LibGuides: Open Educational Resources: Free OER Publication Support

OER Publishing Decision Tree

OER Creation Decision Tree

A tool to help determine whether or not to create a new OER resource.

FIG. 1 Creating OER – Decision Tree
Creating OER – Decision Tree by E. Fields licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

OER Publication Resources

Creative Commons Licenses
Want to publish your work openly but have no idea how to? Creative Commons provides different licenses depending on how you want to share your work.

Types of Open Licenses

Public Domain

CC0 (aka CC Zero) is a public dedication tool, which enables creators to give up their copyright and put their works into the worldwide public domain. CC0 enables reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, with no conditions.

Creative Commons Licenses

Creative Commons licenses give everyone from individual creators to large institutions a standardized way to grant the public permission to use their creative work under copyright law. From the reuser’s perspective, the presence of a Creative Commons license on a copyrighted work answers the question, What can I do with this work?

Symbol Meanings:

BY: credit must be given to the creator.

SA: Adaptations must be shared under the same terms.

NC: Only noncommercial uses of the work are permitted.

ND: No derivatives or adaptations of the work are permitted.

CC BY Creative Commons Attribution

BY: credit must be given to the creator.

CC BY-SA Attribution-ShareAlike

This license enables reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use. If you remix, adapt, or build upon the material, you must license the modified material under identical terms. CC BY-SA includes the following elements:

BY: credit must be given to the creator.
SA: Adaptations must be shared under the same terms.

CC BY-NC Attribution-Noncommercial

BY: credit must be given to the creator.
NC: Only noncommercial uses of the work are permitted.

CC BY-NC-SA Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike

This license enables reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. If you remix, adapt, or build upon the material, you must license the modified material under identical terms. CC BY-NC-SA includes the following elements:

BY: credit must be given to the creator.
NC: Only noncommercial uses of the work are permitted.
SA: Adaptations must be shared under the same terms.

CC By-ND Attribution-NoDerivatives

This license enables reusers to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in unadapted form only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use. CC BY-ND includes the following elements:

BY: credit must be given to the creator.
ND: No derivatives or adaptations of the work are permitted.

CC BY-NC-ND Attribution-Noncommercial-NoDerivatives

This license enables reusers to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in unadapted form only, for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. CC BY-NC-ND includes the following elements:

BY: credit must be given to the creator.
NC: Only noncommercial uses of the work are permitted.
ND: No derivatives or adaptations of the work are permitted.

How to Give Attribution to CC Licensed Work

Attribution is giving credit to the original creator. All of the above information about CC licenses is from the CC website. I provided attribution below as an example. The attribution should include the following four components: title, author, source, and license.

Title by Creator (insert license)

Graphics Attribution

Creative Commons Graphics by Creative Commons (Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license)

Description Attribution

About CC Licenses by Creative Commons (Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license)

Authoring Open Textbooks
This guide is for faculty authors, librarians, project managers and others who are involved in the production of open textbooks in higher education and K-12. Content includes a checklist for getting started, publishing program case studies, textbook organization and elements, writing resources and an overview of useful tools.
Self Publishing Guide
The BCcampus Open Education Self-Publishing Guide is a reference for individuals or groups wanting to write and self-publish an open textbook. This guide provides details on the preparation, planning, writing, publication, and maintenance of an open textbook.
Open Educational Resources Collective Publishing Workflow
A resource that walks users through how to develop your book structure.
OER Starter Kit
This starter kit has been created to provide instructors with an introduction to the use and creation of open educational resources (OER). The text is broken into five sections: Getting Started, Copyright, Finding OER, Teaching with OER, and Creating OER. Although some chapters contain more advanced content, the starter kit is primarily intended for users who are entirely new to Open Education. [Version 1.1. Revised September 5th, 2019.]
A Guide to Making Open Textbook with Students
A handbook for faculty interested in practicing open pedagogy by involving students in the making of open textbooks, ancillary materials, or other Open Educational Resources. This is a first edition, compiled by Rebus Community, and we welcome feedback and ideas to expand the text.

MERLOT Peer Review Information & Process
MERLOT is a repository out of California. MERLOT provides free peer-review to openly licensed content. They have a rigorous peer-review process and expectations of their reviewers. This website provides in-depth information about their peer-review process. There is not a clear timeline of the review process, but the submitting author can request peer review.

OER Commons
OER commons is a community of network hubs that publish OER materials. They also have OpenAuthor which is a free OER creation and publishing tool
LibreTexts
LibreTexts is a free multidisciplinary repository that focuses on STEM disciplines. They have a free OER creator and publication platform.
GitBook
GitBook has an open source document publishing site. To have a branded site, you can opt to pay or fund your project by having ads on your site.
Story Map
Storymap allows you to tell a story through highlighting locations of the story on a map. This is a free resource.
PreTeXt
PreTeXt is an online authoring and publishing system that focuses on STEM disciplines.
Bookdown
Open Source R Package where you can write books and long-form articles.
Scalar
Scalar is a free, open source authoring and publishing platform that’s designed to make it easy for authors to write long-form, born-digital scholarship online. Scalar enables users to assemble media from multiple sources and juxtapose them with their own writing in a variety of ways, with minimal technical expertise required.
Jupyter
Jupyter is a free open-source web interactive notebook where users can create and share live code, visualizations, text, and equations. They support over 40 programming languages including R, Python, and Scala.

Accessibility Toolkit- 2nd Edition
The goal of the 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.
Accessibility Self-Paced Training
Accessibility and OER
UBC OER Accessibility Toolkit
Accessible and Inclusive Design Toolkit for OER Creation