CONVERT A COURSE TO OER

Teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use and re-purposing by others.

A course which does not require students to purchase a textbook, pay for inclusive access, or pay for online subscriptions. All learning materials in the course are free.

Here are a few of our favorite search options for OER learning materials:

Textbooks & Learning Materials

• LibreTexts
• Merlot
• OER Commons
• OpenStax
• Open Textbook Library
• Pressbooks Directory
• SUNY OASIS

Multimedia

• Flickr: Creative Commons
• Open Verse
• Pixabay
• Unsplash

Open Museum Digital Collections

• Library of Congress
• Smithsonian Open Access

Yes. If you are a Utah Tech faculty member, OER Librarian, Emma Lanners will support your OER course conversion by searching, finding, and providing you a list of learning materials to choose from as you work to redesign your course.

Book Appointment

Creative Commons licensing grants the public permission to use creative work in a variety of ways.

The CC BY license, for example, enables users to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, so long as attribution is given to the creator.

CC licenses and allowable uses

The following are the courses the Title III Grant is targeting for OER course conversions for the grant years 2023 through 2028. If you teach one of these courses, you may qualify for funding under Title III to convert your course to OER. Contact OER Librarian, Emma Lanners at Emma.Lanners@utahtech.edu for more information.
English

• ENGL 1010
• ENGL 1010D
• ENGL 2010

Mathematics

• MATH 1010
• MATH 1030
• MATH 1040
• MATH 1050

American Institutions

• HIST 1700
• POLS 1100

Life Sciences

• BIOL 1010
• BIOL 1200
• BIOL 1610
• BIOL 2320
• BIOL 2420
• FSHD 1020

Physical Sciences

• PHYS 1010
• ENVS 1010
• GEO 1010
• CHEM 1110
• CHEM 1210

Social & Behavioral Sciences

• FIN 1750
• COMM 2110
• SOC 1010

Fine Arts

• MUSC 1010

Literature/Humanities

• PHIL 1000
• PHIL 1120
• COMM 1020

If your course is not on this list, you may still qualify for funding for an OER course conversion. Please contact OER Librarian, Emma Lanners at Emma.Lanners@utahtech.edu for more information.

Pressbooks is one option we have for you to organize your materials. For a preview of what a Pressbooks book looks like, please go to https://pressbooks.directory/ and click on any book to see the basic format. These are books created by other Pressbooks users that have been made public. When you create a book in Pressbooks, you will have the option to keep it private or make it public.

If you would like to organize your learning materials in Pressbooks, please go to https://uen.pressbooks.pub/. Click ‘Sign-in,’ type in your D-number@utahtech.edu and your UT password. Click ‘Institutional Login,’ search for ‘Utah Tech University’, and click on it.

After Logging in, click ‘Create a New Book’ from the tool bar at the top of the page. Add the title of your book in both the ‘Site Name’ and ‘Book Title’ fields. Adjust your privacy settings, choosing whether or not you’d like your text visible to the public. Begin writing or importing content for your book. You can access your new book anytime by logging in to Pressbooks and clicking on ‘My Books’ from the tool bar at the top of the page.

To learn more about creating a book in Pressbooks, please go to the Pressbooks User Guide.

Yes. After creating your Pressbooks book, should you wish to import it into Canvas, go to your dashboard and click ‘Export’, then check the box labeled ‘Common Cartridge with LTI links (Canvas).’ Click ‘Export Your Book.’

Open Canvas. Click ‘Course.’ Click ‘Settings.’ Select ‘Import Course Content.’ On the content type dropdown menu, select ‘Common Cartridge 1.x package.’ Go to, ‘Downloaded Cartridge,’ and click ‘Open.’ Choose ‘All Content’ or select ‘Specific Content.’ Click ‘Import.’

We are archiving OER courses in Commons. If you would like to share your OER course, contact OER Librarian, Emma Lanners at Emma.Lanners@utahtech.edu. A staff member will create a course shell in our OER archive in Commons for you to import your materials. Your course will be visible to other Utah Tech faculty members to view and use.

There are many places to open your materials to the world. We recommend using Merlot, but your specific situation might require a different repository. Contact Emma Lanners for more information.