Copyright

Copyright refers to the legal right of the owner/creator/producer of an original work to have full control of the distribution, reproduction, performance, or publication of that work.

Copyright is an important right that needs to be respected. It safeguards the rights and ownership of someone else’s work, protecting the integrity and dissemination of those works. This is especially important when you are thinking about which works to include in your own course.

At first, this might seem like an overwhelming landscape when choosing resources for your course and trying to determine what is or isn’t protected under copyright laws. But just know that you are not alone when navigating these scenarios. Your primary resource at St. Clair College will be Policy 4.7 Copyright Guidelines. Here you can find guidance on different permissions including what and how much you can freely copy for purposes of your course or other academic work. You can also reach out to the Library Resouce Centre or the CAE for specific questions that you may have.

Public Domain, Open Access, and Creative Commons

While you are deciding on what resources to include in your course, you may come across these three terms as they relate to copyright. The following is a brief overview of these concepts.

Public Domain

Information in the public domain is the result of at least one of these three factors: the work was not initially eligible for copyright protection, the owner has waived the copyright restrictions to allow the work to be used freely by the public, or sufficient time has passed since the initial copyright came into effect. In Canada, the lifespan of the copyright lasts for 50 years from the first January after the death of the author, also known as the “life-plus-fifty” rule. This means that classical works such as Mozart’s symphonies, Shakespeare’s plays, and novels like Moby Dick are no longer subject to copyright law and may be used in any setting without receiving prior permissions.

Quick Tip: Use a database such as Project Gutenberg to search for works that are part of the public domain.

Open Access

Open access content typically refers to literature that is “digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions” (Suber, 2015)Suber, P. (2015). Open Access Overview.. Open Access content removes barriers such as price (e.g., subscriptions, licensing fees) and permission (e.g., typical copyright restrictions) that have been agreed to by the author of the works. It should be noted that Open Access can still be compatible with copyright; however, the main difference is that money is not paid by the reader to access the material. For example, with Open Access journals it is typically the producer/author that covers the cost, not the consumer.

For an example of Open Access, try the Directory of Open Access Journals to search for open journals and articles.

Creative Commons

Creative Commons (CC) is an internationally active non-profit organization that provides free licenses for creators to use when making their work available to the public.

A Creative Commons license is a straight-forward approach to granting copyright permissions in a standardized way. From a user perspective, a Creative Commons license on copyrighted works helps answer the simple question of, “What can I do with this work?” There are six types of Creative Commons licenses available, ranging in degree of permissiveness. For example, the most permissive Creative Commons license allows for distribution and modification in any format as long as credit is given to the creator, while the most restrictive does not allow modifications and must not be used for commercial purposes.

Creative Commons works alongside Copyright

Copyright law gives creators certain kinds of control over their creative work. If people want to use copyrighted work, they often have to ask for permission from the creator. Creative Commons works within copyright law. Creative Commons allows creators to give permission in advance. It allows creators to grant permission to everyone in the world to use their work in certain ways.

Quick Tip: Familiarize yourself with the Creative Commons icons which will give you an overview of the type of license applied.

Mmore information on the different types of Creative Commons licenses is available.

Victoria Levang

St Clair College Copyright Guidelines exist to “provide guidance to administrators, contractors, faculty, staff, students and visitors concerning the expectation of the law with respect to copying, reproducing, or distributing any copyrighted material.” (St Clair College, 2020, Para. 1).

Quick Definitions:

Canadian Modernization Act: A law that protects creative endeavors by ensuring that the creator has the sole right to authorize their publication, performance or reproduction.

Protected Works: All original works are protected by copyright whether they are written, recorded or as a digital file.

Copyright Clearance: The formal permission to copy and disseminate copyrighted materials.

Access Copyright: a Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency that collects revenues from licensed Canadian business’, governments, schools, libraries and other copyright users for copying and digitizing of works and distributes those monies to the rights holders of those works, such as publishers and authors.

Fair Dealing: Refers to a provision in the Canadian Copyright Act which allows the use of copyright-protected material without payment or permission from the copyright owner. To meet the conditions of fair dealing, the use must be for the purposes of research, private study, criticism, review, news reporting, education, satire, and/or parody. It also must be “fair” in use – not taking away potential revenue or being used in such a way that would damage the reputation of the copyright owner.

