Skip to Main Content

Evaluate OER

Introduction

Like other resources used in your teaching, OER will need to be evaluated to ensure they are suitable to use. Aspects you may need to consider could include:

  • Suitability: Does it align with course or program learning outcomes?
  • Licensing: Is the OER licensed for educational reuse, revision, remix or redistribution?
  • Quality: Who is the creator? Are they reputable? Is the content accurate and up-to-date?
  • Ease of use: Is the OER easy to use, accessible and available in alternative formats to assist a wide variety of learning preferences?

Evaluating OER

You will need to use the same criteria you use to evaluate all your course materials to ensure the suitability of OER for use in your courses. There are also a few additional criteria to think about when selecting OER. 3 things you may want to consider are: 

  • Quality
  • Accessibility
  • Copyright

Click on each of the criteria in the image below for more information.

Adapted from "Open Education Resources - Evaluate OERs" from NSU Florida.

Evaluate OER for equity

The following resources will help you evaluate OER for inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility.

OER checklist

Use this simple checklist, produced by The University of Queensland Library, to quickly decide whether the OER is appropriate for your purposes. OERs will need to be referenced like any other source of information.

Checklist Yes No

Licensed for open use

 

 

CC license that allows for educational reuse

 

 

CC license allows for modification and adaption

 

 

Public domain

 

 

Suitability

 

 

Aligned with course objectives

 

 

Appropriately current

 

 

Suitable for your students' level

 

 

Quality

 

 

Creator is identified

 

 

Creator is reputable

 

 

Accurate content

 

 

Audio, video, images are of high quality

 

 

Ease of use

 

 

Clear and easy to understand

 

 

Interface easy to navigate

 

 

Accessibility

 

 

Audio and video resources have a transcript or subtitles

 

 

Alternative formats are available if required (as Word document or PDF)

   

 The Open educational resources (OER) guide by the University of Queensland Library is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.