LibGuides: Open Educational Resources: Adopting & Adapting

Adopting OERs

The criteria used to evaluate and select open educational resources and textbooks should be almost the same as for traditional textbooks. The following resources can provide useful information to evaluate open textbooks for possible course adoption.

Faculty Guide for Evaluating Open Education Resources
An Open Textbook evaluation criteria checklist.
OER Evaluation Criteria
From Affordable Learning Georgia, a six component checklist for evaluating OER.
Merlot II Peer Review Workwheet
Consider using Merlot II's peer review worksheet to help you evaluate OER.
Choosing a Textbook
Information from University of Illinois on Choosing a Textbook
Evaluation Criteria for Open Textbooks (American Institute of Mathematics)
The American Institute of Mathematics, which actually has developed a list of approved open mathematics textbooks, has also posted the criteria that they use to evaluate open textbooks.
OER Rubrics
This website from Achieve.org provides a rubric to help K-12 schools choose open educational resources for their school system. Some of the items in the rubric could be applied to choosing open educational resources and textbooks for a college course.
Open Educational Resource Evaluation Matrix
This website has a matrix designed by students to help them evaluate open educational resources.

Adapting OERs

6 Steps to Adapting an Open Textbook
From the BC Open Textbook Authoring Guide, steps to adapt, or customize, the textbook to fit your specific needs.