Open Educational Resources (OERs)

This resource was created by TRU-OL Editors to support developers of open educational resources (OERs) with tips on writing for online audiences, creating for accessibility, and integrating creative commons (CC) licensed and public domain materials.

Please also see TRU Library’s Open Education Resources (OERs).

Working with an Editor

It is best to discuss the relationship or roles of editors and developers at the start of a project. Schedule check-ins during the project to talk about the work and workflow. An editor can assist with the 4 Cs:

• Correctness
• Consistency
• Completeness
• Communication

You may want to start by considering the following questions to maximize your first meeting with your editor. If you are unsure, the editor will discuss it with you at the start of the project and in check-in meetings during the project: 

Resources for working with an editor:

• Style sheets are the most basic tool for editing. Most of the time the editor creates one and shares it with other collaborators. A style sheet is a table or document used to track spelling and terminology decisions, so it improves consistency throughout the OER. Creating a style sheet is not about asserting language rules; rather, it recognizes that consistency is helpful to readers.

Support Available

Open Learning Editors can be involved at any stage of the writing process to provide structural and stylistic editing, copy editing, or proofreading. If you have received an OER grant and would like editing support for your project, please contact Naomi Cloutier or Dani Collins (TRU Open Press) to discuss the scope of your project and identify editing support that you may require. A meeting can be scheduled to discuss scope and process, and offer tips for how to prepare your OER content to maximize the editing/formatting support from an editor.

If you haven’t already imported your content into Pressbooks, you can contact OLMedia@tru.ca for Open Learning support or Dani Collins for TRU Open Press OER project support. You may also want to see Chapter 48 Import from Word (docx) from the Pressbooks User Guide.  

Write for Online and Print Audiences

Writing for online readers is a little different than writing for readers of print documents. Best practice in writing for online readers is to use clear, relevant, inclusive, and plain language. Make each page engaging with dynamic media content (images, H5P interactive media, videos, links). Creators must consider the audience(s) needs and offer well-crafted content.

The material you write should inform, invite, announce, and celebrate learner accomplishments. Your excitement about the topic should come through in the writing and engage readers to share your enthusiasm.

Writing tips:

• Don’t bury the lede. The audience should know what the topic is from the initial sentence, title, and heading of the section. The first sentence should draw-in readers, and invite them to continue reading.
• Answer “so what?” in the first sentence and throughout the document. Each sentence should have a purpose. If it doesn’t add value to the article, cut it.
• Use clear, relevant language. It is important to explain discipline-related terms or jargon if audiences could be unfamiliar with the discourse conventions.
• Lists are fine, as long as they don’t come across as forced. Avoid clickbait or cliched hyperbole such as: You’ll never guess what …; this will blow your mind …; etc.

Consider the modalities your audiences may use to view your content. This will influence decisions regarding formatting, accessibility (e.g., alt text or transcripts of media), and perhaps search engine optimization (SEO). How your OER is formatted, how it will appear if exported, and how it will be read or viewed across modalities are important considerations. Data suggests that readers use OERs online via desktop computers, tablets, or mobile devices, but many still print PDFs to read on paper.

Resources for OER developers:

Create for Accessibility

Accessibility is about more than just technology; it needs to start with content. Writing should be clear and concise, and developers should prioritize audience needs as non-experts. Your audiences should be able to quickly and completely understand your ideas.

Techniques for clearer communication using plain language include:

• Be concise.
• Use active voice, not passive voice, if appropriate for the discipline.
• Explain jargon. Consider making a glossary for the resource.
• Use everyday words if your audiences are non-experts.
• Write-out acronyms the first time they appear in the resource.
• Include shorter sentences and paragraphs to break-up text heavy sections.
• Organize the document or video into sub-topics with relevant and informative section headings.
• Include lists, but be mindful of length so the page does not become a never-ending list.
• Use inclusive language. As a reference see Words Matter (BC Public Service Agency, 2018).
• H5P: Accessibility Guide from LibreStudio for using H5P. It’s much more robust than what H5P.org offers. https://studio.libretexts.org/help/h5p-accessibility-guide

Accessibility by Design

When creating your OER, you should take an active approach to accessibility. BCCampus and CAPER-BC (Centre for Accessible Post-secondary Education Resources) created an Accessibility Toolkit for OER developers. Below are some suggestions we have highlighted from the Toolkit, and we highly recommend reading the full text.

• Use chapters, headings, and subheadings to organize content.

• Add alternative (alt) text that clearly describe the content to functional images.

• Ensure that font sizes are not too small. Enable the option for the user to increase font size in web outputs.

• Check the contrast when using a shaded or coloured background with text.

Alt Text

Alternative (alt) text conveys meaning and provides context for images, infographics, graphs, and other media. Blind and low-vision users rely on alt text to provide meaning to digital content.