Public Domain: Refers to a work (including books, film, images, inventions etc.) that either have no copyright protection, or whose copyright protection has now expired.

For more detailed guidance concerning Copyright in an academic setting, please refer to: Copyright Literacy for Ontario College Employees from The Learning Portal

As you start thinking about what copyright in your own course looks like, chances are you will have a question or two. This chapter provides frequently asked questions related to copyright and fair dealing.

Other Helpful Resources

• Copyright Board of Canada: Frequently Asked Questions
• Copyright Matters! Some Key Questions and Answers for Teachers (4th ed.). 2016 from Council of Ministers of Education, Canada; Canadian School Boards Association; Canadian Teachers’ Federation
• The Learning Portal: Faculty Toolkit: Copyright

Brian Nairn

Generally speaking, there are no differences in how copyright law is applied to digital formats and online works compared to print (analog) works. What this means, however, is that extra care should be taken to ensure any online work you are using has been posted with permission from the owner of that work. For example, showing a YouTube video in your class is perfectly acceptable so long as the video posted is not in violation of any copyright laws (e.g., a full movie or music album recently posted may be in breach of the original copyright restrictions).

When deciding whether or not you can re-use online material, the following steps outline a systematic way of approaching a copyright situation (adapted from Our Digital WorldOur Digital World. (n.d.). Canadian Copyright FAQ.):

1. Determine the category of the content to get an initial sense of the copyright rules. For example, both a multi-media item and the individual components of that item may be protected by copyright. For more information on the different categories (e.g., original works, compilations, sound recordings, etc.), click here.
2. Determine who owns the copyright. This will inform you of the term rules and where to start the permission process, if necessary.
3. Find out how long the copyright lasts. If the term limits have expired (e.g., life-plus-fifty rule in effect), you do not need to look any further.
4. If the copyright has not expired, you need identify the owner (Step 2) and ask for permission to post/re-use their works.

Faculty often wonder if they retain copyright of the materials they create while employed at St. Clair College. There is guidance on this matter to consider from the Faculty Collective Agreement as well as from the Copyright Act.

OPSEU Academic Collective Agreement 2017 – 2021

Article 13
COPYRIGHT AND ACADEMIC FREEDOM
13.01 Except as may be otherwise mutually agreed between the employee and the
College, a work commissioned by the College, or produced pursuant to the
employee’s normal administrative or professional duties with the College, shall be
and remain the property of the College. Other works produced by an employee shall
be and remain the property of the employee. Nothing contained herein shall
adversely affect any rights an employee may have under the Copyright Act
(Canada) and in particular the subsection addressing “work made in the course of
employment”.

Copyright Act (R.S.C., 1985, c. C-42)

Ownership of copyright

13 (1) Subject to this Act, the author of a work shall be the first owner of the copyright therein.

(2) [Repealed, 2012, c. 20, s. 7]

Marginal note:Work made in the course of employment

(3) Where the author of a work was in the employment of some other person under a contract of service or apprenticeship and the work was made in the course of his employment by that person, the person by whom the author was employed shall, in the absence of any agreement to the contrary, be the first owner of the copyright, but where the work is an article or other contribution to a newspaper, magazine or similar periodical, there shall, in the absence of any agreement to the contrary, be deemed to be reserved to the author a right to restrain the publication of the work, otherwise than as part of a newspaper, magazine or similar periodical.

Open Educational Resources

Open Educational Resources (OERs) can be defined as “teaching, learning and research materials in any medium – digital or otherwise – that reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license that permits no-cost access, use, adaptation and redistribution by others with no or limited restrictions.” (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). OER can be: Open textbooks, videos, images, lesson plans, modules, course materials, games and software.

Open Educational Resources are different from Open Access journals in that the latter involves removing barriers such as price and permissions from the consumer, with ownership and copyright restrictions still in place; whereas the former typically allows for use, adaptation, and redistribution with minimal restrictions.

It should be noted that both OERs and Open Access material are different from what we’ll call “institutionally licensed” material, which includes access to materials only available through St. Clair College credentials (e.g., materials accessed from the library that require institutional log-in). These types of material are licensed/copyrighted works that the College has paid a subscription to access, and are not considered to be in the public domain.

