Help and Support: Open Educational Resources: Using OERs

Using OERs

Once you have found an OER, and are happy for it to be used by your students as is, add the details and link to a My Unit Readings form to have it added to your reading list.

Faculty Select items

When selecting an OER using Faculty Select, simply click on the button to "Request a course friendly link".

Complete the form to automatically send a notification to the My Unit Readings team to add the title to your My Unit Readings list.

The 5 Rs of OERs

OERs can be retained, reused, revised, remixed, or redistributed, which gives you the option of adapting OERs to suit your teaching needs.

The 5 Rs of OER: Retain (keep forever); reuse (use for your own purposes); revise (adapt or modify); remix (combine with other resources).

Image by BCOER Librarians, licensed under CC BY 4.0.

For more details on the 5 Rs, see Defining the "Open" in Open Content and Open Education Resources.

How to adapt an OER

For instructions on adapting an OER, see the Adaptation Guide produced by BCcampus OpenEd:

Adaptation Guide

Choosing works to adapt

Before adapting an OER, you will need to make sure all the works you pull information from have a license that allows for remixing.

For more general information on copyright and licensing, see Copyright advice.
If you need help understanding copyright licenses and their associated symbols, see About CC Licenses.

To find out if works are able to be remixed:

Choose two works you wish to combine or remix, and identify their copyright licenses
Using the table in the image below, cross-reference the licenses
If there is a check mark at the intersection of the row and column, you can combine the works
If there is a cross at the intersection of the row and column, you cannot combine these works. This most likely indicates that one of the two licenses may not be used for commercial purposes, or one of the licenses does not allow for derivative works to be created.

Note: When remixing an OER, you must apply the most restrictive licensing associated with original works to the final product. See the Licensing OERs tab for more information.

Creative Commons license compatibility chart
	Public domain	CC0	CC BY	CC BY-SA	CC BY-NC	CC BY-ND	CC BY-NC-SA	CC BY-NC-ND
Public domain	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔	✘	✔	✘
CC0	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔	✘	✔	✘
CC BY	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔	✘	✔	✘
CC BY-SA	✔	✔	✔	✔	✘	✘	✘	✘
CC BY-NC	✔	✔	✔	✘	✔	✘	✔	✘
CC BY-ND	✘	✘	✘	✘	✘	✘	✘	✘
CC BY-NC-SA	✔	✔	✔	✘	✔	✘	✔	✘
CC BY-NC-ND	✘	✘	✘	✘	✘	✘	✘	✘

This table, "Creative Commons license compatibility chart", is adapted from "License compatibility chart" by creativecommons.org, used under CC BY 4.0. "Creative Commons license compatibility chart" is licensed under CC BY 4.0 by Murdoch University Library.

Tools for adapting OERs

The OER Commons repository has built-in authoring tools to help you adapt OERs:

OER Commons

Other tools that can be used to adapt and then publish an OER are shown in the table below.

Tools for adapting OERs by format
Original Format	Editing Tools (web-based)	Editing Tools (Desktop)
Word or Open Office	Google Docs, PressBooks	Microsoft Word, OpenOffice
ePub	PressBooks	Sigil, Calibre
Text	Google docs, PressBooks	Word, OpenOffice
LaTex	ScribeTex	TeXworks, Texmaker
HTML	Google Docs, PressBooks, Media Wiki	Dreamweaver, MS Expression Web
OpenStax College	Connexions	n/a

Information on authoring an OER is available from:

Authoring Open Textbooks: A Guide
Guide for getting started including case studies, textbook organization and elements, writing resources, and an overview of useful tools
Guide to Developing Open Textbooks
Guide to assist teachers in selecting appropriate technology and free services for authoring OER
Seven Platforms You Should Know About
Live demos by expert users and creators of a selection of free platforms for authoring OER

Apply a Creative Commons license for the re-distribution of your OER.

Consider how you would be comfortable with your OER being reused - what permissions will you give others to share and use your creative work.

Before choosing your license read considerations for licensors and licensees
Choose your license and embed the license terms into your document or web page.

Murdoch University Library recommends OER Commons to upload and store your OER. Authors can directly upload material and assign it to the Murdoch University Group.

Australian Tertiary OER Repository

To collate and curate Australian-generated and centric Open Education Resources for use in tertiary education.

"Open Educational Resources (OER) are educational materials, including textbooks, courses, lesson plans, and multimedia resources, that are freely available for use, remixing, and sharing." - SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition).