There are many reasons for adapting an existing open textbook (e.g. Anatomy & Physiology) or other OER. For example:
You may want to remove sections that aren’t appropriate for your curriculum
You may want to incorporate material you’ve written yourself to update the resource or to make it more inclusive, diverse and relevant to your context
You may want to add local images, examples or case studies
You may want to add exercises or other activities to make it more interactive
You may want to replace commercially published textbooks that have expensive, unsustainable digital access models, thus ensuring that all your students have equitable digital access to course texts
The adaptations may be minor, but could make the material completely relevant to your curriculum.
Look for existing open material suitable for your curriculum using sites such as OER Commons (https://oercommons.org/), the OER by Discipline Directory (https://opentextbc.ca/oerdiscipline/) or the Open Textbook Library (https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks). You can find other sources at https://open.ed.ac.uk/how-to-guides/open-repositories/ and https://open.ed.ac.uk/how-to-guides/specialised-content-site/
Evaluate the content to check it is relevant for your intended purpose
Start with a clear purpose. What do you hope to achieve by reusing this work? Once you know your goals, you can start to think about how to adapt the work to fit your needs
Check that the licence of your chosen resource(s) allows adaptations. Many Creative Commons licences do, and many allow commercial use too. Find out which ones at https://sites.google.com/york.ac.uk/oertoolkit/licensing/creative-commons-licences
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). If you are adapting an existing Pressbooks title it is very easy to create a cloned copy for you to edit with the Sheffield Pressbooks Network (contact oer@sheffield.ac.uk for a Sheffield Pressbooks account)
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 have the intention to enable others to re-use your work but have you inadvertently put technical barriers in place that prevent this?
Which licence will you apply to your adaptation? This may be informed by the original licence of the material you are adapting. Find out more at https://sites.google.com/york.ac.uk/oertoolkit/licensing/re-using-others-work
If you intend to add third party material to your adaptation from a different source you may need to ask permission from the copyright holder if your intended use is not covered by its licence. Follow our third-party copyright guidance and use this log template to keep track of permissions. If you think the third party material might disappear at some point, e.g. a video or audio file, it’s worth considering adding an access date
Ensure you clearly attribute the original creator of the work (as well as any other material you include that is not your own). Find out how to do this at https://sites.google.com/york.ac.uk/oertoolkit/licensing/licensing-your-work/adaptations-and-collections and use our third-party copyright guidance
Is your final material well organised and labelled? Does it use clear language and relevant examples?
Ensure your final work is accurate and up-to-date. Check any links to external material work and clearly state the date they 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 feedback
Include a feedback mechanism (e.g. a Google form) so that your users can report any errors, provide reviews or let you know how they are re-using your work
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 and licence information in your OER materials. Make it clear you are affiliated with the University of Sheffield
If possible, contact the original author / creator and let them know how you are using their work. It is good for their career development and encourages people to share more
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