Introduction to OER Video“Introduction to Open Educational Resources” by Abbey Elder and adapted by Josie Gray is under a CC BY 4.0 Licence. In this adapted version, two slides were replaced with Canadian-specific content and sections were removed.

The conversation around OERs is not new, and the concept of what makes a resource “open” has been previously discussed by David Wiley in his 5R framework:

• Retain: the right to make, own, and control copies of the content
  Reuse: the right to use the content in a wide range of ways (e.g., in a class, in a study group, on a website, in a video)
  Revise: the right to adapt, adjust, modify, or alter the content itself (e.g., translate the content into another language)
  Remix: the right to combine the original or revised content with other open content to create something new (e.g., incorporate the content into a mashup)
  Redistribute: the right to share copies of the original content, your revisions, or your remixes with others (e.g., give a copy of the content to a friend)

Learn more about Open Education with David Wiley in this TEDtalk

Learn more about Open Education Resources with The Learning Portal’s OER Tool Kit.

Open Educational Practices

Open Educational Practices (OEP), also called “Open Pedagogy”, captures pedagogical activities and approaches that foster a shared, collaborative approach to teaching and learning that is informed by the same spirit as found in OER (Skidmore & Provida, 2019)Skidmore & Provida, 2019, A Place for Policy: The Role of Policy in Supporting Open Educational
Resources and Practices at Ontario’s Colleges and Universities..

In other words, OEP is the use of OER to support learning, or the open sharing of teaching practices with a goal of improving education and training at the institutional, professional, and individual level. By using open pedagogy in your classroom, you are inviting your students to be part of the teaching process, participating in the co-creation of knowledge (BC Campus, n.d.).BC Campus, n.d., What is Open Pedagogy?

Open pedagogy in the classroom

There are many ways of building open pedagogy into your learning environment. You can engage your students to create a set of exercises for a specific chapter in an open textbook, or incorporate student assignments into a collection of OER which could be submitted as part of a future open textbook or used in conjunction with an existing resource. Instead of using disposable assignments that offer no value to the student or the instructors, your students, under your direction and supervision, can build a resource designed to improve the learning space for future students (BC Campus, n.d.).

While there is not yet one central location where you can search for open education resources, we present here a list of quality collections to begin your search. With the repositories listed below, the search functions available on these websites have filters that you can use to narrow your search either by topic or by the type of material you are looking for. When you find a title you are interested in, explore it further by reviewing the Table of Contents, check chapter contents by reading online, determine the reading formats available and note the CC license.

Textbooks and Learning Materials Repositories

eCampus Ontario Open Library  – eCampus Ontario hosts a library of textbooks and learning material suitable for Post Secondary use in Ontario and beyond.

B.C. Open Textbook Collection – BCcampus has an extensive collection of textbooks and more, many with Canadian content.

Open Textbook Library – The Univeristy of Minnisota hosts almost 1,000 open textbooks.

Pressbooks Directory – Over 3,000 Open Education texts created with Pressbooks.

OER Commons is a digital public library of Open Education Resources.

Merlot Collection – Thousands of discipline-specific learning materials, exercise, texts and more.

H5P – Interactive learning objects that can be embedded into a web browser or LMS

Specific Examples of Open Resources

OpenGLAM – A coordinated space to support open access to cultural heritage initiatives and projects

Open Broadcast Software (OBS) – Free and open source software for video recording and live streaming

Where can you start exploring OER right now? We recommend you begin with eCampus Ontario’s Open Library and BCcampus’ Collections:

Highlight on eCampus Ontario Open Library

eCampus Ontario Open Library  has materials discoverable by subject. This is done with a filter during your search. eCampus Ontario Open Library contains many resources created and adapted by Ontario Post Secondary faculty in programs similar to what we offer. There are new resources added on a regular basis.

Highlight on BCcampus Collections

BCcampus has recently improved its OER Library by organizing the content into collections. If you are new to OER for post-secondary, this may be a good place to start to get a flavour of what kind of resouces are available.

Sample Textbooks by subjects

Here is a list of textbooks in different subject areas collected by Georgian College in a H5P interactive object.

