussed below in Public Platforms for OER.        

The following video gives great copyright guidance on combining OER with different Creative Commons licenses. Remember, though, if the resource is in the public domain you can combine it with anything.

📺  Creating OER and Combining Licenses - Full (9:17)

Additional Resources and Guides:

• Modifying an Open Textbook: What You Need to Know 
  This open book focuses on the technological aspects of editing open textbooks found in the Open Textbook Library or elsewhere, and will help you assess the effort, expertise, and technical tools needed. In addition, this guide includes step-by-step instructions for importing and editing common open textbook file and platform types. Finally, this guide provides a basic overview of accessibility considerations and general guidance on where to find additional help.        
• BCOpen Textbook Adaptation Guide
  The BCcampus Open Education Adaptation Guide is a practical guide about how to customize or adapt an open textbook so that it better fits your needs in the classroom and elsewhere. This guide defines the term "adaptation" and discusses reasons for revising a book, why this is possible with an open textbook, and the challenges involved.          
• Creating OER and Combining Licenses Part II
  You may encounter more challenging questions about how to combine different OER. Part II of Creating OER and Combining Licenses was part of the video you watched earlier in this chapter but viewing it again may help you with some of those questions. In addition, this chart, Creative Commons License Compatibility, shows which Creative Commons licenses are compatible.
• Culturally Responsive Teaching 
  This resource presents eight core competencies in culturally responsive teaching and offers a set of reflection questions that support self-appraisal, goal setting, and critical conversations.

Creating OER

You may find that there are no OER from external sources for a specific need in your class. If that is the case, there are ways your own creations can address this need. For example:

• You may have assignments and notes that you have authored.
• You could take photographs or build a spreadsheet graph to illustrate concepts.
• You could enlist students to develop a video to help teach a concept.
• You can use popular applications to develop materials such as flash cards.

Instructors are free to create their own OER and have done so using everything from hand drawn illustrations to slideshows to short video presentations. If you aren’t sure how to start, reach out to your colleagues and instructional designers to help you learn any skills you may need. Here are just a few examples:

• A history professor created a history reader from articles that she wrote for Densho Encyclopedia.
• A chemistry professor and two librarians created a chemistry lab procedure guide and an instrument guide.
• A team of faculty and students put together nutrition videos.

You can upload your creations anywhere as long as the public can access them. This includes local OER sites such as UH OER DSpace or UH OER Commons. There are also international sites discussed in the next section entitled Redistributing = Sharing. Ask your OER college advocate for ideas.

On the other hand, you might be thinking at a course level. Perhaps you have a method of teaching a topic that you would like to share with others. For some instructors, creating larger OER projects such as an OER textbook is a good answer to the challenges of teaching a co-requisite class. The following addresses the larger projects of converting a course to OER or creating an OER textbook.

Everyone has a different style when planning and executing a plan. Below is a suggested planning checklist:

• Get to know OER: By completing this course, you are already doing this! Learning the basics of how to find information and understanding licenses is a must. If you are advising a colleague, suggest that they sign up for a UHCC or UH sponsored OER training, such as this OER course. They can also take a self-paced overview such as the one at Open Washington.
• Imagine your big picture: Try a brainstorm with a mind map. Write out your vision as a SMART, (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-Specific) goal, which was introduced in Chapter 3. An example would be, "I will have created an OER textbook for my class XXX ### that I will use to teach next fall semester." It will help you start thinking about all the smaller SMART objectives you will need to plan out. Record the current cost of the commercial textbook and calculate the savings, using the number of students you teach each academic year.
• Who do you need to help you or be on your team? With your SMART goal in hand, think about whether you would like to team up with anyone. Unless the OER you want to build is very focused or limited in scope, you will likely benefit from having extra help and input. Your colleagues may have diverse perspectives, complementary knowledge, and great skills that would round out a strong team and create a better learning experience. There also may be colleagues who would be good contributors for specific sections or supporters with specific tasks such as proofreading. You could think about peer reviewers. There are communities online where you can request additional members. The OER community occasionally asks for collaborators for specific projects. Students are a marvelous help as they bring unique skills and perspectives. Ask them what they would like in the class. Students can research topics, proofread your lessons, and catch errors in your quizzes. And if they have assignments, ask the students if they’d like to make the assignments OER so that the assignments will live on in your course for the benefit of future students. These partnerships with students are described in the practice of OER Pedagogy. The OER community also advocates the use of reusable assignments, which you may wish to explore further in this article by David Wiley and this article posted at the [University of British Columbia] .
          
