OER and Affordable Learning

If you are considering building your own Open Educational Resource; there are tools to help you create an ebook

that can be read on multiple platforms  (tablet, pc, phone, mac, etc). 

Guides to Creating Open Textbooks

Several guides are available to help open textbook authors:

• Authoring Open Textbooks, from the Open Textbook Network, features a checklist for getting started, case studies of publishing programs, textbook organization and elements, writing resources, and an overview of useful tools.
• Open Education Self-Publishing Guide, from BCcampus, provides details on the preparation, planning, writing, publication, and maintenance of an open textbook. Copyright, open-copyright licenses, and the differences between citation and attribution are discussed, as well as the importance of copy editing and proofreading. Checklists and templates also are provided.
• Open Textbook Toolkit, from several universities in Canada, is for faculty who want to create their first open textbook. Sections cover stakeholders, technology, copyright, accessibility, production, and classroom use.
• Guide to Making Open Textbooks with Students, from the Open Textbook Network, is a handbook for faculty interested in practicing open pedagogy by involving students in the making of open textbooks, ancillary materials, or other OER.

Pressbooks: This web-based software lets you create ebooks in a variety of formats: PDF, Kobi (for Kindle), Epub, and others. The basic version is free (after you register). Subscribers get premium features. This software is a product of WordPress.

• See the Pressbooks User Guide.
• View Pressbooks video tutorials.

These is an example of a textbook that was built using Pressbook by faculty at Cleveland State University for a Freshman  English seminar.  The Faculty found they needed to teach students skills on composition, thus the OER resource was created.