Open Educational Resources (OER) in Texas Statewide Playbook

The Open Educational Resources (OER) in Texas Statewide Playbook is a resource developed by practitioners and advocates actively involved in the labor of open education to guide new and expanding OER work at institutions of higher education. The Playbook is the result of partnerships between the Division of Digital Learning, the Institution for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education (ISKME) – creators of OER Commons and experts in open education practice and research – and faculty, librarians, staff, and administrators from institutions and systems across Texas. It aims to support institutions as they work to build capacity and drive systems change around OER. It also serves as a guiding document for institutions that have not yet engaged in OER work or taken advantage of existing programs and opportunities. The hope is that the Texas OER Playbook will serve as a companion on the journey towards OER awareness and advocacy at your institution.

Material Type: Reading, Textbook

Author: Kylah Torre

OER in Texas Statewide Playbook Planning Template

Institutional leads are invited to remix this OER Playbook Planning Template to articulate a) a plan to assess your institution's current state of OER awareness and implementation b) your goals for OER adoption and use, and their targeted success indicators; c) a plan for building and engaging your OER Coalition, Programs, and Partnerships; d) a plan for the development and roll out of campus-level policies, guidelines, and resolutions in support of OER; d) an OER outreach and advocacy plan; and e) a plan for building capacity of your OER initiative.

Material Type: Activity/Lab

Authors: Megan Simmons, Carrie Gits, Liz Tolman

OER in Texas Statewide Playbook Course

This course is intended to support leads in developing and expanding Open Educational Resource (OER) work at institutions of higher education. This asynchronous course is designed to complement the OER in Texas Statewide Playbook, which outlines the steps needed to implement the change management inherent in an institutional shift to OER. Institutional leads are invited to explore the Playbook before beginning the Course, and can complete all of the lessons in order or select which lessons are most applicable to their work. At the end of each section of the lessons are planning prompts that will assist participants in identifying and articulating their OER initiatives goals, success indicators, coalitions, programs & partnerships, and outreach communication plans. Participants have two options to use to share their plans. Option 1 is to reply to the planning prompts in the group discussions. Participants will need be logged in and join the OER Playbook Group to be able reply to the group discussions. Option 2 is to download and/or remix the OER in Texas Statewide Planning Template which guides participants through all of the planning activities and provides space to respond to the prompts in the template. Participants can download the template to use, or they can remix it to customize it for their institution and they publish it when they are ready to share. To receive a certificate of completion, please email digitallearning@highered.texas.gov and include the link to your group discussions or published template remix, or attach your template remix. 

Material Type: Full Course

BranchED Equity Rubric for OER Evaluation

The BranchED Equity Rubric for OER Evaluation is intended for use by teacher educators to evaluation instructional materials for equity.Grunzke, R.Z., Jiles, T. Mayo, S., Grotewold, K., & Ianniello, P. (2021.) Equity Rubric for OER Evaluation. Branch Alliance for Educator Diversity.

Material Type: Teaching/Learning Strategy

Author: Aubree Evans

Assessing Visual Materials for Diversity & Inclusivity

This resource is a modification of the Washington Models for the Evaluation of Bias Content in Instructional Materials (2009) that is made available through OER Commons under a public domain license. This resource attempts to both update the content with more contemporary vocabulary and also to narrow the scope to evaluating still images as they are found online. It was developed as a secondary project while working on a BranchED OER grant during summer 2020. It includes an attached rubric adapted from the Washington Model (2009).

Material Type: Assessment, Diagram/Illustration, Lesson, Teaching/Learning Strategy

Author: Kimberly Grotewold

Teachers as Content & Knowledge Creators: Understanding Creative Commons, OER, and Visual Literacy to Empower Diverse Voices

This module was created in response to an observed need by BranchED and the module authors for efforts to increase the recognition, adaptation, and use of open educational resources (OER) among pre- and in-service teachers and the faculty who work in educator preparation programs. The module's purpose is to position teacher educators, teacher candidates and in-service teachers as empowered content creators. By explicitly teaching educators about content that has been licensed for re-use and informing them about their range of options for making their own works available to others, they will gain agency and can make inclusive and equity-minded decisions about curriculum content. The module provides instructional materials, resources, and activities about copyright, fair use, public domain, OER, and visual literacy to provide users with a framework for selecting, modifying, and developing curriculum materials.