OER can help us address challenges in 3 areas:

• Challenges for Faculty
• Challenging Courses
• Challenges for Students

Challenges for Faculty

For faculty, some common challenges are:

• Outdated Material
• Poor Textbook Fit
• Blackboard Integration

In the case of outdated material, OER can be used to replace outdated supplemental and multimedia resources with Creative Commons licensed video, interactive exercises, simulations and more. OER resources are more likely to meet Accessibility Standards then outdate material and, because of the nature of Creative Commons licensed work, can be remixed to meet new standards.

In the case of poor textbook fit, faculty can supplement the required text with OER text chapters, modules or other resources to fill gaps. Faculty can also remix two or more OER texts to create a textbook that matches their requirements as well as package personally created materials into OER.

Because of the remix/reuse aspects of OERs, Faculty can transform resources for use on Blackboard to enhance Blended and flipped classroom approaches and online courses.

Challenging Courses

Courses challenges: High risk and high attritioin courses

High risk courses are those key courses in a program where a student failure is likely to jeopardize graduation. These are often first problem-solving courses where theory must be applied. High attrition courses can be identified in each program based on failure rates and withdrawals/drops during semester. Not only does failures and drop rates impact graduation rates, but also result in students becoming off sequence, Eg, Special Students, Part-time students.

OER can be used with high risk and high attrition courses by identifying and sharing supplemental materials for

• Areas of common confusion (student pain points)
• Demonstration of problem-solving steps, examples and case studies
• Self-study remedial resources

Challenges for Students

International students would benefit from OER textbooks and supplemental materials in:

• English and Communication courses
• Courses that highlight industry/field terminology – introductory courses
• General education courses

Domestic student groups such as mature students, low income students and first-generation students would benefit from the cost saving of 1st year introductory courses such as:

• General Science – Biology, Chemistry
• Math/Physics
• English/Communications
• General Education

Benefits of OER

For all students, OER represents:

• Cost savings
• Textbook access from Day 1
• Materials often more relevant to course and classroom expectations because of customization
• Ability to retain textbooks (and other materials) for reference
• Access to materials in a variety of formats and for use on a variety of platforms

For St. Clair College, OERs can support our efforts in a number of areas.

• Learning: OER support better LEARNING – first day access to materials, relevant to course, increase in grades, decrease in drops, takes more courses
• Teaching: greater control over text, greater engagement with materials, transfer of high impact teaching methods, knowledge and expertise in related and new areas.
• Institutional reputation: OER can help institutions raise their profile on the educational landscape
• Social factors: OER also form part of the strategy to increase access to higher education for students from traditionally disadvantaged backgrounds or communities.

What can we do now?

We can begin to use OERs in our courses with varying levels of integration:

Level 1

• Replace outdated materials
• Add supplemental or remedial materials

Level 2

• Add companion textbook, chapters and other materials
• Add OER modules
• Adopt an existing OER textbook

Level 3

• Remix and adopt OER textbook
• Remix OER and incorporate into Blackboard
• Curate OER for blended or online course
• Create New OER textbook or module

How to find and combine OER

This short video from Florida State University provides an example of one faculty member combining existing OER into her new chapter on Metabolism.

eCampus Ontario is a vital partner in the use and creation of Open Education Resources by and for post secondary faculty in Ontario. eCampusOntario is “a provincially-funded non-profit organization that leads a consortium of the province’s publicly-funded colleges, universities and indigenous institutes to develop and test online learning tools to advance the use of education technology and digital learning environments” (eCampus Ontario, 2020). eCampus Ontario provides professional development through Ontario Extend, a OER Library, and access to creation software such as Pressbooks and H5P Studio.

Resources:

The full OER Library is a collection of resources and textbooks curated and created by Ontario faculty. Part of this collection are several texts that can support faculty in the use and creation of OER for their courses. Here is a short list of some of the resources:

• OER @ Niagara College: A Quick Start Guide for Faculty
• Western University OER Faculty Toolkit
• OER Toolkit for Trades Instructors – a guide to find, use, and create OER for Trades instruction.
• OER Student Toolkit – an advocacy guide for students from BCcampus.
• OER Research Toolkit – this toolkit helps faculty research how OER impact teaching and learning.

Supports:

Ontario Extend is a set of 6 self-directed modules for Ontario post secondary faculty that will enhance your skills and understanding in Teaching and Learning as a 21st Century educator. You will receive a badge for each module you complete and when you complete the program, you will receive the Empowered Educator Badge.