  Draw up a letter of understanding to clarify for everyone what their role is. A copyright tip: Co-authors equally share in copyright ownership and the University of Hawaiʻi generally views faculty authors as the copyright owners of their textbooks. Make sure your team agrees on what Creative Commons license they wish to use when sharing the work. Your OER college advocate may be able to help you with questions about copyright and licensing, finding and evaluating open resources, and accessibility. Talk with your OER college advocate to get a sense of what kind of support they can provide, including connecting you with not only resources but people with information you may need. Keep in mind students own the copyright for their work unless they do it for a paying job, so check with your OER college advocate regarding permissions and Creative Commons licenses for their publishable works.
• Deepen your sense of timeline. Guided by your SMART goal, develop a timeline for completion of the textbook. If you are working with a university-sponsored grant, ensure that the timeline for deliverables matches your timeline. Understand that OER support funding is paid with overload and not by stand-alone stipends. This brings in limitations on payments and timing constraints. If you are working in a team, make sure everyone can work with the timeline. Include time for gathering illustrations, editing, proofreading, citation work, and peer reviews. Here is an example timeline to help.
• See what you have and what you don't have. Work out the scope of your work. Write your learning outcomes, activities, and assessment plans. This will help you identify areas where you or your team may need to do more research, do more original work, or even adopt and modify from other sources. (Review Chapter 3, the course design worksheets).
• How will you share? Talk with your OER college advocate about what platforms you might want for developing your work and sharing your work. In most cases we recommend you develop your drafts in Google docs, as it is the easiest to transfer to any of the platforms the University of Hawaiʻi offers. If you are working with mathematics or physics, you may prefer to work with LaTeK and share in different ways. LaTeK files can be uploaded into OER Commons and UH's OER DSpace repository. Different platforms provide varying features and have different learning curves. This might affect your timeline. See below for more information about platforms.        
• How will you license your work? If the entire work is your creation or the components authored by others allow for this, you are free to choose your own Creative Commons license. You could use the Creative Commons License Chooser and declare the license on your work.

Once you have a sense of the dimensions of your project, you can

• Map your path. Draft a preliminary outline of your textbook in Google Docs and modify it as you develop the textbook, adding, cutting, and editing sections. The beauty of an outline is that it helps you plan your sequence of concepts and thus plan how you scaffold your students’ learning. It is also modular, so you can move structured segments into a different sequence and see how it affects the teaching prior to and after that segment. You can develop your outline based on what topics you will address each week and the outline can become your table of contents.        
• Develop your workflows and tools. Use your course plan and your source tracker (Chapter 4). If you are using a lot of images, set up a system of tracking them on your source tracker and add information for your captions and alt-text. Here is an actual working example. Keep track of citations for references and quotes. If you use images, most publishers ask for a minimum resolution of 300 dpi or 1200 pixels on one edge. If you teach mathematics, LaTeK might be your best drafting and production tool.
• Design the structure of your textbook. Develop your chapters and arrange them in your preferred order. Include chapter learning outcomes and content and assessments that will enable your students to achieve those outcomes. Good textbooks have consistent chapters with textbook elements such as learning outcomes, short introductions, quiz questions, and recap sections. They are presented in a consistent structured format that orients the student to a learning process that becomes familiar and supports retention. This lesson, Developing a Textbook Structure, from Open Education Network is a good summary of this principle. Look at a textbook that you like and see what repeating features are used across the chapters to keep students engaged in and practicing the material. A summary of useful pedagogical tools or textbook elements for textbooks was also developed by Open Education Network.
• Schedule dedicated writing time. If you have written a major report, thesis, or dissertation, you know what we are talking about. If not, no worries. Everyone who has written something has been in your shoes. There are many ways to support the dedicating of time to writing, including self-help books, cartoons, and writing groups. You MUST dedicate a regular time and write. There will be many unanticipated interruptions and high priority projects, so keeping to your schedule will ensure progress. As the old adage goes, “How do you eat an elephant? -- One bite at a time.”
• Celebrate your accomplishment. Write about this in your dossier or mention it in your annual evaluation. An average cost saving for each textbook for each student is $100.00. Not only are you saving your students critical funds, you are contributing to their student success and making your college proud with your contribution to the field of education! As Dr. Sheryl Shook states, “The author may be increasing a student's sense of belonging by making a resource that reflects at least some of their experiences.” Finally, ask your students how they feel about your new TXT0 class and include their appreciation in your reflection on your work.

