Opening up your own educational materials can first feel a bit scarry: What, where, how, and under which terms of use the resource will be made available? How to make it accessible? Keep in mind that you can start at your own level and develop your competence and learning materials bit by bit.
Start by thinking what kind of learning material you could open. You can first open only some part of your course or material, such as lecture slides or a learning assignment. Alternatively, you can produce an entire MOOC, or something between these two. You can find examples of different OER’s from the Library of Open Educational Resources (aoe.fi).
Do you create the learning material by yourself, or can you make it in collaboration with someone else? Can you involve students in the creating process? If the OER is produced collaboratively, you all must agree on copyright and use of an open license.
Find out if your organization has guidelines for producing Open Educational Resources and follow the instructions if there are any. At UEF, see the Open education policy (pp. 4 – 5) on UEF Open science and research policy. If your OER is used for example in Opin.fi or Digicampus services, familiarize yourself with their instructions.
You’ll realize that reaching the basic level is not that hard at all.
Tips for planning and creating OER
Check these points when creating open educational resources.
In designing open educational resources, you can use, for example, this canvas for the creation of an OER by Graz University of Technology, Educational Technology.
If the OER has more than one author, consent from all authors is required to open the educational resource.
Search for OER (e.g., aoe.fi, Finna, OERSI, Zenodo). Check the licensing terms to understand how you can use them. Utilizing open materials is recommended, so you don’t have to create everything from scratch. You can also use these materials for inspiration.
You can search for freely usable images from sources like Europeana, Unsplash, Flickr, PxHere, or Openverse. Check the usage rights in the image licenses. Remember that the licenses of images created by others must allow usage as broad as the license you choose for your open educational material. If you are unsure about the licensing terms of an image you find, it’s best not to use it.
You can search for freely usable videos, for example, on YouTube. Check the usage rights in the video licenses. In YouTube’s search filters, you can narrow your search to videos licensed under Creative Commons.
When re-using existing material in your open educational resources, cite the original reference adequately and acknowledge the authors.
Remember to mention if you use artificial intelligence, AI, to produce learning materials. Educational institutions often have guidelines on utilizing AI. Familiarize yourself with these guidelines.
If you produce videos for your educational materials (e.g., instructional videos or webinar recordings), ensure that the recordings are accessible and openly available. Add subtitles or a text alternative to published videos.
For audio files, such as podcasts, create a text alternative. Publish the text alternative alongside the audio file, either as a separate webpage or a downloadable document.
If you add images to your OER, provide alternative text (alt text) describing the image. Alt text is a written description of an image used for accessibility, such as for people with visual impairments, and helps screen readers convey the image’s content. If you re-use images produced by someone else, use only images that you are allowed to use (i.e. check the licenses).
You can test text accessibility using tools like the Check Accessibility feature in Word or PowerPoint.
Ensure that handling of personal data complies with data protection principles. Pay attention to any personal data that may be included in the material. If possible, delete personal information from the material you want to share openly. Ask for permission if someone else is presented in the material, for example, in the pictures or students’ assignments.
For MOOCs or other courses, learning tasks should generally be conducted in a separate, closed environment if personal data is available. Check your organization’s specific practices for handling such cases.
Creative Commons licensing let others know how they are allowed to use your work. It’s recommended to use licenses that allow other users to use the material, while still acknowledging you as the original creator, like the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 / CC BY or the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 / CC BY-SA license.
Next, a publishing venue is needed. In Finland, you can use the Library of Open Educational Resources (aoe.fi) for publishing your open educational resources. You can either save the resource (simple file formats) or link it (websites etc.).
In addition, you can publish your materials, for example, via organizational repository and/or publishing platform or on your own or project’s website. Discuss with your organization’s IT or Teaching support about the possible options.
Currently at UEF, Panopto, ThingLink, and WordPress enable open sharing.
If you haven’t published your material on the Library of Open Educational Resources (aoe.fi), it’s recommended to add the description and a link to the material there. On aoe.fi you can compile different formats under the same heading, like lecture materials as a PowerPoint presentation, an introductory video in mp4 format and a Moodle quiz in mbz format. Through aoe.fi, your materials are findable both in the aoe.fi and Finna services.
High-quality open educational resources are maintained and updated on a regular basis. Add the “last updated” info to your material and let the users know if you’re planning to take the material down at some point.
Consider adding a digital badge or certificate to your learning material, so that the learners can show that they have familiarized themselves with the content and have visual recognition of knowledge and skills acquired. Discuss with your organization’s Teaching support about this option.
Remember:
You can start small: You can first share e.g. lecture slides or a course assignment.
Consider producing OER collaboratively.
Follow the national (Finnish) quality criteria for open educational resources.
Find a sharing platform that reaches your audience. In Finland, aoe.fi is recommended.
