Publishing open educational resources
Open educational resources (OERs) are resources that are available openly and free of charge. They give lecturers and education support officers the opportunity to use and build upon each other’s work.
Utrecht University Library supports lecturers who want to publish self-created open educational resources. To this end, Utrecht University has a license on edusources, SURF’s national platform offering open educational resources to educational institutions.
Edusources and SURFsharekit
Publishing educational resources in edusources is done via the SURFsharekit, an online depot, also containing educational resources. After material has been uploaded in the SURFsharekit, it can be shared through edusources. SURF offers user manuals on how to upload and publish educational resources.
Please note, as a UU lecturer you log in to the SURFsharekit. The materials from the SURFsharekit are shared via edusources. You will not be able to log in to edusources.
Preconditions
To safeguard the quality of the shared educational resources the library has laid down four preconditions. The educational resources:
- are published under an open license;
- observe the copyright of others;
- are provided with correctly filled in metadata fields (in the SURFsharekit);
- do not contain (sensitive) personal details.
More guidelines regarding didactics and form can be found in the Quality Model Open Educational Resources.
The library offers support on these topics. Would you like our advice on the options of open educational resources or do you encounter some issues? Please contact the library.
Publishing open textbooks
An open textbook allows you to create your own book that seamlessly links up with your teaching. Open textbooks are continuously adaptable, which keeps the content of the book up to date. Multimedia or interactive elements bring the text to life for readers. Besides writing your own book, you can also adapt existing books to better suit your teaching (provided the book's licence allows it). Open textbooks are also available to students free of charge.
The University Library is currently exploring the possibilities of supporting open textbooks with Pressbooks. If you would like to know more about this, please contact us.
Contact
Would you like to discuss your plans or the possibilities regarding an open textbook? Or have you already written an open textbook and would you like to showcase it? Contact the library.