General Tips for Creating OER of Any Type

Watch this video about creating Open Content. Creating OER and Combining Licenses, Part 1 (4:48).

Text is one of the oldest learning technologies, and it is still immensely valuable, especially in wise combination with multimedia. 

Multimedia can add interest, support different learning styles, and sometimes convey the content more effectively than text. However, it should not be used except when necessary, because multimedia place a burden on bandwidth and computing power, and can be distracting for the learner.

Multimedia should be well-chosen to support your instructional goals, and it should be appropriate for your audience. Music, sound effects, animations, and images that are there just to be pretty, attention-grabbing, or amusing are actually distractions, and should not be used. 

Text should also be written to support instructional goals and be appropriate for the audience. It is not enough to transcribe a spoken lecture or your lecture notes, or to write as if for a monograph or scholarly journal. There are styles and techniques particular to digital learning materials.

Writing Online

The physical act of reading and the strain that it causes is different on a screen than it is on paper, so our writing also has to be different.

• Sentences and paragraphs should be short. This is because it is harder to track on a screen - a huge screen 3 feet away, or a tiny screen held right in front of our nose. Everybody's eye muscles ache. 
• Pages should also be short. This is because scrolling is imprecise and the slight flicker is fatiguing.
• Important content should be visually set off. This is because content moves around relative to their eyes, so it is harder for people to find.
  • Headings
  • Bulleted or numbered lists
  • Tables
  • Emphasized text
• Content should be introduced and recapped. Have you ever walked into a room and forgotten what you went there for? This is called the Boundary Effect. Scrolling and clicking to another web page seem to cause it more than just turning a print page. Refresh your reader's memory whenever possible.
• Create small chunks of information that build on each other. An information dump in a physical text resource is fine, because it is physically easier to go back over it at your own pace until you get it. That kind of slow, deep reading is difficult and unpleasant in the online environment, so don't make people do it. 

Slow, deep reading is often a valuable learning activity, but the online environment is not ideal for it. Consider using an affordable paper solution. Textual learning materials in the online environment are basically a completely separate genre.

Creating Text OER

You can create text OERs in the word processing application of your choice. LibreOffice (below) is a suite that includes a word processing application and a PDF editor

You can save your OER inin any document format that doesn't require proprietary software to edit. PDFs are generally ideal for text OER.

You can also create a document in odt format (the open format version of .doc or .docx, which is proprietary to Microsoft) or create an HTML web page.

You can create text OERs in the word processing application of your choice. LibreOffice (below) is a suite that includes a word processing application and a PDF editor

You can save your OER inin any document format that doesn't require proprietary software to edit. PDFs are generally ideal for text OER.

You can also create a document in odt format (the open format version of .doc or .docx, which is proprietary to Microsoft) or create an HTML web page.