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Curate OER

What is Curation?

More than merely collecting content on a specific subject, strong curation involves carefully selecting content and evaluating it for a specific purpose.

Steps in Curating OER:

1. Find

  • Build searches around keywords and material types, such as "organic chemistry textbooks", and "videos on substitution reactions".

2. Evaluate

  • Assess the quality of resources with robust evaluation rubrics, such as the Comprehensive OER Evaluation Tool - Word.
  • Assess use permissions and accessibility to meet campus requirements. Use tools like the Accessibility Checklist - Word.

3. Adopt or Adapt

  • Adopt the resource by downloading it, printing it, or linking to it.
  • If needed, adapt or remix the resource using OER authoring tools such as open library eCampus Ontario PressBooks (if you are located in Ontario) Open Author, or seek support from library staff.

Find

While you can find open resources like textbooks, courses, multimedia and data using regular search engines (like Google), it is much easier to search dedicated OER repositories or libraries. The other tabs in this box will direct you to a sampling of such repositories and libraries. For more information, please check the OER Toolkit's Curating Module by The Learning Portal, or contact your Liaison Librarian.

Canadian Open Textbook Repositories

Non-Canadian Open Textbook Repositories

The collections of aggregated OER below are some of the larger known initiatives that are utilized by educators and library staff in Canada and elsewhere. Many of them have overlapping resources, as they curate and aggregate their content from the same content providers.

The collections listed below offer a range of multimedia resources for use and integration into teaching and learning.

Open data may include non-textual material such as map-based data, mathematical and scientific formulae, medical data, demographic data, financial data, and so forth. The collections listed below are all freely available to use, integrate, modify and manipulate to meet local needs.

Evaluate

The best OER evaluation rubrics include traditional evaluative criteria that address a resource's editorial quality. They also include criteria that address resource portability, and resource effectiveness in engaging learners. The other tabs in this box contain a sampling of rubrics to use in evaluating OER

Use or adapt this OER Evaluation Tool, which was originally created by Achieve, Inc. Achieve is a US-based education nonprofit, and a leader in the development of OER evaluation rubrics.

The tool has been tailored for the OCLS post-secondary context. It is comprised of eight rubrics for assessing OER - ranging from how well the resource is aligned to learning outcomes, to the degree to which the resource meets local accessibility standards.

You can download the tool in the following formats:

For open textbook reviews, you may wish to use the BC Open Textbook Review Criteria. This rubric contains criteria that much of the field uses in evaluating open textbooks. Specific criteria listed include the comprehensiveness of the textbook, the organization and flow, and the cultural relevance of the textbook content.

You can download the rubric in the following formats:

The Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) requires that institutions provide all resources in an accessible format "on demand" There are no specific guidelines for what is accessible-- other than it must meet the need of the student requesting the accessible format. However, as educators, we have an ethical obligation to ensure that courses are fully accessible to all learners, including those with disabilities.

Unless carefully chosen with accessibility in mind, instructional resources can erect barriers that make learning difficult or impossible. Use the Accessibility Checklist, which has been aligned to accessibility standards. The Checklist will help to ensure that the resources you curate are accessible to all learners.

You can download the checklist in the following formats:

Utilize

The tabs in this box contain field-tested guides and tools to help you make changes or additions to resources and better align them to your teaching needs.