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Evaluating Open Resources
When evaluating open resources for use in your course, you may want to consider the following questions:
- Does this OER cover the content you'd like your students to learn in this course or module? Is the content accurate and are sources well-cited?
- How accessible and appropriate is this content? Will it be accessible for your students, or is it too technical? Or is it robust and challenging enough for your students? Is it of high technical quality, with clear visuals and high production value?
- How can you use the content? Verify the license that the resource is under. Can you remix or revise the OER as long as it isn't for commercial purposes? Who do you have to recognize if you use it? Will you be able to do so? How does it align with course objectives/learning outcomes? Has it been subject to peer review?
- Once you determine how you can use the OER, what would you like to do with it? Does only a portion of it apply to your class? Would you possibly want to combine this OER with another OER or resource? Does the library have access to articles that could act as supplemental readings?
- Tip: As you collect more OER and other resources, save them in a central location. Take note of how you envision using them. Align these resources with the learning objectives and weekly lessons on your syllabus in order to identify gaps.
Adapted from Evaluating OER rubric
Further Resources
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Evaluating Open Educational Resources: Lessons LearnedAuthored by Irwin DeVries, Thompson River University, and presented at WCETR2012, the World Conference on Educational Technology Researchers
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Faculty Guide for Evaluating Open Educational ResourcesThis checklist guide is a creation of BCOER, a group of British Columbia (Canada) post-secondary librarians working together to support the use of quality OERs. It is made available via BCcampus.ca under a Creative Commons license.
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GOING DIGITAL: Faculty Perspectives on Digital and OER Course MaterialsBlog post at The Campus Computing Project reporting on a winter 2015-2016 survey of 2,902 faculty at 29 two- and four- year colleges and universities by the Independent College Bookstore Association (ICBA)
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OER Accessibility Toolkit - University of British Columbia"The goal of the OER Accessibility Toolkit is to provide the needed resources needed to each content creator, instructor, instructional designer, educational technologist, librarian, administrator, and teaching assistant to create a truly open and accessible educational resource — one that is accessible for all students."