6 III C. Adapting OER: Practice in Action
Before adapting OER materials, it’s important to establish a road map that will guide the timeline of the work, layout and style of the work, and desired changes. Whether your adaptation is small or large, this step is important to ensure a cohesive and consistent final product. Below are tips to help you with style and consistency.
Collections vs. Adaptations
In an adaptation / remix, intellectual property is synthesized into a new text, where one often cannot tell where one open work ends and another one begins. Creators must provide attribution to the individual parts that went into making the adaptation.
Creating an OER Collection
An OER collection is assembled from separate and independent creative works and combined into a collective whole. A collection is not an adaptation.
You might store your clothes adjacent in your closet, but they are distinct from one other, a collection of your style. This is kind of like an OER collection, where texts are placed side-by-side, also like an anthology. When creating an OER collection, one must provide attribution and licensing information about individual works. Kind of like clothing labeled with tags.
When you adapt / remix sections of others’ intellectual property and synthesize into a new text, it’s kind of like making a quilt. For example, this quilt is made from different pieces of fabric, and it’s hard to tell what form the pieces took before being repurposed.
Attributing Adaptations
Like a quilt, when remixing and synthesizing CC-licensed work, it can be hard to tell where one work ends and another begins. However, creators must provide attribution to the individual parts, unlike a quilt that become something completely new.
Adapting Whole Books
If you are adapting a longer work, like an entire textbook, one of the challenges is to create a final product that is consistent throughout. It is highly recommended that you assess the original textbook before you begin. Once this has been done, attempt to match all revised and new text, resources, layout and citation styles to that of the original work.
Assess language and tone
Begin by assessing the style and tone of the original text. Here are some elements to be aware of:
- Is the tone of the language formal, or friendly and conversational? How would you describe the voice?
- How does the author address the reader? From a distance? Or does the author include the reader with phrases such as “we learn” and “you will see”?
- How is punctuation used? For example, are serial commas used, i.e. a comma before “and” when listing three or more things: “the cat, the dog, and the horse” OR “the cat, the dog and the horse”.
- How long is the typical sentence? Paragraph?
- Pay attention to the word count for existing chapters (average and range). Try to maintain this count for both new and revised chapters. Ask your project manager for assistance, if required.
What is the layout?
As you review the textbook, take note