Tips for effective alt text:

• Be concise. Detail is important, but for most mediums the alt text should be the length of a tweet.
• Think about which detail is helpful for your audience and context. How you would describe a picture of books at a book sale versus content about a semester reading list? The learning context guides the details you include in alt text.
• Skip writing “image of,” “photograph of,” “picture of,” or anything similar. Screen readers tell the audience that it is an image.
• Transcribe text that is included in the image if it is central to the meaning.
• Use humour when appropriate, but be mindful of possible miscommunication.
• Use a screen reader to read your alt text out loud. This can help you hear the details from the user’s perspective.
• Be mindful of imagery. Here are some best practices for the design elements of images you post. Strive to have good colour contrast on images you post online.

Resources:

Integrate 3rd-Party Materials

Copyright is an intellectual property right that is very important to TRU faculty, staff, and students. Many of us at TRU are creators and consumers of various forms of intellectual property. Infringing copyright is a serious matter, and TRU requires that we comply with the Copyright Act of Canada and work within our TRU Fair Dealing Policy 

If your OER project will be affiliated with BC Campus, you must keep records of 3rd-party content and include the following for each item:

• Retrieved from or source URL and date (Ensure that you are sourcing materials from the original rights holder!)
• Title of content
• Descriptive location of textual content
• License type or public domain tool that permits usage (more details in the section linked below)
• Location of the content in your OER, including where it may be located in an H5P media piece

In OER projects, you may use creative commons (CC) licensed materials, openly licensed and public domain materials, or materials with specific permissions that indicate the material will be openly accessible.

Resources:

Developing OERs for BC Campus  

The BC Campus Suggestion for the Collection page describes the process for submitting your OER for consideration. We recommend reviewing the checklist of requirements and criteria before you complete the form on the webpage to start the submission process.  

Reading the BC Campus Open Education Publishing Style Guide early in the development process will help when you are ready to submit your OER to the BC Campus collection. 

A full copyedit of your work is required. This can be completed either by TRU-OL editors or someone else who is not the author. If your project is not supported by TRU-OL editing, see BC Campus’ How to Copy Edit to ensure you are on the right track. 

There are several specific guidelines, most related to accessibility, that are required if you are thinking of submitting your OER to BC Campus for their collection. These include:

• Textbook elements (if it’s a textbook you’ve developed), such as learning objectives and activities. 

• High quality 3rd-party materials that are copyright compliant, openly accessible, under an open license, and properly attributed (according to license requirements).
• An overall attribution statement is required.

Meet the BCcampus OER Accessibility Criteria [PDF]:

• Alt text and metadata for images
• Media attribution lists (specific format)
• References
• Table formatting so cells ∗work properly∗ with screen readers
• Figure captioning 
• Transcripts for all audio or video content 
• Front matter sections and acknowledgements for adapted textbooks are required by BC Campus

• Accessibility statement of any known accessibility barriers in the book or resource. E.g., “Equations in this textbook are included as images with alternative text to describe them, so they may not be as accessible to people using screen readers. We hope to address this soon by writing the equations in LaTeX.”  “The videos do not have edited transcripts.”

See the Preferred Criteria from BC Campus, as well, before you submit your OER for BC Campus’ consideration for their collection. Here are some helpful hints provided by BC Campus: 

• Book Information: Fill out the book information page (found in the left hand navigation panel). 
• Chapter URLs: Don’t include numbering in the chapter urls. This is helpful for updating your OER and for others who wish to create an adaptation of your work.  
• Clark Theme: If you are submitting your OER textbook to BC Campus, change the book’s theme to Clark. This may mean that some CSS may have to be adjusted. 
• Image descriptions: Describe the images and figures in the surrounding content, and or use alt text. This is easier to do as you go – not all at the end! 
• Image and Figure attributions: Image attributions need to be moved out of captions to the end of the chapter section (Media Attributions list) after the References list. You may also want to include an in-text citation style in the caption. 
• Images used with permission: Ask the creator to apply a CC license to their work, but if they refuse, ensure you have included “All rights reserved.” and “Used with permission.” in the media attribution and caption. 
• Links: Ensure links use descriptive link text. 
• Tables: Make tables accessible by including column and row headings and the table title in the Table Caption field (helpful for people with screen readers – accessibility). 
• Webbook format: For chapters to appear on the Webbook, you must have the “show title” option checked on the organize page. 

Developing OERs for TRU

If you are a grant recipient of TRU funding that is not affiliated with BC Campus, you may be less restricted by BC Campus style and submission guidelines. As we are just starting to create OER courses at TRU for our own collection, we haven’t yet created our own guidelines. We will continue to consider accessibility and copyright compliance, and many BC Campus guides and other resources will still be helpful.