Words of wisdom

UH OER Training - A three-part training guide for bringing higher education instructors up to speed with Open Educational Resources (OER). This book was developed to serve as a standalone guide for independent creators and to support OER training through face-to-face, online, and hybrid delivery modes.

Authoring Open Textbooks - An openly published book 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.

Making Open Textbooks: A Video Guide - This video series presents a summary of The Rebus Guide to Publishing Open Textbooks (So Far). Videos go over the roles, models, and guidelines that make up the process of creating and publishing open textbooks. From project conception and rounding up a team of collaborators, to creating, editing, and reviewing your content, all the way through to release, marketing, adoptions, and revisions, these videos summarize the many steps along the way.

Elements of Style - This is one of the fundamental advisories on good writing. Inexpensive, a quick read, and an essential reference.

Redistributing = Sharing

In terms of the 5 Rs, we're also covering redistributing, or how you will share the resources you adopted with your students. One of the most powerful and self-sustaining features of OER is the credo that creators share their OER to a public space. Our faculty depend on what others have published, and sharing our work brings recognition and honor to its creators and our academic institutions. In this section we'll be covering different places you can store and share your content.

Public Platforms for OER

There are several platforms to share works ranging from images to textbooks. This section deals with smaller items such as images, documents, videos, and sounds. The next section addresses textbooks. Popular options include:

• For images: Flickr, Wikimedia Commons/Images
• For documents: Google drive, Slideshare (slides)
• For videos: YouTube, Vimeo, Wikimedia Commons/Videos, Adobe Spark, Loom
• For sounds: Wikimedia Common/Sounds

To start using these platforms, you will need to create a user account and follow the instructions to upload your resource. Some sites such as Flickr and Wikimedia will allow you to set a Creative Commons license or public domain declaration for your resource. For other sites you can include a license in your resource so the license can be seen when the resource is used, as is done in this OER vs. IDAP vs. Cengage chart shared from a Google drive.                 

Public Platforms for OER Textbooks

The OER advocates and UH System have made possible a number of public platforms through which your OER may be shared. Thanks to OER Commons (see below), even your Laulima course may be shared. Your college's OER advocate may be able to help you think about your options.

• UH Pressbooks         

• Pressbooks is a variation of the popular WordPress content management system, but it is different from Wordpress in that it has been set up with controls and features designed to make the publishing process easier. UH has our own self-hosted instance of Pressbooks called UH Pressbooks, so if you're interested in adapting an OER or creating one of your own, you may want to look into UH Pressbooks. Teams of authors can work on the same textbook in this system. UH Pressbooks is sponsored by UH System and managed by Outreach College at UH Mānoa. Examples include a multi-campus sprint and Kapiʻolani CC. Here is a final draft, not yet published. If you're interested, you can learn more about Pressbooks in the following resources:                 

• UH Pressbooks training slides
• A UH pre-publication chapter on using Pressbooks (check out the BC Campus videos at the bottom of the page)
• Pressbooks Userguide
• Getting Started with Pressbooks and Pressbooks Playlist videos
• BC Campus Guide on Adapting Open Textbooks

• UH OER Commons         

• OER Commons is a repository of openly licensed learning materials and UH System has developed a community within that system called UH OER Commons. Laulima courses, course files, textbook files, and links to resources on other platforms, such as UH Pressbooks, can be added to this repository to share with the world. There are tools to develop content in the Commons and tools that foster collaboration. The UH OER Commons site was established in February 2021 and there are regular updates in its development. Members of OER Commons can evaluate, rate, and endorse your resource. Here is an example of a Kapiolani CC textbook stored on UH Pressbooks and linked in UH OER Commons. It shows an endorsement by Open Illinois.                 

• OER Commons recordings of user trainings (scroll to the bottom of the OER Commons web page)

• LibreTexts         

• This project started out as ChemWiki and expanded to many disciplines due to a major multi-million dollar federal grant. It harvests open educational resources from the web, has a drag and drop tool that allows authors to pull in sections of material from other open texts, makes available popular textbook templates (e.g. tables of contents), and features 3D and animated graphics. It does not have a "textbook appearance," such as what is featured in Pressbooks; it is more modular in appearance. These are examples of LibreTexts textbooks developed at Hawaiʻi CC, Maui CC, and Kapiʻolani CC.                 

