Provide your students an alternative to expensive textbooks by following these steps:
Questions to ask about the OER you are thinking of using. This rubric is developed by Sarah Morehouse with help from Mark McBride, Kathleen Stone, and Beth Burns is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
OER Evaluation Checklist from University of Illinois
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?
* Platform compatibility
o Is the textbook viewable and usable on MAC's, PC's, or smartphones?
* Delivery options
o Is a bound copy available at a low price? Can your bookstore carry the printed version?
* Interactivity
o Are interactives 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 or other enrichment materials, are they in a format you can use?
o Accessible?
o Free or very inexpensive?