Many OER projects start with an existing collection of teaching materials that people have developed and, with some time and reformatting, could be made available beyond our institution for the benefit of others. Below we have highlighted the main points to consider when preparing materials for wider dissemination. More detailed information is available on the Create your own OER page.
Do you need any support (e.g. in terms of time or funding) to help you develop your OER? Explore the options, starting with your department and the Library.
Discuss your proposal with the department/school's Director of Education to ensure it fits with the priorities for education. Once approval has been obtained there should be an initial assessment of any inherent risk (reputational or physical) following the University’s broad approach to risk and the staff code of conduct.
Consider the purpose and primary audience of your material
Decide early on which open licence you want to apply to your work, e.g. Creative Commons, or see https://choosealicense.com/ for further help. See also the information in the licensing section on this website
Look at the tools and platforms section on this site for ideas of where to host your work and ensure you choose somewhere that allows you to obtain usage data (such as the number of views and downloads for your work)
Choose also a tool / platform which allows your users to export your material in different formats, for example PDF, EPUB (optimised for digital book readers). You may intend to enable others to re-use your work but are you inadvertently putting technical barriers in place that prevent this?
Create your material in open and accessible formats. Don’t use proprietary formats that require specific software to access your work, or that become obsolete. Your OER needs to be open for as long as possible
Check if your material is accessible to a wide range of learners (see guidance from Elevate). Consider supplementary material to text such as audio, video and diagrams, and incorporating interactive elements (such as H5P)
If you have included any 3rd party material in your content check whether you have permission to use it or obtain permission (see https://sites.google.com/york.ac.uk/oertoolkit/licensing/re-using-others-work). Remember this takes longer than you think. Keep a record of the permission you receive and note that if you don’t get a response this does not mean you can use it. Use this log template to help you keep track and follow our third-party copyright guidance .
Is your material well organised and labelled? Does it use clear language and relevant examples?
Is your content accurate, up-to-date and fully referenced? Check any links to external material work and clearly state the date these were last checked.
All OER content should be checked for errors and inaccuracies prior to public release and material such as instructions, protocols, etc, should be thoroughly tested. Retain all documentation relating to testing. With regards to possible reputational risk, staff should be guided by the Code of Conduct.
Consider piloting the material with your target audience and seeking feedback (e.g. students). Ask colleagues in your department or in your networks for informal and more formal feedback before publication
Consider a feedback mechanism (if the platform doesn’t already include one), such as a Google form so that your users can report any errors after publication, or provide reviews or let you know how they are re-using your work. Collecting evidence can help in promotion cases
Work with the Library to develop suitable metadata (such as keywords and subject headings) to make your material more discoverable (contact oer@sheffield.ac.uk)
Creative Commons licences, Section 5 (example here), seek to limit liabilities and therefore it is essential that licences are clearly displayed so that users can read and understand the terms of use. Make your licence visible, ensure there is a link to it, and add a plain text explanation. Example: This work is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
GitHub provides guidance for displaying licence information effectively in GitHub repositories
Clearly state your authorship in your OER materials. Make it clear you are affiliated with the University of Sheffield. Encourage users to provide proper attribution when adapting or remixing your work (see https://sites.google.com/york.ac.uk/oertoolkit/licensing/licensing-your-work)
For your work to be used by others as you intend it must have a visible licence. No licence means your material defaults to “all rights reserved”
Finally, let the University’s OER community know about your work. We can help to promote it and spread the word
Keep a record of the feedback you receive from users, as well as analytics such as page views and downloads
If you update your work, e.g. after 6, 12 months, etc, share version release notes publicly in a readme file. If you are continuously updating your work, e.g. in response to feedback from users, maintain a publicly-available log showing the changes you have made. See this example from an OpenStax textbook
Consider the longer term future of your work. Do you plan to update it or not? How will you ensure people can access it in, say, 5 years time?
The University’s OER community, the Library and Elevate can help and advise on all the aspects listed above. Contact oer@sheffield.ac.uk. These guidelines follow the FAIR principles.