Material Type: Module, Unit of Study

Authors: Karen Kohler, Kimberly Grotewold, Lisa Kulka, Tasha Martinez

Inclusive Pedagogies

Building on the principles explored in Foundations of Intercultural Teaching, this resource introduces educators to educational strategies that can foster more inclusive, equitable, and just classroom environments.

Material Type: Textbook

Authors: Christina Page, Jennifer Hardwick, Seanna Takacs

Screening for Biased Content in Instructional Materials

The Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction is releasing this model tool for screening for biased content to Washington districts in the hope that it will provide suggestions and examples for review teams during the instructional materials selection and adoption process. 

Material Type: Teaching/Learning Strategy

Author: Barbara Soots

Introduction to Design Equity – Open Textbook

Why do affluent, liberal, and design-rich cities like Minneapolis have some of the biggest racial disparities in the country? How can designers help to create more equitable communities? Introduction to Design Equity, an open access book for students and professionals, maps design processes and products against equity research to highlight the pitfalls and potentials of design as a tool for building social justice.

Material Type: Full Course, Textbook

Author: Kristine Miller

Open Pedagogy Approaches: Faculty, Library, and Student Collaborations

The entire spirit of this book project reflects the editors’ shared belief in the power of an open and inclusive community, of learning, and of collaboration toward innovation. From the outset, the editors knew that this book would be an open project in its own right. It had to be published openly (to practice what we preach), and it would serve as an opportunity to learn the process of creating an open book from start to finish, including, for example, developing review criteria that would ensure rigor, diversity, inclusion, and ingenuity while drawing from the open community to involve both novice and expert OP practitioners both as authors and readers.

Material Type: Reading, Teaching/Learning Strategy, Textbook

Authors: Alexis Clifton, Kimberly Davies Hoffman

ISKME Accessibility Checklist

Checklist of best practices for creating accessible resources.The Accessibility Checklist is adapted from BC Open Textbook Accessibility Toolkit, CC-BY 4.0 International License.

Material Type: Teaching/Learning Strategy

Author: OER Librarian

Accessibility Toolkit – 2nd Edition – Open Textbook

The goal of this accessibility toolkit, 2nd edition, is to provide resources for each content creator, instructional designer, educational technologist, librarian, administrator, and teaching assistant to create a truly open textbook—one that is free and accessible for all students. This is a collaboration between BCcampus, Camosun College, and CAPER-BC.

Material Type: Full Course

Authors: Amanda Coolidge, Josie Gray, Sue Doner, Tara Robertson

SLIDE Practices for Creating Accessible Documents

If you are new to accessibility, this resource is meant to be your entry point into the creation of accessible content with familiar tools such as Microsoft Office and Google Docs. You will learn about five practices (captured in the mnemonic SLIDE) that can have a significant impact on the learner experience for all students, especially those who rely on assistive technology for their access to the curriculum. Each of the practices is described in more detail in a playlist of closed-captioned videos with step-by-step directions you can follow at your own pace. Pause the videos, try things out, and reach out to staff at the National AEM Center at CAST if you have any questions. While the practices are explained in the context of creating an accessible document, with one exception (Styles) the techniques apply to slide decks as well.