• YouTube channel of LibreTexts lessons and meetings
• Construction guide to creating books on LibreTexts
• Math teachers demonstrate some of the abilities of LibreTexts, showing how books are structured and 3D modeling.        

• UH OER DSpace Institutional Repository         

• Some OER may be generated in MSWord or other standalone applications, such as LaTeK. The UH OER DSpace Institutional Repository is a digital library featuring OER works from across the system. Here are a few examples from UH Mānoa, Leeward CC, Kapiʻolani CC, and Kauai CC. This repository offers download statistics that would be very helpful in dossiers. Speak with your OER college advocate for more information about adding your work to this platform, as this is done through the UH libraries.

• Other platforms include Google Drive, GitHub, & LaTeK         

• There are many examples of institutions of higher education that have shared their works as MSWord and Google docs. Access to these versions can be made public on the web through UH OER Commons, UH OER DSpace, and UH Google Drive. Science, math, and computer science instructors may find using GitHub and LaTek as a great way to share their materials. Links to these assets can be provided through UH OER Commons and on OER websites at their college or university. Here is a Kapiʻolani CC example.

The Open Textbook Library

This is a respected referatory to which you can submit your open textbook for review and possible inclusion. A referatory does not hold the work, but it refers others to your work. As consortial members of the Open Education Network through to 2023, all ten UH institutions can apply to have original works distributed through this system. Speak with your OER college advocate for more information about adding your work to this platform.                

Formats and Availability

The format of an OER may impact students' ability to access the content. You don’t want to choose formats that your students are not able to open easily. Format types are numerous and they play a crucial role in how you will share them with your students. A general best practice is to make resources available in multiple formats.

• If a resource is available in multiple formats, it provides a link to where students choose a format that is best for them.
• If you are creating your own resource, consider making it available in multiple formats to allow students to choose the format that is best for them.
• Make sure students know how to access the course resources and that you inform them about their options (in-person, and/or via online communication). This will be covered in more depth later in the chapter, but below are some recommended practices:         

• Provide links to OER textbooks in your course syllabus
• Provide links/files in Laulima

And, while there are no hard and fast rules, a good rule of thumb is to use very common, web-based, browser-ready formats. Currently that includes:

                                                                                                              You may be wondering why Word or Google Docs are not listed in the table above? For Word, it is because it is a proprietary software. Meaning, if the student does not have MS Word, they will not be able to open the file. However, since many students do have Word, you may want to have a Word file as one option. As for Google Docs, this is similar to HTML. And since all of our students have a Google account and everyone with a browser can access your Google docs with your permission, it is also a good option.

If you find OER in a non-recommended format that you’d really like to use, you can always try converting it. A great place for that is Zamzar, a website which converts many different file formats freely and easily.

And don't forget about ADA compliance and accessibility. As you’re selecting content, it is important to ensure that it is either accessible or that you can make it accessible. For example, audio files are much more valued with scripts and video files that have descriptive transcripts (for example, closed captioning and explanations of the visual components of the video) can make a significant difference in your students' comprehension and retention. Images will need alternative text descriptions. If you need help, contact your college's instructional designers.

Making Your Resources Available to Students

Once you have selected or created the content you will be using for your class, the last consideration is how you will choose to provide your students with access to the course content. There are many ways to share OERs and other free resources with your students, and you will decide which way best fits you, your students, and the resources you have. In this section we'll cover several ways to provide your students access to your resources.

Email, Syllabus

One of the easiest ways to give your students access to OER content is to send the links to your course content in an email to your students. And while this is the fastest and likely the easiest method, a one time email sent to students can easily be missed. We highly recommend you choose a secondary method. For example, you can add the link to your OER content in your course syllabus. If your course syllabus is viewed online (e.g., Google Doc, PDF), students can click on it to access the resources. If your syllabus is distributed offline (e.g., you hand out paper copies, students print out the syllabus), you can provide the URLs which students can type into an internet browser to access the resources.

Laulima

Laulima is the official online collaboration and learning environment of the University of Hawai‘i system and all UH users have access to Laulima. A course site (shell) is automatically created for each CRN (course reference number) and is auto-populated with your students when they register. This means you can use Laulima for any and all of your classes...not only the completely online classes. Not very familiar with Laulima? Don't worry - we'll walk you through four Laulima tools that you can use to provide your students access to your OER course content: Overview (Course homepage), Resources, Web Content, and Lessons.

