As well as using an OER as is to replace high-cost materials, using OER allows you to modify material by removing inappropriate content or adding your own content, as well as the flexibility to combine parts of resources together, thus ensuring materials are contextualized to your course or module.
BCcampus guides by Lauri Aesoph:
Think of keywords/concepts to search for topic, module, or course What is your preferred format or medium preference?
► BCcampus OER Discipline Directory
► Maryland Open Source Textbook (MOST) Commons - an online space designed to support faculty and staff in discovering materials, collaborating with colleagues, and contributing OER to improve curricula.
► Mason OER Metafinder - performs a simultaneous search across 21 different sources of open educational materials.
► OASIS - Openly Available Sources Integrated Search - searches open content from 72 different sources
As you search for open textbooks in repositories, think about what criteria you will use to select appropriate material for your course. You can develop your own criteria or use existing criteria from other sources.
Think about:
Quality
Appropriateness
Technical
Before editing an OER, it helps to consider some questions about it. The answers will inform the level of effort required to modify the material.
After completing your evaluation of the materials, you can decide if any modifications are needed.
Get approval from your academic department to use the OER in your course.
Let your students (and everybody else) know it's available and how to find it.
Think about how students will access the material (VLE/Moodle)?