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3.3: Adapting and Adopting an OER

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    Why Adapt OER?

    There are several reasons you may want to adapt or curate a resource. Perhaps existing OER do not have all the content you would like to include in your course. Or there may not be any cohesive OER for your course but there may be available materials you can pick and choose from to build the perfect resource for your class.

    Below are further reasons that adaptation is a good option:

    • Save time and work by mixing OERs with your own material to make something richer.
    • Make the material more accessible.
    • Insert culturally specific references to make a concept easier to understand.
    • Translate it into another language.
    • Correct errors or inaccuracies.
    • Keep the OER up to date by adding the latest discoveries or theories.
    • Insert media or links to other resources.
    • Adapt it for a different audience or educational level.
    • Change the format of the OER.

    Things to Consider Before Adapting or Modifying

    There are several factors to consider when adapting an OER. The more you want to change, expand, or edit an OER, the more time you will need. Below are some important considerations.

    • How much content do you wish to change? Do you want to remove chapters, or rewrite entire chapters of content?
    • What technical format is the original in? A Word document is much easier to modify than a PDF document.
    • What type of license is the content released under? Does it have a Creative Commons license that allows for modification or adaptation of the content?
    • How comfortable are you with using technology and creating content?
    • Students prefer format flexibility with their textbooks. You may need to find additional conversion tools to convert your final textbook to a different format.
    • If you wish to edit or create graphics, images, charts, and/or multimedia content, you will need to use additional, specialized tools to create these.
    • Keep it simple. Think of the textbook as a living resource that you can improve incrementally over time.

    Adaptations / Remixes vs. Collections

    Because of the ND license restriction it is important to know the difference between adapting something and collecting something.

    An adaptation is a work based on one or more preexisting works. What constitutes an adaptation depends on applicable law, however translating a work from one language to another or creating a film version of a novel are generally considered adaptations.

    In contrast to an adaptation or remix, a collection involves the assembly of separate and independent creative works into a collective whole. A collection is not an adaptation. You can think of the difference adaptations and collections to smoothies and a fruit basket, respectively.

    Adaptations / Remixes

    Like a smoothie, an adaptation/ remix mixes material from different sources to create a wholly new creation. In a “smoothie” or adaptation / remix, you often cannot tell where one open work ends and another one begins. When licensing your final work, you must select a license that is compatible with all the individual works. Be sure to also provide attribution to the individual parts that went into making the adaptation.

    CC Smoothie, described in the text that follows

    In the smoothie shown in the image, the individual works have the licenses: CC BY-NC, CC BY-NC-SA, CC BY, and public domain. The final product must have a license of CC BY-NC-SA. We will discuss why this must be the final license later in the module.

    An example of an education adaptation would be an open textbook chapter that weaves together multiple open educational resources in such a way where the reader can’t tell which resource was used on which page. That said, the endnotes of the book chapter should still provide attribution to all of the sources that were remixed in the chapter.

    Collections

    Compare the smoothie, where fruits are blended together, with a basket of fruit. The fruit basket is a collection because each fruit is clearly distinguishable from the others. Each separate item in the collection can have a different license.

    In this fruit smoothie example, the collection has a license of CC BY. It contains works with the licenses: CC BY-NC, CC BY-NC-SA, CC BY-SA, and CC BY-NC-ND.

    Unlike a remix, a collection can have multiple works with licenses incompatible with each other, because the copyrights in the individual works remain intact with the creators of those works. And, unlike remixes, you can include licenses with the ND element because that work is not being adapted, it is being used as-is. It is your job to make clear to reusers of the collection that the works you have aggregated may be separately licensed, and to provide attribution information about those works. This gives the public the information they need to understand who created what and which license terms apply to specific content.

    When you combine material into a collection, you may have a separate copyright of your own that you may license. However, your copyright only extends to the new contributions you made to the work. In a collection, that is the selection and arrangement of the various works in the collection, and not the individual works themselves. For example, you can select and arrange preexisting poems published by others into an anthology, write an introduction, and design a cover for the collection, but your copyright and the only copyright you can license extends to your arrangement of the poems (not the poems themselves), and your original introduction and cover. The poems are not yours to license.

    Conclusion

    For too long, our educational systems have operated with a fundamental disconnect between practices left over from the analog world, and the vast potential of technology and the Internet to support more affordable, effective teaching and learning. The movement for Open Education seeks to close this gap.

    Textbook costs should not be a barrier to education. The price of textbooks has skyrocketedLinks to an external site. more than three times the rate of inflation for decades. College students face steep price tags that can top $200 per book, and K-12 schools use books many years out of date because they are too expensive to replace. Using OER solves this problem because the material is free online, affordable in print, and can be saved forever. Resources that would otherwise go to purchasing textbooks can be redirected toward technology, improving instruction, or reducing debt.

    Students learn more when they have access to quality materials. The rapidly rising cost of textbooks in higher education has left many students without access to the materials they need to succeed. Studies showLinks to an external site. that 93% of students who use OER do as well or better than those using traditional materials, since they have easy access to the content starting day one of the course.

    Technology holds boundless potential to improve teaching and learning. Open Education ensures that teachers, learners and institutions can fully explore this potential. Imagine an American History textbook with the latest news from the 2016 election, or a math tutorial that incorporates local landmarks into word problems. Imagine a lecture attended by hundreds of thousands of people across the globe, or a peer-to-peer exchange between Canadian students learning Mandarin with Chinese students learning English. All of this and more is possible when the pathways for technology in education are fully open.

    Better education means a better future. Education is the key to advancing society’s greatest goals, from a building a strong economy to leading healthy lives. By increasing access to education and creating a platform for more effective teaching and learning, Open Education benefits us all.

    Attributions

    3.3: Adapting and Adopting an OER is shared under a CC BY license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by LibreTexts.

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