Faculty can evaluate open educational resources using many of the same methods they use to review textbooks and other materials for their courses. They can ask questions such as:
Does an OER cover the content you'd like your students to learn in the course?
How accessible is the OER? Does it challenge your students, or is it TOO challenging for them?
To what extent can you modify the OER? Can you combine it with another OER?
What kind of license governs the OER?
What kind of attribution for the OER do you have to provide?
Does the OER come in a format students can access easily? Can they print it at a low cost? Does it require special software?
Achieve.org has developed eight OER rubrics as well as an evaluation tool to help users determine the quality of an OER. A summary of this PDF is also available.
This document, developed by Sarah Morehouse with help from Mark McBride, Kathleen Stone, and Beth Burns, includes questions to ask about the OER you are thinking of using. This rubric is is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
