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Open Educational Resources

Open Author is used for building and publishing Open Educational Resources (OER) for the benefit of educators and learners everywhere.

Adapting OER

How to adapt OER

Provide your students an alternative to expensive textbooks by following these steps:

  1. Find the right textbook by going to the Open Textbooks tab on this Guide or by searching the Internet. Try to familiarize yourself with the sources by going to their website.
  2. Search for the appropriate textbooks for your course.
  3. Review and evaluate the textbooks based on the content and whether it suits your teaching style and your students. You can also consult the Evaluation Criteria from the Community College Consortium on Open Educational Resources (CCCOER).
  4. Decide if you want to use the textbook as is, edit, or 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 repositories will have different options for editing and publishing revised copies.
  5. Distribute to your students on your course site. You can select the best format to distribute to your class such as online, or downloadable PDF.
  6. Provide the Library with links and information about your chosen OER materials, so we can add it to our list for easy access.

A more detailed adoption guide can be found on the OpenStax site:  Open Textbook Adoption.

Evaluating OER

Before adopting OER for your course, you should evaluate it to be sure it suits the needs of your course and your students.  The following sites provide information on evaluating OER.

Using the Library's Electronic Resources

The RCC Library's electronic resources can also be used as textbook alternatives or supplemental materials to enhance delivery of your course. Chapters or pages within an e-book, as well as articles from an e-journal, can be downloaded and linked to directly from the Library's collection.  For more on linking to the Library's electronic resources, see the Linking to Electronic Resources tab on the Faculty Services and Resources site.