Open Access: Adoption

Public Domain Slider: a tool to help determine the copyright status of a work.

License Chooser: follow the steps to select the appropriate  Creative Commons license for your work.

OER Adoption Impact Calculator: Users can adjust inputs using a sliding scale to calculate the impact for their unique institutional setting.

How do I adopt an open textbook and include it in the Jax State Bookstore listing for my course?

1. Start by using resources listed under "Where to Find OER". 
2. Review and evaluate the textbooks based on the content and whether it suits your teaching style and your students. You can also consult the Evaluating an Open Textbook from the BC campus.
3. Decide if you want to use the textbook as-is or if you want to modify the contents. One of the benefits of open textbooks is flexibility to customize them for specific course designs as much or as little as you desire. If you want to make edits or append content, make sure the licensing allows that. Different open textbooks will have different options for editing and publishing revised copies.
4. Follow the textbook adoption procedures to work with your department and the university Bookstore.

Adopting Open Educational Resources (OER) in higher education presents both benefits and challenges:

Benefits

• Affordability & Retentivity (free online access to save students money on textbooks, decreasing debt)
• Accessibility & Equality (day -1 course access, advancing equity)
• Customizability (more academic freedom for faculty, rethinking pedagogy)

Challenges

• Sustainability of OER (Some OER resources are not as high quality as resources from large publishers, Some OER resources are not kept up-to-date)
• Time-Consuming for locating, reviewing, creating OER, and training(train faculty and students how to search for, use, and cite materials properly)

Evaluating Open Educational Resources (OER) and open textbooks involves several procedures and criteria to ensure they are of high quality and meet the needs of educators and learners. Here is an overview of the evaluation process and key criteria:

General Procedures

1. Initial Screening: Verify the resource is openly licensed and accessible; Ensure the material aligns with the intended educational purpose.

2. Content Review: Subject matter experts review the content for accuracy and completeness; Ensure the content aligns with curriculum standards and learning objectives.

3. Quality Assurance: Assess the resource for clarity, coherence, and logical flow; Evaluate the pedagogical effectiveness, including the inclusion of learning activities, assessments, and other instructional supports.

3. Technical Evaluation: Check for usability and accessibility, ensuring the material is easy to navigate and can be accessed by all learners, including those with disabilities; Verify that multimedia elements (if any) function correctly.

4. User Feedback: Collect and analyze feedback from educators and students who have used the resource; Incorporate suggestions and make necessary revisions.

5. Ongoing Review: Periodically review and update the resource to ensure it remains current and relevant; Monitor for any technological or pedagogical advances that could enhance the resource.

General Criteria

1. Content Accuracy: Information is correct, reliable, and supported by evidence; Authors and contributors are credible and knowledgeable in the subject area.

2. Alignment with Standards: Resource aligns with academic standards and learning outcomes; Clearly defined goals and objectives are met.

3. Relevance and Timeliness: Content is up-to-date and relevant to current educational contexts; Reflects current theories, practices, and real-world applications.

4. Pedagogical Effectiveness: Includes a variety of teaching and learning strategies; Engages students and encourages critical thinking; Offers assessments and activities that support learning objectives.

5. Clarity and Readability: Content is written clearly and concisely; Includes glossaries, summaries, and other aids to enhance understanding; Language is appropriate for the target audience.

6. Technical Quality: High-quality graphics, multimedia, and interactive elements; Meets accessibility standards (e.g., WCAG) to support all learners; Materials are accessible on various devices and platforms.

7. Licensing and Permissions: Clearly stated open license (e.g., Creative Commons); Allows for adaptation, modification, and redistribution.

8. Cultural Relevance and Sensitivity: Content is culturally inclusive and sensitive; Reflects diverse perspectives and avoids bias.

9. Usability: Easy to navigate and use; Adaptable to different teaching and learning contexts; Includes clear instructions and user-friendly interface.

10. Sustainability: Plans for regular updates and maintenance; Mechanisms for ongoing feedback and improvement.

By following these procedures and applying these criteria, educators and institutions can ensure that the OER and open textbooks they adopt are of high quality and effective in enhancing teaching and learning.

Open Textbook Library Review Criteria: Faculty who review open textbooks in the Open Textbook Library follow these criteria, which can also be a general guide for overall OER evaluation.

Open Textbooks

Here are some platforms and repositories that list open textbooks, many of which have been adopted and reviewed by colleges and universities.

• Open Textbook Library: Library curated by the University of Minnesota to support development of high-quality open textbooks in various subjects. Includes open textbooks from OpenStax and other open textbook publishers. Includes reviews of open textbooks.
• BC Campus: Open textbooks for the 40 highest enrolled first- and second-year subject areas in the British Columbia's public, post-secondary system.
• COOL4Ed: Open eTextbooks, Open Course Materials, Open Online Courses, and SkillsCommons library for free workforce development from the California Community Colleges, the California State University, and the University of California.
• LibreTexts: Digital Textbooks, Adaptive Homework, Collaboration Tools, and Interactive Modules.
• Openstax: Initiated by Rice University, their free textbooks are developed and peer-reviewed to ensure they meet the scope and sequence requirements of college courses.

OER Repositories

OER Repositories, such as OER Commons, MERLOT, and OASIS contain more than just open textbooks. They also have other digital learning materials such as:full courses, modules, syllabi, lectures, audiobooks, homework assignments, quizzes, lab activities, games, and simulations.

OER by Discipline

• OER BY DISCIPLINE DIRECTORY: highlight as many open educational resources as possible and organize them by discipline and subject area. 
• OER by Discipline: University of Manitoba: a resource that lists a broad range of open educational resources organizes by University of Manitoba.

OER Images, Videos, Musics, and More

• Creative Commons Search portal: Find content (music, web, image, media, 3D Model, Video, Media) you can share, use, and remix.
• Google Advanced Image Search - Use the “Usage Rights” field to limit by license type.
• YouTube: After you complete a search, select the filter option, and apply the Creative Commons limiter.
• NGA Images - Public domain artworks from the collections of the National Gallery of Art.
• Open Music Archive: a porting of Free/Libre and Open Source software models to wider creative contexts.
• Public Domain Review – Images, books, films, audios of art, literature, and ideas focusing on works  now fallen into the public domain resources, the vast commons of out-of-copyright material that everyone is free to enjoy, share, and build upon without restrictions.
• USDA Image Gallery: More than 6,500 copyright-free, public domain images from USDA Agricultural Research Service.
• USGS Denver Library Photographic Collection: an archive of more than 500,000 still photographs, slides, glass plate slides, lantern slides, negatives, and sketches dating from the 1870s and taken by USGS scientists as part of their field studies.

Open Academic Books

• Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB): a community-driven discovery service that indexes and provides access to more than 83, 000 scholarly, peer-reviewed open access books.
• Hathitrust Digital Library: Everyone will be able to read public domain and open access titles (Full View) of the collection.
• Open Humanities Press: Several collections of open access books, including the Humanities E-Book Collection, a digital collection of 2,200 full-text titles offered by the ACLS in collaboration with nineteen learned societies and nearly 100 contributing publishers.