Open Publishing: eCampus Ontario offers free access to Pressbooks, publishing software used to create open education texts and resources and H5P Studio, software used to create interactive learning materials.

This short module will introduce you to the options of Revising and Remixing OER. Starting with an existing OER, you make simple changes such as removing a chapter (revising) or you can combine more than one or parts of more than one OER (Remixing).

Learning Objectives:

• Adapt Open Educational Resources to suit your students and context
• Identify the features that will make Open Educational Resources customizable and accessible for other users

Creating &; Adapting Open Education Resources

Using OER can save valuable time when preparing course resources. The ability to adapt OER is one of its most promising benefits for faculty. Adapting OER for your needs can include revising, adding, or remixing content.

REVISING: Revising OER includes activities such as editing the tone or voice of the content, removing or reordering sections, and moving topics between chapters or modules. When we revise OER, we’re primarily talking about changing individual pieces of existing OER content, not adding new content.

ADDING: Once the OER has been revised, we add content. This comes in the form of including more local examples that explain concepts, adding links to supporting research or media content, and including activities that can extend the content – such as curation or constructive activities that benefit the world’s knowledge (such as improving a Wikipedia article). Whether we are adding new instructional content to the OER, or including new activities that encourage students to produce knowledge, the addition of content is the step important to any OER adoption.

REMIXING: The third of three terms, remixing, involves combining multiple OER into one to create a new whole. Remixing typically includes adding and revising content to improve cohesiveness.

Here are a few reasons why adapting OER can benefit both faculty and students:

• Adapt the material to make it more accessible for people with different disabilities
• Insert culturally specific references to make a concept easier to understand
• Translate it into another language
• Correct any errors or inaccuracies
• Update the book to add the latest research discoveries or theories
• Insert more media or links to other resources or materials
• Adapt it for a different audience/level
• Adapt it to different teaching situations.
• Localizing OER

Localizing OER

In the context of OER, localization refers to the process of taking educational resources developed for one context and adapting them for other contexts. These contexts can, for example, be geographical, pedagogical, political, or technical. The practice of localization encompasses more than the translation of materials into a local language or swapping a photo to reflect a local culture. Localization is at the heart of the OER process—it exemplifies diversity, openness, and reusability. No matter where you live or what you teach, when you modify open and freely shared materials for your own use, you are localizing the materials. There are many reasons why educators and learners localize materials. Here are a few:

• To address a particular teaching style or learning preference
• To adapt for a different grade level
• To adapt for a different discipline
• To adjust for a different learning environment
• To address diversity needs
• To address a cultural preference
• To support a specific pedagogical need
• To address either a school or a district’s standardized curriculum

What all these examples have in common is the ability to customize materials to meet unique teaching and learning needs.

Collections

Before we look at how to adapt/remix OER, it’s important to note that collections are not considered remixes. Collections of works, or compilations, compile different works together in an anthology while keeping them as distinct separate objectives. When you create a collection, for example of open journal articles, the copyrights of the individual works remain intact with the creators of those works. It is your job to make clear to reusers of the collections that the works you have aggregated may be separately licensed and to provide attribution to each of the separate work.

Remixing Open Educational Resources

REMIXING OER

A remix is taking material from different sources to create a wholly new creation. They may include a combination of text, instructional materials, assessments, images, or videos. The module you are studying right now is an example of a remix of several different sources on Open Educational Resources.

Some more examples and ideas of how to remix materials include:

• Adding text to a diagram or picture you are reusing.
• Taking several different open resources and adding your own commentary or narrative to create a new resource.
• Taking an existing textbook and remixing it or working with others to remix it. You could even make collaborative remixing a learning activity that helps demonstrate the fundamentals or a particular aspect of what you teach.
• Swapping examples in a resource for ones that are more relevant to your own context.
• Adding narrative and additional material to existing open video footage to make them more applicable to your own context and demonstrate differences in practice

Adapting Open Textbooks

As authors and institutions build and share OER, best practices in accessibility need to be part of the instructional and technical design from the start. Educators have legal and ethical responsibilities to ensure our learning resources are fully accessible to all learners, including those with disabilities.

