Contributed by Kristina Clement

Elder, A.K. (2019). The OER Starter Kit. Ames, IA: Iowa State University Digital Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.31274/isudp.7

The OER Starter Kit, by Abbey Elder (available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License) has quickly become an essential resource for instructors, librarians, and others who are looking to use and create Open Educational Resources (OER). Built on Pressbooks, The OER Starter Kit is clear, concise, and covers all the necessary aspects of working with open resources. The book consists of five chapters: 

• Getting Started
• Copyright
• Finding OER
• Teaching with OER
• Creating OER

Each section within each chapter starts with learning objectives that clearly state what the reader will accomplish by interacting with the section. Using a variety of videos, linked articles, podcasts, and brief comprehension quizzes, Elder provides a very comprehensive and interactive introduction to the use and creation of OER. 

We particularly liked the chapter on Copyright, which consists of two sections: Copyright and Open Licensing, and Creative Commons Licenses. Copyright is often a nebulous concept for instructors (and even librarians); Elder does an excellent job of taking a complex topic and boiling it down to the essentials that OER users and creators must know in order to successfully use and create resources that follow the guidelines of copyright and open licensing. 

The OER Starter Kit has already seen significant initial success and recognition, and it is quickly becoming a standard text in the OER community. In fact, there are already eight adaptations and translations in progress. Additionally, Elder includes a robust list of suggested readings and several additional resources. 

The editors of OER and Beyond highly recommend this valuable resource to all those who are interested in a starting point for understanding, using, adapting, and creating Open Educational Resources.

Kristina Clement is the Student Outreach & Sponsored Programs Librarian at Kennesaw State University, and an Editor-in-Chief of OER & Beyond.

This post is by Kristina Clement and is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license, except where otherwise indicated. Please reference OER and Beyond and use this URL when attributing this work; for more information on licensing, see our Open Access Policy.