Overview (Homepage)

If you are teaching a face-to-face class and do not plan to change out the homepage message throughout the semester, you could opt to utilize this space to display your OER/free resource information. To do this:

1. Go to the Overview page of your course site. The editable area is on the left hand side of the page.
2. Click on the edit button in the top right corner of that area. This will open a textbox.
3. Compose your content in the textbox. Do NOT use the URL box below the textbox.
4. Click on the Update Content button at the bottom of the textbox to save and apply your changes.

📺  Adding OER to Your Laulima Homepage (2:32)

More about using the CKEditor (Textbox)

• General Overview
• Working with Hyperlinks
• Working with Images
• Embedding a Video
• Copy/Pasting from outside sources

Resources

Rather than use the course homepage, you can organize your OER/free resources in the Resources tool (often called the Resources folder). The Resources folder is very much like having a folder on your desktop. Within that folder you can house loose files/links, or create a folder structure within the main folder to house files and links. To create links in the Resources tool, follow the steps below:

1. Go to the Resources tool in your course site. You will see one default "parent" folder for your course.
2. Click on the blue Actions button to the right of the folder and choose to either Upload Files, Create Folders, or Add Web Links (URLs).

Web Content

Another option is to create a customized button in the left hand tool menu that will take students directly to a webpage. This might be a good option, if you will be using an OER textbook. You can use the Web Content tool to create a button that will take students directly to the textbook website where they can then choose their desired format and then retrieve their copy. You can also follow the steps below or view these step by step instructions to create and customize a Web Content button.

1. Go to the Site Info tool in your course site. This will open a page that shows the site information and a list of site participants.
2. From the buttons along the top of the page, click on Manage Tools.
3. Scroll down the list of tools in the General Column along the left side, check the box for Web Content, then click on Continue at the bottom of the page.
4. Enter a Title for the tool (what will be displayed in the tool list), then copy/paste in the URL to the resource, and click Continue.
5. Click finish to confirm.
6. Your new customized button will now be added to the bottom of the tool list. To customize the location of the button, use the Tool Order feature in Site Info.

Lessons

The Lessons tool is made to deliver content to students. Which means, you can use the Lessons tool to push your OER content to your course resources. This can be especially effective if you have topic specific resources. For example, you could provide a link to (or possibly embed within) a specific chapter on each weekly lesson page.

• How to add a website link to a Lessons page
• How to add a file from Resources to a Lessons page
• How to Embed Content on a Lessons page
• Learn more about the Lessons tool

Additional Help at UH

Visit the UH OER Team page for campus contacts.

Chapter 5 Attributions:

• Video: "Creating OER and Combining Licenses - Full" by TheOGRepository is licensed under CC BY SA 3.0.
• eBook: "Modifying an Open Textbook: What You Need to Know" by Open Textbook Network is licensed under CC BY 4.0, except where otherwise noted.
• eBook: "Adaptation Guide" by Lauri M. Aesoph is licensed under CC BY 4.0, except where otherwise noted.
• Some content modified from: "Using open educational resources" by Online Learning Consortium & Lumen Learning, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
• Some content modified from: "Open Fridays OER Webinar Series" by UNC System , licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Chapter 6: Next Steps

In the previous five chapters you learned about OER and free resources, about Creative Commons licensing, copyright and proper attributions, and how to find and evaluate resources. We're also hopeful that you have been able to find resources that meet your needs and will help reduce or eliminate the cost of textbooks for students.

In this last chapter, we've got two last topics to cover.

Chapter 6 Objectives

1. Ability to designate a class as Textbook Cost: $0 following campus procedures. (LO1)
2. Provide feedback regarding OER training.

Textbook Cost: $0

If you remember, Textbook Cost: $0 (TXT0) was introduced and discussed in Chapter 1. Then we spent a lot of time on OER. The reason for the focus on OER is that the global OER movement both encourages faculty to create and enables faculty to adopt high-quality, no-cost, openly licensed textbooks and other materials in place of expensive commercial textbooks.

However, there are many resources free to students that are not OER. UH OER advocates decided to make faculty aware of both OER and other quality materials when encouraging faculty to tackle the high cost of their textbooks. Both types of materials fall under the label "Textbook Cost: $0" or TXT0 (zero). There is no rule requiring TXT0 classes to exclusively use OERs. However, for a class to be TXT0 students must not be required to purchase any course materials out-of-pocket.