Best practices to ensure your OER is accessible to all include:

• Make it easy to download your work in editable file formats, so others can modify and/or translate it to meet local needs and make it accessible, and
• Keep the design of your materials simple.

Following the steps outlined in  CUNY’s Accessibility Toolkit for Open Educational Resources will help make your materials accessible to those with disabilities.

Activity

1. Find an OER that would be suitable for a course you a currently teaching or previously taught. Adapt the resource by making the content more; localized, accessible, clear, accurate, or up to date.

Reflection

2. Compare the adapted resource you created to the original OER. How does the adaptation you created enhance learning for your students? How does it align with your own teaching pedagogy?

3. What considerations, constraints, and enablers exist in sharing, using and reusing the OER you created with other faculty in your department or country?

4. What kind of learning resources do you create now? Do you publish or share these resources with other people for feedback? Which of your resources do you think could benefit other educators?

Creating & Adapting Open Education Resources is a CC BY 4.0 licensed remix by Stephanie McLean presented here with minor revisions.

Please note, this document is based on a presentation of the same name. During the presentation, Faculty were invited to consider a course they were teaching in the next semester that would be a good candidate for OER. A list of questions was prepared to assist with this: Dipping your toes in OER waters questions.docx

Introduction

• Open Education Resources (OER) are learning and teaching materials released by their creators under a Creative Commons License.
• A Creative Commons license works within Copyright laws as it allows creators to give permission in advance regarding how their work can be used by others.
• Generally, Creative Commons Licenses allow you to use, retain, and share the work at no cost. Some licenses also allow you to remix and modify the work to create new OER offerings.
• OER can take many forms including textbooks, lesson plans, guides, videos, music, images, simulations, and software.
• OER can benefit faculty by giving them more control over the course learning materials and increasing retention in their class and programs by providing no-cost texts.
• OER can benefit students by reducing the cost of education, providing more relevant learning materials, and allowing immediate and even early access to learning materials that can be retained for future reference.

Many Ontario colleges and universities have adopted OER textbooks in their courses. This includes replacing a publisher’s text with an existing OER text, remixing more than one OER work into a custom text, and remixing a text with original materials such as adding Canadian context. These adoptions can be considered a deep dive into OER. These require time and effort by faculty. While there is support from the CAE and Library for these adoptions, this article/presentation is about small ways you can dip your toes in the OER waters.

There are ways you can use OER to improve the learning experiences in the courses you will be teaching next semester. We can use OER to address student learning needs such as remediation, pain points, and language learning. We can also use OER to improve course learning materials including inadequate or outdated text materials, providing more voices and perspectives, and adding interactive and media objects.

Remediation/Review Materials

Think about a course that you will be teaching next semester, what skills and knowledge do you expect students to have as they begin your course? Are there gaps in skills and knowledge the many students have that hamper their learning?

Now, we do not have time to review all the skills and knowledge that students should already have but we can provide some self-directed remediation materials using OER sources and Blackboard.

For example, if you are introducing formulas relevant to your discipline, you would expect students to have basic math skills including order of operations. You may have noticed in past courses that students who have forgotten the order of operation rules have more difficulty tackling formulas. In this example of Math, we already have a listing of OER learning materials for common first year math topics available through the college website. It would be quite easy to create a folder in Blackboard and include links to materials students can use to review math concepts that they will need in the course. You can also check out a new resource from eCampus Ontario called Games with offers lessons in common cartridge format for easy installation into Blackboard

You may want to include videos, guides or instruction sheets that review common gaps or choose a textbook that covers the concepts of a pre-requisite for students to use as a resource.

Addressing Pain Points

You can use a similar approach for the pain points in your course. These are the areas where many of your students will struggle to understand a concept or gain a skill. We call these pain points. Think about your course again, can you think of two or three areas your students will struggle?

For these pain points you can use OER to provide materials for your student to use in addition to your lecture, class activities, and common text.

These materials could be a chapter of an OER text that uses different wording and examples as the traditional text. It could be a video that explains the concept or demonstrates the skill. It could be the addition of an interactive tutorial or simulation. Again, you can use Blackboard to release these materials at the start of the week you introduce the topic.

