LibGuides: Open Educational Resources: Write Your Own

Writing and Publishing Your Own OER

Writing your own OER can be a time-intensive but also deeply rewarding experience. There are lots of guides available to help you write your own. Here are three:

Authoring Open Textbooks
Open Textbooks Network (OTN)'s guide to working with open textbooks. Covers authorship, publication, and more. Written by Melissa Falldin and Karen Lauritsen.
Modifying an Open Textbook
If you're modifying another textbook to create yours instead of starting from scratch, this is your book.
Guidelines for Creating and Sharing OERs
A step-by-step guide with links, from the University of Texas at Austen.

If you just want a quick overview before you dive into a whole book, here are some steps and links to get you thinking.

Classification.
1. How can your OER be classified? This can usually be determined by asking, "What is the suggested use of this resource?"
2. Consider factors such as subject area, grade level, level of difficulty, etc.
3. Classification enables sharing and can help you create metadata for your resource, which is required by some platforms.
Licensing.
1. If you created the work, decide which kind of licensing works for you. Use the licensing tool from Creative Commons.
2. If your resource is a combination of other resources, use the Creative Commons License Compatibility Chart to determine how licensing will work.
3. If you are using work that requires attribution, Creative Commons also suggests best practices for attribution.
Diversity and Inclusion.
1. Is your OER accessible? View OER accessible guides such as the QUBES OER Accessibility Framework.
2. Does your OER showcase a variety of viewpoints and cultures? View OER equity guides such as the BranchEd Equity Rubric for OER Evaluation.
Where to share? Determine where you want to house the OER (OER Commons? Pressbooks? Commonwealth University's own institutional repository?). Check their submission criteria concerning licensing, format type, and resource quality.