Here are some no-cost non-OER materials that can be used:

• Instructor-created content. Whether or not the instructor chooses to openly license the copyright to the materials, the course can still be designated TXT0 as long as students are not required to purchase any of the content.
• Videos, e-books, journal articles, and other materials accessible by students via the campus library.
• Links to copyrighted/restricted materials (e.g., linking/embedding a YouTube video, linking to a webpage), as this is an accepted practice by OER practitioners.

If you are looking to create a TXT0 class, you have several options. You could adopt a single OER textbook to replace our current commercial textbook, you could choose to write your own content, you could curate and use resources free for students to use, or you could use a combination of OER and free resources.

The TXT0 designation gives students the ability to make informed choices that reduce their educational costs and student loans. The TXT0 label displays in the Class Availability listing and in STAR GPS. The following FAQs are taken and adapted from Leeward CC and Hawaii CC.

• What is a TXT0 class?         

• The TXT0 designation for a course indicates there are no costs for course materials. Course materials include textbooks, readings, or other content. A student in a TXT0 class will not be required to pay for any course materials for the class. TXT0 classes may use Open Educational Resources (OERs) only or a combination of OERs, web resources, library resources, and faculty-authored materials that replace commercially produced textbooks, online platforms, and other fee-based course materials.

• So, there is no textbook?         

• Not necessarily. It could be that:                 

• there is no required textbook for the class but course materials are no-cost and freely accessible, or
• the textbook may be an electronic book either freely accessible or available via the library.

• Is Textbook Cost: $0 the same as OER?         

• No. TXT0 is a designation for classes that do not require students to pay for course materials. Materials in TXT0 classes can be                 

• entirely OER or
• can be a mix of OER with materials that are not OER but provided at no cost to students or
• can be exclusively materials that are not OER but provided at no cost to students.

• Where does the Textbook Cost: $0 designation appear?        

• You can see a list of TXT0 courses offered at all UH campuses on the UH OER TXT0 website.
• The TXT0 designation appears for students using Star GPS under More Information
• In each campus' class availability listing at UH's Class Availability website,         

• "Textbook Cost: $0" appears at the beginning of the Comments field for each "Textbook Cost: $0"class
• "TXT0" is listed as an attribute for each class

• This "How to Find TXT0 Courses" video is made for students and demonstrates how students can find TXT0 classes for which to register.

• Would some of these Textbook Cost: $0 classes still require payment for Access Codes to online learning material like homework, exercises, additional reading, MyMathLab, MyWritingLab, etc.?        

• No. TXT0 designated classes must use only course materials that are freely available to students from the first day of class.

• What if students want a printed copy of an Open Textbook?         

• Students may choose to print out any part of or the entire OER textbook, at their cost. While this may seem to conflict with the TXT0 designation, printing is a student's choice. The OER textbook is available to all students on the first day of instruction, at no cost.

• Can a class that uses instructional non-OER materials be designated TXT0?         

• Yes. As long as there is no cost to students. Examples of non-OER (but free) materials could include copyrighted/licensed materials that are available through library subscription or via links to copyrighted materials on the internet.

• What if my course requires students to purchase equipment or supplies?         

• Equipment, tools, or supplies needed to apply the learning occurring in the class are not considered course materials.

• If a class has mandatory fees (for supplies), or an equipment list (e.g., tools for a trade program), can it still qualify for TXT0 designation if the course materials (textbooks, manuals, etc.) are all open/no cost?         

• Yes. Supply and equipment fees do not prevent classes from being listed at Textbook Cost: $0 as long as the class meets the requirements.

TXT0 Process

The process of designating a class as TXT0 is voluntary, instructor-initiated, and uncomplicated. However, at the same time, we need to ensure the integrity of the designation, consider the workflow process, and also include some data collection functionality.

Integrity of the TXT0 Designation

First, let's consider the integrity of the designation. In terms of integrity, if a class is designated TXT0 on the class availability listing, it needs to be true. Instructors will self-certify that students will not have to purchase any course materials required for the successful completion of their class. Also, it will be the responsibility of that instructor (not the Department Chair or Dean) to ensure that their class meets the definition of Textbook Cost: $0. If an inquiry or complaint is made about a certain class, the Department Chair and/or Dean may be asked to follow up with the instructor.

Workflow process

Workflow processes differ across campuses. View the TXT0 Designation Procedures document to find information about the designation process at your campus.

Chapter 6 Attributions:

• "Textbook Cost: $0 Frequently Asked Questions" by OER @ Leeward Community College is licensed under CC BY 4.0.