Industry/Program Language Learning

OER can also be used for language learning. In some cases, this may be English Language learning but do not limit language needs. It can also be learning the language of your discipline. Knowing what industry specific terms sound like and mean can help many students get more out of your lectures.

You could use an OER text and copy the terms and definitions into a h5p drag-and-drop exercise to present at the beginning of the week to activate prior knowledge and review important terms students may read or hear in the unit. Example from Introduction to Business. There are flip card h5p exercises that provide terms and definitions with an audio file of how the word is pronounced.

Enhance your current textbook and learning materials

Bring your course back to mind and consider the textbooks and learning materials you currently have available. Are you dissatisfied with how the current text meets some of your learning outcomes? Would you like to bring in different voices and perspectives? Would videos, self-directed tutorials or interactive exercises enhance learning? OER may be able to help in these areas as well.

Perhaps your current textbook does not cover materials important to your course or does so in an unsatisfactory manner. You can use OER materials to address the gap by selecting a chapter of an OER text that is better suited and assign it as a required reading. You can use OER materials to provide up to date information if your text is outdated.

You could select a supplemental OER text to provide a distinct perspective or to provide some appropriate reading materials to students who are unable (or unwilling) to purchase the text. This can also be a way to test out an OER you are considering adopting in the future. As OER are typically electronic texts, it can be used with Microsoft Immersive Reader and be read aloud to students.

You can also use OER materials to add interactive and media objects. There are a variety of instructional videos available through YouTube, Vimeo, TedEd, and more. There are OER tutorials available on diverse topics include Work Integrated Learning, APA Citations, and Excel – Conditional Formating.

H5p Studio from eCampus Ontario is a platform where you can create your own interactive objects or use creative commons licensed objects created by other faculty.

The H5P interactive object will present 13 questions about a course of your choosing. You can export your answers and print when complete:

One or more interactive elements has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view them online here: https://ecampusontario.pressbooks.pub/oerguide/?p=279

Support for OER

If you want to learn more about OER, view our library subject guide on OER and the OER Toolkit available through The Learning Portal. You can contact library staff for help with finding OER in addition to doing some research on your own. While not considered OER, the library does offer videos, e-texts and more that can also be used to enhance your course.

We will add resources to the CAE webpages with more about teaching and learning with OER soon.

Web Links

An interactive H5P element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here:
https://ecampusontario.pressbooks.pub/oerguide/?p=279#h5p-12

Images can be used to convey information, context, and emotion while increasing understanding and interest. But some of our students will not be able to see our images and some of our images may be sending the wrong message. Our responsibility is to provide an alt-tag or alternative text for each image that will provide information to students about the subject and purpose of the image. While this is enough to satisfy accessibility requirements, we have an opportunity to explore inclusion and representation through the images we choose, and we can model academic integrity by providing attributions for our images.

Use these tips to choose and format your images for use in documents, emails, presentations, learning material in Blackboard and more.

Better Images Checklist

• Is your image sending the message you intend?
• Are your images the right display and file size for your media and download speed?
• Do you have the right or permission to use this image?
• Have you provided attribution?
• Do all your images have appropriate Alt-tags and longer descriptions where needed?

Before including an image, ask yourself the following questions:

• What is the purpose of the image?
• Who is in this image?
• What is happening in the image?

You may also find that these questions help you create more effective alt-tags and image descriptions for your selected images.

What is the purpose of the image?

Image purposes may include: functional images such as a printer icon to represent the print function; complex images that display data or graphs; images of text such as logos or slogans; decorative images that provide visual decoration without conveying information, and informative images such as pictures, photos and illustrations (World Wide Web Consortium, 2015). Before selecting an image, decide what purpose the image will fulfil and what message you want the image to send.

Who is in this image?

When selecting images, it is essential to choose images that not only relate to your content, but to the students interacting with your material. Students who are able to visualize themselves in representative media are more likely to relate to scenarios presented to them and more effectively retain information. It is also an opportunity to breakdown stereotypes and promote anti-racism. Before you begin selecting new images, take a look back at images you have used. Compare your images to this checklistHow to Choose Diverse and Inclusive Photos by Forum One (2021):

Do your images contain:

• People of different races/ethnicities: African/Black, Hispanic/Latinx, Asian, Middle Eastern, Caucasian/white, mixed-race, among others.
• People of different genders: Women, men, transgender, non-binary, and other genders.
• People of different ages: A range of ages from birth to old age.
• People of different abilities: People with a wide array of different physical and mental abilities or disabilities.
• People with different body types: A range of body types, sizes, and heights.

