Research Guides: Open Educational Resources (OER): Evaluating OER

Evaluating OER

Before you adopt any OER for your classes, you have to first evaluate them.

Here are some considerations you should address in your evaluation:

Congruence with learning goals.
Accessibility
Does the license assigned to the resource allow me to use it in the way I wish?
Do I need to find additional materials to teach this concept or cover the content?

As you collect OER that you may want to use in your class, keep track of what you have found and organize the resources by learning objectives or course units so that you can identify any gaps that might exist

Here are some tools that might help you with the evaluation step:

Evaluate and Align OER - OERCommons.org
A collection of links in the OERCommons database which refer to OER evaluation.
Checklist for Evaluating Open Educational Resources (OER) - Austin Community College
This rubric covers breadth of perspectives, accuracy, alignnment with objectives, accessibility and more.
OER Evaluation Criteria - Affordable Learning Georgia
Open Textbook Review Criteria - BC Open Campus
A tool for evaluating textbook-length open educational resources.
OER Accessibility Evaluation Rubric - Affordable Learning Georgia
The OER Accessibility Evaluation Rubric is an evaluation tool for faculty, librarians, instructional designers, and other stakeholders in open educational resources to determine the accessibility of the OER they are creating and/or adopting for use in their courses.
More on Accessibility from Affordable Learning Georgia
Some helpful resources for evaluating accessibility and ensuring that materials you create are as accessible as possible for your students.