4 Environmental Scan
The next step in your OER journey is to begin to translate your vision into an action plan — a roadmap for part or all of your project!
This process will begin with an environmental scan to help you find existing resources you can adopt, recognize opportunities to adapt existing content, and/or identify gaps that will require the creation of new open content. Since unstructured searching can often lead you down a rabbit hole, we are going to embark on a focused exploration process of existing resources with efficient and effective search and evaluation strategies.
However, despite being a focused and structured process, there will be plenty of opportunities to be inspired! We encourage you to keep an open mind as you journey, to embrace new ideas and approaches, and to continue to think about the learners who will eventually use these OERs.
The environmental scan process is a time-consuming one. So, this part of the OER Incubator will span weeks 2 and 3.
Over the next two weeks, you will
- review effective OER search strategies
- explore multiple OER repositories for discipline-specific resources
- evaluate OERs using prioritized criteria
- begin to create an OER plan
- contribute to our OER Incubator sharing space
Creative Commons licensing
Creative Commons Licences are the open licences that you are most likely to encounter in your OER quest. Before you begin searching, take some time to complete our Creative Commons quick-start guide as an introduction or review!
Basic search strategies
Before we jump right into searching for OERs and open content, you might want to take a few minutes to review some basic search strategies!
We have provided you with an optional Savvy Searching chapter. Even if all you do is watch the 3 minute video at the bottom of the Savvy Searching page, it will make you a better content explorer!
Finding & evaluating OER
The bulk of the work for this week and next will revolve around finding and evaluating OERs, and strategies to help you do both.
There is no “one-stop-shop” for OERs, so you need to look in multiple places. The good news is, there are several curated OER repositories that have organized content for you to search. Many of these resources have also been peer reviewed and even rated by other users. You’ll find a list of open repositories in Your OER Quest activity.
Finding OERs
Here are some handy tips to keep in mind as you begin searching for OERs
- Start with open repositories, “shop around,” and keep coming back! Make sure to access different repositories, and continue checking them because they are always growing and being updated.
- Use Boolean operators. Not sure what those are? Check out the Savvy Searching module!
- Use filters within the repositories to find more relevant results (e.g. filter the results by license, type of material, etc.)
- Switch up your search terms! Come up with a list of keywords and try them out
- Look for smaller pieces of content as opposed to complete r