Supporting you to adapt or create OER

One major benefit of OER is that you have permission to adapt and modify content to suit your local needs. This might include:

• customising  the content so it reflects your curriculum, perhaps by mixing content from a variety of sources
• contextualising the content, for example changing the spelling / terminology / units from US to UK 
• making the content more inclusive of  underserved voices and groups to reflect your student population
• providing opportunities for innovative pedagogy, such as co-creation with students

Authoring and editing tools:

Pressbooks

The Library subscribes to Pressbooks, an authoring and editing tool. On the Sheffield Pressbooks Network you can see some books that have been published using this platform. You can browse the global list of Pressbooks titles in the Pressbooks Directory. Please get in touch with us via your liaison librarian or oer@sheffield.ac.uk if you would like to discuss using Pressbooks.

Pressbooks is a good solution for text-based material in that:

• You don’t need coding experience to create content (although you have the option to input text using this method)
• It contains an accessibility checker (Editoria11y) and, optionally, a broken link checker
• It integrates over 50 H5P activities to make your content interactive (such as drag and drop, quizzes, true / false, image matching) 
• It integrates with Blackboard so you can embed your own content at an appropriate place in your module and test the content with your students before publishing more widely
• books are widely indexed (for example in the Pressbooks Directory, the Open Textbook Library and Google)
• It is supported by the University

See the Pressbooks User Guide for details.

Alternative tools

Other authoring tools which are free to use include Manifold (see also this list of suggestions from the University of Arkansas and the University of Toronto which offer suggestions for non-book formats).

If you are considering creating an open textbook read this guide from the Open Education Network (created using Manifold) A Guide to Open Textbook Essential and Exemplary Features.

Funding:

The Library has funding available for teaching staff who are interested in taking a further look at OER. Examples include:

• Identifying an existing open textbook and adapting it to suit local (Sheffield or wider UK) curriculum needs, using the Sheffield Pressbooks Network or other appropriate open platform 
• Adapting your existing teaching material, or creating new material, and publishing it in the Sheffield Pressbooks Network or other open platform

An open textbook is one with a CC BY licence or CC BY-SA (or by exception, CC BY-NC or CC BY-NC-SA). Material with an ND (No derivatives or adaptions) licence is ineligible for support under this initiative because it does not align with the principles of OER.

The funding amounts available range from £150 to £5000, payable to your department. If you have an idea for a project in the area of OER that doesn’t fit into one of the categories above, talk to us about how the Library might support you. Successful applicants include:

• Alex Best from the School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences who has published his textbook 'Introducing Mathematical Biology' on the Sheffield Pressbooks Network
• Kyuin Kim from the School of Languages, Arts and Societies for her textbooks 'How to Teach Korean (Language) in Fluent English' and ‘Korean in One Bite’.

Contact us

oer@sheffield.ac.uk