Material Type: Reading

Author: National Center on Accessible Educational Materials at CAST

The UDL Guidelines

The UDL Guidelines are a tool used in the implementation of Universal Design for Learning, a framework to improve and optimize teaching and learning for all people based on scientific insights into how humans learn. Learn more about the Universal Design for Learning framework from CAST. The UDL Guidelines can be used by educators, curriculum developers, researchers, parents, and anyone else who wants to implement the UDL framework in a learning environment. These guidelines offer a set of concrete suggestions that can be applied to any discipline or domain to ensure that all learners can access and participate in meaningful, challenging learning opportunities.

Material Type: Reading

Author: CAST

POUR Principles: Vetting for Accessibility

Accessibility guidelines can be confusing. The POUR principles of Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, and Robust can help. Each principle represents standards and guidelines for ensuring accessibility in digital materials and technologies. If you're acquiring or procuring materials and technologies for your classroom, district, or state, there are questions you can ask to make sure all students can use the materials selected.

Material Type: Reading

Author: CAST

Marking Open and Affordable Courses: Best Practices and Case Studies

This collaboratively authored guide helps institutions navigate the uncharted waters of tagging course material as open educational resources (OER) or under a low-cost threshold by summarizing relevant state legislation, providing tips for working with stakeholders, and analyzing technological and process considerations. The first half of the book provides high-level analysis of the technology, legislation, and cultural change needed to operationalize course markings. The second half features case studies by Alexis Clifton, Rebel Cummings-Sauls, Michael Daly, Juville Dario-Becker, Tony DeFranco, Cindy Domaika, Ann Fiddler, Andrea Gillaspy Steinhilper, Rajiv Jhangiani, Brian Lindshield, Andrew McKinney, Nathan Smith, and Heather White.

Material Type: Case Study

Authors: Abbey Elder, Jennifer Raye, Jessica Dai, John Schoppert, Joy Perrin, Kris Helge, Liz Thompson, Michelle Reed, Nicole Allen, Sarah Hare

Open Educational Resources Community of Learning

This course is a guide for creating a self-paced community of learning-style curriculum for understanding the basics of Open Educational Resources (OERs). Originally developed in Canvas, this guide includes five learning modules with reflection questions, optional live discussion topics, and quizzes.  The purpose of this OER Community of Learning curriculum is to establish a campus-wide baseline knowledge on the subject of OERs.

Material Type: Full Course

Authors: Stephanie Towery, Lisa Ancelet, Laura Waugh, Amanda N Price

OER: A Field Guide for Academic Librarians

We intend this book to act as a guide writ large for would-be champions of OER, that anyone—called to action by the example set by our chapter authors—might serve as guides themselves. The following chapters tap into the deep experience of practitioners who represent a meaningful cross section of higher education institutions in North America. It is our hope that the examples and discussions presented by our authors will facilitate connections among practitioners, foster the development of best practices for OER adoption and creation, and more importantly, lay a foundation for novel, educational excellence.

Material Type: Textbook

Authors: Andrew Wesolek, Anne Langley, Jonathan Lashley

Texas Toolkit for OER Course Markings (a living guide)

A new law requires Texas colleges and universities to share information with students about courses that use open educational resources (OER). Now students should be able to search for courses that use only OER when they are registering for courses. This toolkit is a living document that can help Texas institutions implement course marking solutions. If your state or institution is considering similar policies, this toolkit can help you, too. The toolkit became a collaborative book project in Summer 2018. The open access book, Marking Open and Affordable Courses: Best Practices and Case Studies (co-edited by Sarah Hare, Jessica Kirschner, and Michelle Reed), was published by Mavs Open Press in 2020.

Material Type: Module

Author: Michelle Reed

OERigin Stories – Pathways to the Open Movement

OERigin Stories is a series of interviews with women of color working in Open Education. I interviewed six individuals in the Open Movement (faculty, librarians, policy makers) and asked them to share their experience with Open Education. Because I believe Black, Indigenous, Asian, Hispanic, and other women from traditionally marginalized communities have rarely been given an opportunity to share their experiences in the Open Movement, OERigin Stories focuses exclusively on women of color in OER.

Material Type: Primary Source

Author: Ursula Pike