Are you an educator thinking about creating your educational course? Don’t know where to start? We are here to help! A lot of educators are using educational sources as teaching tools these days. Let’s see what educational sources are and how you can create your own OER!

What are OERs (Own Educational Resource)

Open Educational resources are publicly available, free educational resources that anyone can use, copy, re-share, and adapt. There are numerous educator sources already available but you can also create your own OER.

Creating your own educational sources is not as daunting as it appears – rather, it is a relatively simple task. As an educator, you must have some educational material on your hand. You can create your OER using the same material and with a little training.

Let’s see what you need to keep in my mind while creating an OER.

1.     Device Compatibility

The first thing that you need to do is do a quick survey of the technological devices that are available to you and your potential students. It is important that your OER resource is readily available to the masses.

So it would be a good idea to spread your material and its compatibility across multiple platforms like android, iOS, PC, Mac, Windows, etc. Use all the resources at hand to figure out how to reach a larger audience.

2.     Delivery Mechanism

Once you have decided on your target devices, the next thing you need to look at is the delivery of the material. From learning management systems such as Google Classroom, Schoology, Moodle, etc. to digital curriculums like Coursera, eDX, and electronic textbooks, you have multiple delivery options on your hands.

When choosing the delivery option, you need to take into account the resources and the requirements of your potential students, the level to which you are comfortable with tools and technology, the advice of your friends and colleagues, etc.

3.     Testing the OER

The next step is to create the course. Only when you create the course, will you be able to test its ease of access and use, the quality of the material, whether it is compatible with your educational style or not, its flexibility and adaptability, etc.

“You can use the actual course content or you can use filler text to build the course. Before you design your course, you can enroll in some other course and see how it looks like”, recommends Aaron Schey, a professional educator at PapersOwl. You can use publicly available supplies, or you can join one of the courses of your colleagues. This will help you get an idea of what the courses look like and what you need to incorporate in your own supplies.

4.     Learn about copyrights

Most of the time the educational sources that are available are educational sources – this means that they are publicly available and anyone can use them legally. You need to get a basic level understanding of copyright regarding the material that you will be using as well as creating.

Know your copyright limits so that you won’t be accused of copyright infringement later! Learn what open licenses are and whether your open source will have one. Now is the time to pull all of the content that you will use in your educational supplies together. You don’t have to start with everything complete – you can begin with a few lessons and then scale the content up later when you would know how your resource is turning out.

Many people think that it is normal to copy a work created ten years ago. The cheappaperwriting website warns that President Clinton signed the Copyright Extension Act in 1998. This act extends existing copyright for 20 years. Now the main term of copyright is the life of the creator plus 70 years for their works created after January 1978 in the USA. The copyright for a hired job is 95 years. 

5.     Keep your content diverse

Just play to your strengths and then go from there. You can deliver your content in different formats – audio recordings, images, text, videos, slideshows, quizzes, etc. Make sure that you use the format that you are good at – you can learn more about the other formats as you progress.

If creating wonderful graphical notes is your niche, then you should incorporate those in your content. Similarly, if you are good at presentations, then you can use your strength to your advantage.

6.     Get support from others

Don’t hesitate to ask for help. You can get help from other professionals who are already running educational sources. They can not only review your work and online content, they can give you tips on how to review it as well.

It is nice to have someone to lean on if you face difficulty or hurdle. You can build your own learning network of professionals from the circle of friends that you already have, your colleagues, your peers, or any other professional that you come across.

7.     Be ready to evolve

With the world always evolving and changing thanks to technology and the internet, you need to be ready for change and evolution as well. Every day, you learn new things – just incorporate them into your educational supplies and you will not have to worry about going “out-of-fashion”.

Your teaching materials need to be up-to-date. The tools that you use will keep on changing and you need to keep learning about new tools to make your educational supplies even better.

Final Word

We live in a tech-filled world with loads of information available to us at the click of the mouse. As an educator, you need to learn not only how to use various resources, but also how to create your own education supplies.

It may seem difficult, but it is certainly not. Go through the tips that we have mentioned above and you would be good to go!

Happy learning, folks!