Open Educational Resources: Creating, Adapting and Sharing Learning Materials

Understand what makes a resource open

Open educational resources are learning materials made available under conditions that permit specified forms of reuse. UNESCO's OER work concerns openly licensed educational materials and their contribution to knowledge access.^[1] The practical starting point is to distinguish a freely viewable webpage from a resource that can lawfully be adapted and redistributed.

Read the actual licence rather than relying on an open label. Confirm whether the resource is in the public domain or carries a recognised licence and which conditions apply. Check whether images, extracts or datasets inside it have separate rights. An educator who can download a file may still need additional permission for a planned use.

Select for educational fit and quality

Evaluate the resource against the course outcomes, learner level and local context. Check accuracy, currency, source quality and the clarity of examples. Determine whether the material assumes knowledge, infrastructure or cultural references that learners do not share. A resource can be legally reusable but educationally unsuitable.

Test a sample activity before adopting a whole textbook or course. Ask whether the instructions are clear, the answers are supportable and the assessment aligns with the intended learning. Record issues for correction and identify who will review specialised content. Open licensing should enable adaptation, not reduce academic scrutiny.

Check licence conditions before adapting

Creative Commons explains that its licences differ in conditions concerning adaptation, commercial use and share-alike requirements.^[2] Choose a resource whose terms permit the intended activity. A translation or substantial modification may raise adaptation questions, while combining several sources may require a compatibility review.

Keep a rights log containing the creator, title, source URL, licence and planned changes. Do not assume that not-for-profit status automatically resolves every licence condition. Where rights are unclear, seek permission, use a suitable alternative or obtain advice appropriate to the proposed use. Retain evidence of any additional permission.

Adapt for learners and accessibility

Begin with the educational change you need: a local example, clearer explanation, different language or more accessible format. Preserve the meaning of the source and distinguish your modifications. Review numerical examples and links after editing because a seemingly small change can make an exercise inconsistent.

Provide editable source files where practical so that future educators can improve the material. Use meaningful headings, descriptive links, text alternatives and usable document structure. Avoid embedding essential text only inside images. Invite feedback from learners and colleagues, including people using assistive technology, before publishing a major adaptation.

Illustrative example: adapting a statistics lesson

Imagine an educator adapting an openly licensed introductory lesson on averages. The original examples use unfamiliar currencies and sports statistics. After confirming permission to adapt, the educator replaces them with a clearly fictional campus transport dataset, checks every calculation and adds an explanation of when the mean can be misleading.

The adapted lesson identifies the original creator and licence, describes the changes and includes an accessible data table alongside the chart. A colleague reviews the exercise before students use it. The educator does not imply that the original author endorses the new examples or the institution publishing them.

Share with useful context

Publish a short description of the intended audience, learning outcomes, prerequisites and suggested use. Include version and review information, the licence and an attribution statement. Make it easy to identify the current file and to report an error. If assessment answers are distributed separately, explain how educators can access them under appropriate conditions.

Choose a licence for your own contribution only when you have the necessary rights. Institution employment arrangements, commissioned work and third-party content may affect that decision. A clear rights review at the beginning avoids having to withdraw a resource after others have adopted it.

Plan maintenance and responsible reuse

Assign someone to review links, examples and factual content. Use a change log for significant corrections and retain earlier versions where appropriate. Encourage adaptation while communicating known limitations. A resource should not be described as universally suitable merely because it is open.

Open education is supported by both legal permission and practical usability. Good materials are accurate, accessible, clearly licensed and easy to maintain. Treat reuse as an opportunity for thoughtful educational improvement, with respect for the creators and learners involved.