Open Educational Resources (OERs)

For faculty evaluating OERs for use in their subject areas, below are some common guidelines for reviewing the quality of materials.
 

Content

• Relevance and appropriateness of material to curriculum and course objectives, as well as to learning level of your students 
• Accuracy of factual and technical information
• Clarity of language 
• Vetting by other peer reviewers
• Availability of interactive tools and other supplemental resources
   

Production and Format

• Layout of content ensures readability
• Content is free of typos and formatting errors
• Digital interface is easy to navigate
• Audio and video playback is high quality and easy to operate
   

Accessibility

• Digital text/web pages are compatible with screen readers
• Images have alt text when not otherwise described
• Audiovisual materials have captioning and transcriptions available

Licensing

• Resource can be presented and distributed to students without additional permissions or fees
• Resource can be modified to into course schedules and/or specific curriculum goals

See: Accessibility Georgia - Evaluating Resources

See: BCCampus OpenEd - Evaluating OER

OER providers have their own set of criteria for including content on their platforms: 

• OER Commons Resource Quality Guidelines
• Open Textbook Network Inclusion Criteria
• Open Stax FAQ

The following provide self-guided training on how to evaluate open access textbooks and other OERs: 

• BCCampus Open Education Faculty OER Toolkit
• Achieve Open Education Resources Evaluation Took Handbook and Training
  • Achieve OER Evaluation Rubrics (PDF)
• Affordable Learning Georgia Tutorials on finding and evaluating open resources