Peer Review

OER Activity Sourcebook – Open Textbook

Material Detail page

Reviewed:: May 18, 2026 by Library and Information Services

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Ratings

Overall Rating:

Content Quality:

Effectiveness:

Ease of Use:

Overview:

This is an evolving resource intended to provide inspiration for instructors who use Pressbooks and Open Educational Resources for their teaching.

This guide is currently in the open creation stage, meaning that it is in-progress, but openly licensed. In other words, this is a resource in flux: the authors will be composing, revising, and reorganizing these materials over the course of the coming months. Below is a list of the tasks left to complete.

Crowdsource and compose original content
Copy edit (in progress)
Update links as appropriate
Add additional screenshots and images
Check for accessibility update alt-text

Type of Material:

Open (Access) Textbook

Recommended Uses:

Recommended as professional development material for teachers.

Technical Requirements:

Browser (Tested in Chrome, Firefox, Edge)

Identify Major Learning Goals:

The stated purpose of the site is to provide inspiration for teachers to use open educational resources in their teaching. Some sections provide useful advice for designers of open educational resources. There are also some helpful examples of activities that might see inclusion in an open resource.

Target Student Population:

Graduate School, Professional

Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:

None.

Content Quality

Rating:
Strengths:: The quality of the material varies from section to section. Some sections provide a fairly well rounded discussion of its stated topic, while others are less clear about the goals of the section. The crowd-source aspect demonstrates inclusivity and limits gatekeeping of content.
Concerns:: Some individual sections could use more content (as discussed in potential effectiveness) and the book itself could use more sections/content. For example, the book jumps into H5P activities. What is H5P? Those familiar with online learning tools will know the answer, but an instructor wanting to learn the basics may not.

Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool

Rating:

Strengths:

Some sections of the material are fairly complete and a user of the text would be able to incorporate that information into their teaching.

Concerns:

The introduction needs more explanation on the book's purpose, the type of content included, the organization and progression of the sections, and examples on how to use the materials.

Each section should be consistent in explaining how it fits into the work as a whole as well as its specific learning objectives. It is difficult to understand how each section relates to one another. Organizing the sections in a logical order and providing more context at the beginning of each section would help with this issue. For example, the book could be organized by platform or type of activity.

Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty

Rating:
Strengths:: The book shares the same navigation structure of many other open textbooks and is thus fairly easy to navigate and use. There are clear instructions on how to contribute content and provide feedback on the book.
Concerns:: The confusing progression of topics (as discussed under Potential Effectiveness) makes the material difficult to use.

Other Issues and Comments:: The content states that it is currently in the development stage. With further work, the final version of the resource could prove valuable to instructors.
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