Implementing OER

There are three ways to implement Open Educational Resources:

• Adopt what is already available (as-is).
• Adapt what is available to fit your own needs (customize).
• Create your own!

Why adaptation or adoption?

Many educators feel driven to create the “perfect” resources for their classes and it can be difficult put aside that perfection and use other people’s creations. However, the number, variety, and quality of OER available freely is such that any educator should be able to find resources they can readily (with or without adaptations) put to use within their classrooms. And adaptation or adoption of OER will almost always be more efficient than creating teaching materials from scratch.

Jan M. Pawlowski addressed one of the reasons behind this reluctance in his article, Emotional Ownership as the Key to OER Adoption.