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Open Education Resources: An Introduction

OER overview, licensing, evaluating, ethics, citating, and more

Questions to Ask Before You Begin

  • What is the scope of the material?
    • Is it written for high school, college, or a general audience?
    • Is it introductory, advanced, or supplemental material?
    • What topics are covered and to what depth?
    • Is the material accurate?
    • What is the reading level?
  • Who prepared the material?
    • Does the person have needed credibility and authority
  • Is the material objective or biased?
  • Is the material current? updated?
  • What are the licensing requirements? 
    • Can you customize?
    • Share? Reproduce?
  • What are the technical requirements?
    • Are materials compatible with student-owned technology?
    • Are materials widely accessible or do they have specific requirements?
  • Does the material meet Section 508 ADA accessibility requirements or does it need modification?
  • How much time will be needed to prepare the material for your use?

Evaluating Open-Access Publishers

Evaluating OER JOURNALS before use is important to scholarly researchers. 

Several approaches are available.

Evaluation tools for OER

This video explains how to find resources on OER Commons and evaluate them using the Achieve OER Evaluation Tool.

Overview of Achieve OER Evaluation Rubrics by  Achieve  licensed under CC BY

All Content CC-BY.