If not, you can choose now to make more diverse and inclusive choices. Making these representative image choices is part of our responsibility as educators.

What is happening in this image?

Images represent an immediate snapshot of situations and dialogues, such as communicating positions of authority. Be mindful of these considerations when choosing pictures for your content. Beyond the representation checklist above, also consider how different people in your image are depicted. Are there negative stereotypes that are re-enforced by your image?

Here are some other things to consider as you prepare and choose images:

• Figure out who the active agent is in your images — the person who is the one pictured as doing something.
• Determine who is shown in positions of authority and leadership. Is the portrayal accurate? Does it tell the whole story?
• Take a look at body language and positioning — what does this tell us about who has the power?
• If there are individuals in the image, why are they included? How are they shown to engage with each other, their environment, or with society?

A final question: Does your image need people?

If you are having trouble finding an image that depicts people in a positive light, one alternative is to consider using an image that does not include people at all. Instead, you could use an image of an object or setting that still relates to your message or content. One example of an image that could represent students without depicting people, could be a photo of a stack of books, a notebook and pen on a desk, or a chalkboard with equations written on it. These images can convey the idea of learning and studying without showing people. Another example could be an image of a computer or a tablet showing a document or a presentation, which can convey the idea of students working on a project or doing research. This can be a way to communicate the idea or concept without potentially perpetuating harmful stereotypes or biases.

Remember:

In order to support diversity and inclusion efforts through the selection of images for videos and presentations, it is important to be mindful of the representation, stereotypes, cultural sensitivity, authenticity, and potential harm of the images being used.

• Representation: you can ensure that all students see themselves represented in the materials. This can help to create a sense of belonging and inclusivity.
• Breaking stereotypes: images that challenge stereotypes can help to break down harmful biases and promote a more inclusive culture.
• Promoting understanding: showcasing images of people from different cultures, abilities, and lifestyles can help to increase understanding and empathy among students.
• Reflecting reality: reflecting the diversity of the real world can help to create a more authentic and relatable presentation.
• Avoiding harm: you can help to avoid perpetuating harmful stereotypes or causing offense to any members of your audience.

Let’s examine some images

Let’s examine two images of female pilots. Both are suitable choices depending on the intended use. The main figure is portrayed differently in each image.

Here is a more complex set of images. Who is the central figure in the first image? The person speaking or the man behind her? Does the man appear central because of his position or because he is the only one formally dressed. Is this a good image to represent diversity when the people who appear BIPOC are passive or blurred slightly out of focus? In the second image, the man is again in the center of the photo and a woman appears to be asking permission to speak.

An interactive H5P element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here:
https://ecampusontario.pressbooks.pub/oerguide/?p=243#h5p-9

Professors and teachers

Finding a diverse range of photographs may require more effort. When searching for an image of a female professor, it was challenging to find an appropriate one. A search for “Professor” on Unsplash returned 20 photos, 14 of which featured a visible person. Of these, 11 were of men and 3 of women. The images of men often depicted them in active poses, such as writing on a board. The top results displayed 3 images of men and one of a set of glasses on a desk.

 

Similarly, a search for “Teacher” on Unsplash returned 18 photos. The top four images were all of women and three of them featured school-aged children. Of the 18 photos, 12 depicted women as teachers. Without considering the potential consequences, selecting the first or second image from these results could reinforce the stereotype that all college professors are men and all teachers of school-aged children are women.

 

Where to find Better Images

We have listed a variety of General Stock Photo and Specialty Stock Photo sites below to help you find quality Creative Commons and Public Domain images that you are free to use in your learning materials. If you choose to use a search engine such as Google to find images, most have a filter or search function to help you find openly licensed images. Google provides instructions on how to access filters under Tools and Advanced Search.

Although many of these directories contain images that are licensed under Creative Commons Zero (CC0) and do not require an attribution statement, we recommend you do include one. It can be as simple as:

• Image by (name) on Unsplash
• Photo by (name) on Pixabay

General Stock Photo Directories

These images are CC0, CC BY or Public Domain