A Faculty Guide to Affordable Educational Resources

Provide your students with an alternative to expensive textbooks by following these steps:

1. Find the right OER for your subject by going to the OER by Discipline tab in this Guide. You can also take a look at the list of Open Textbook Collection to view the websites and repositories that contain OER. Try to familiarize yourself with the sources by going to their website.
2. Use the Mason Metafinder to search for the appropriate textbooks for your course.
3. Review and evaluate the textbooks based on the content and whether it suits your teaching style and your students.  See the box that outlines the evaluation criteria. You can also print and download this adoption worksheet to record your evaluation. 
4. Decide if you want to use the textbook as is, edit, or modify the contents. One of the benefits of open textbooks is the flexibility to customize them for specific course designs as much or as little as you desire. If you want to make edits or append content, make sure the licensing allows that. Different repositories will have different options for editing and publishing revised copies.
5. Distribute the OER textbooks by uploading them into Canvas. You can select the best format to distribute to your class such as online, or downloadable PDF. 

As faculty, you assess textbooks against a set of criteria that reflects your long experience and knowledge of student needs. You do the same with Open Textbooks, but there are a few additional considerations.

    * Content
          o Accuracy of material
          o Richness
          o Depth
          o Breadth
          o Timeliness
          o Cultural context
    * Presentation
          o Writing quality and tone
          o Reading level
          o Organization
          o Visual presentation
          o Hierarchy of information
          o Collateral materials

Additional Criteria

    * Accessibility online
          o Are the web pages for the textbook accessible?
    * Production options
          o Is the book available in more than one format? Printed? Bound? PDF?
    * Platform compatibility
          o Is the textbook viewable and usable on both MAC's and PC's?
    * Delivery options
          o Is a bound copy available at a very low price? Will your bookstore be able to carry the printed version?
    * Interactivity
          o If the online version includes interactive software or multi-media files, are they accessible and cross platform?
    * Consistency between online and printed presentation

          o Are the online and printed versions comparable in organization and basic appearance?

          o Will you be able to identify locations in either with minimal confusion for students?

    * Collateral material
          o If there are test banks, interactives, or other enrichment materials, are they in a format you can use?
          o Accessible?
          o Free or very inexpensive?