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Michigan State University

Open Educational Resources (OER) Program

This guide provides an introduction to open educational resources (OER), where to find them, and how to use materials for teaching and learning.

Introduction

This page provides resources related to the OER Award Training that took place on January 21, 2025.

Here are the slides from the session.

Contents of this page:

Program Expectations

All awardees have committed to the following:

  • Participation in the January 2025 training session
  • Good faith efforts toward completing the plan in alignment with the OER Project Timeline
  • With support from the OER Team, implementation of accessibility best-practices
  • Inclusion only of material that has been created by the OER authors themselves or has been openly licensed to allow for revision/derivatives
  • Release of the OER with a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license
  • Submission of a signed agreement allowing MSU Libraries to publish and distribute the content under that license
  • Successful implementation of the proposed plan and accomplishment of student cost-saving goals and/or other student success outcomes
  • Submission of mid-project progress report, final report, and program evaluation
  • Regular review, correction, and updating of content in the OER, to be carried out annually during the authors’ active affiliation with MSU, and permission for MSU Libraries to carry out this review and updating thereafter
  • Notification to the OER Team when any significant changes or additions have been made to the book after publication
  • Dissemination of outcomes of this project at a local, state, or national conference or professional development event
  • Completion of a faculty survey and assistance in administering a student survey
  • Participation in the collection of de-identified student impact data

If you have any questions about these expectations, please contact Linda Miles, OER Librarian

Project Timeline

For projects to be piloted in the classroom in Fall 2025

  • Required kickoff/training for awardees - January 21, 2025
  • Draft of 1st 2 chapters due - February 14, 2025
  • Initial Review Meetings with OER Team - February 14 - March 14, 2025
  • Progress report due - May 30, 2025
  • Project fully mounted in the Pressbooks platform and ready for review - August 1, 2025 (with some flexibility)
  • Final report and program evaluation survey - December 12, 2025

For projects to be piloted in the classroom in Spring 2026

  • Required kickoff/training for awardees - January 21, 2025
  • Draft of 1st 2 chapters due - July 1, 2025
  • Initial Review Meetings with OER Team - July 1 - August 1, 2025
  • Progress report due - September 30, 2025
  • Project fully mounted in the Pressbooks platform and ready for review - November 26, 2025 (with some flexibility)
  • Final report and program evaluation survey - May 1, 2026

Open Licensing & Citation

Main Takeaways from the January 21 Training (review)

Takeaway #1: Limits on content

  • Everything: text, images, media, etc.
  • Either created by you
  • Or openly licensed (w/ adaptation allowed)
  • –no CC “ND” (no derivative) licenses

Takeaway #2: Citation requirements

  • Everything: text, images, media, etc.
  • All citations require a “licensing statement”
  • You will need to research/track licenses
  • Most citations require author/creator name
  • Titles are nice too

Takeaway #3: Use the media library

  • Import using the media library
  • Instead of simply pasting images, etc.

Takeaway #4: Use the YouTube “embed” feature

  • Don’t download from YouTube
  • Embedding complies with the YouTube license

Helpful Links

Places to find openly licensed images

Understanding Creative Commons licenses

Screenshots: Adding Metadata (citations) to H5P

  1. Click on "H5P Content" in the left column of your edit screen, then either use the "All H5P Content" (for preexisting H5P) or "Add New"

in Pressbooks shows how to find existing H5P or add new H5P

  1. Click on the "Metadata" arrow to open the metadata form

click on the metadata arrow to open metadata form

  1. Fill out the "Title" field
  2. Select the CC BY-NC license
  3. Add the Author's name and click on "Save author"
  4. Click on "Save metadata"

the metadata form, highlighting the title field, the license drop-down menu, the author's name field and save author button and hte save metadata button

  1. On the far right side of your screen, make sure the "Display Copyright button" checkbox is selected and click on the "Create/Save" button

highlights the display copyright button checkbox and the create/save button

  1. Now when your readers see the H5P in your book they will see the "Rights of use" option that they can click on for citation and licensing information

Highlights the Rights of use option at the bottom of the H5P frame

 

For more help with open licensing & citation reach out to Linda Miles, OER Librarian

Accessibility

Editorial & Formatting

Publishing Services

OER Cover Design Process

  • Consider your vision for how your book cover will represent your book.
  • Choose 1 - 10 images from an openly licensed images repository and send the links to the images and any design concepts or ideas to Julie Taylor (taylorjk@msu.edu).
  • Send Julie the full title, subtitle, and contributor names as they should appear on the cover.
  • Send Julie a brief (1 paragraph) description of your book to use on the back cover. 
  • Julie will provide several draft cover designs to choose from or modify.

Print-on-Demand Available

  • The final OER textbook will be exported in multiple formats including a printable PDF.
  • This PDF can be printed in color or black & white as a paperback book through Publishing Services.
  • Print-on-demand cost estimates are available on the Publishing Services website.

Web vs Print

  • Tables with many columns or wide columns may fit on a monitor but may not fit on a printed page.
  • Export and review your book as a PDF to see how it will appear when printed.
  • Page size, margins, and font size can be changed in the appearance menu > theme options > PDF options.

Additional Key Information

#1: Styling

  • We can help you explore book templates
  • Explore and make use of PB’s textbox formats

#2: Worksheets

  • Pdf worksheets are fine
  • Make the name of the worksheet a clickable link (e.g.: Shakespeare’s Comedies)
  • Include a citation with author name (this may be you) and licensing statement

#3: Foreign languages

  • If your book includes foreign languages, particularly non-Latin script, we will work with you to add coding to make this appear correctly

#4: Math & science

  • If your book includes mathematical or scientific formulas, we can help you display those correctly

#5: Peer review

  • Single-blind peer-review process
  • We ask you for reviewer recommendations
  • We may also invite reviews from other experts
  • Just FYI, these are the questions we ask reviewers

#6: Payment

  • The stipend will be released at the end of the publishing process (note that the review process typically extends into the pilot semester)
  • The stipend is paid out within the payroll system to MSU affiliates, and deductions for income tax apply

If you have any questions reach out to Linda Miles, OER Librarian

Using Pressbooks

Getting Help