This resource provides guidance on how to adapt an open textbook to fit the exact needs of an instructors’ course. It describes the reasoning behind adapting a book, the challenges that accompany it, and the licensing requirements that make it feasible. The material can be utilized by faculty members as guidance to adjusting content to fit their needs as well as potentially integrating it as instruction for any open pedagogy assignment involving students in the class.
Type of Material:
Tutorial
Recommended Uses:
Individual use
Technical Requirements:
Internet Browser
Identify Major Learning Goals:
Learners will...
Gain a greater understanding of how to locate, evaluate, and adapt open textbooks.
Identify various licensing types, both for adapting existing works and for publishing works in the future.
Demonstrate knowledge of appropriate attribution and adaptation as indicated by licensing type.
Target Student Population:
Upper-level Undergraduate, Graduate School, Professional
Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:
Some basic knowledge about OER would be helpful and basic computer skills to access a website.
Content Quality
Rating:
Strengths:
The text provides a thorough explanation of the process of adapting an OER textbook as well as considerations and challenges one might face. It is accurate and communicates the ideas clearly. The work is self-contained, with links to examples and supplemental material available.
Concerns:
While there is a basic description before the introduction, it might be helpful to describe in greater detail the goals behind open educational resources and the concerns held by some educators about their reliability, quality, etc.
Some of the sections could benefit from elaboration on basic information and links to examples and additional resources.
Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool
Rating:
Strengths:
This is a thorough work on how to adapt open textbooks. While this is a very specific topic, it is applicable across nearly every subject across the academic spectrum. There is a clear need for works like this, especially as open-access resources become more widely used across academia.
Concerns:
This resource is most applicable at a practitioner or professional level geared towards an instructor adjusting content to fit the needs of the course. There could be some application for an open pedagogy assignment to provide students guidance on how to use other resources, however, it would be a very specific application.
The resource seems to omit a few active OER repositories, or offers links to them in some sections but not others. Perhaps a more comprehensive, combined list in an appendix would be helpful.
Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty
Rating:
Strengths:
Information is presented straightforwardly, and the layout is consistent. While a link to the Pressbooks guide is provided, the user might benefit from an explanation of the overall layout and how to navigate between modules/chapters.
Concerns:
The work had some technical and design issues when it was reviewed.
Layout is somewhat frustrating, with navigability links in small text at the extreme bottom of the page. This may be a platform limitation outside the creator's control.
The resource does not include interactivity, so while it presents step-by-step instructions, it functions more like a reference material than a resource for active learning.
The work is very text-heavy and could benefit from additional images or chunking of text into smaller units.
There are instances of links not going to intended targets.
The guidance for finding an open textbook includes, "Conduct an advanced Google search" but has no instructions on how that might lead to open textbooks. Are there specific keywords that might make this task easier?
There are many self-referring links to other chapters/modules in this work. It might be helpful to distinguish these from external links, as clicking through these can result in the reader accidentally skipping far ahead (or behind) in their progress.
Creative Commons:
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