Treat an open resource like any other teaching material
An open license tells you what you may do with a resource; it does not tell you how good it is or how well it fits your course. The habits that make any material work apply here too: know what it is for, check it before use, and watch how learners respond. The advice below assumes you have already chosen a resource and want it to work in practice.
Check quality before it reaches students
Spend a little time reading what you plan to assign, ideally from start to finish. A few quick checks catch most problems:
- Accuracy: do the facts, definitions and worked answers agree with a trusted reference? Check calculations yourself.
- Currency: when was it written or updated? Some subjects age quickly, while others barely change.
- Fit: is the reading level right, and do examples make sense for your learners’ context?
- Completeness: are any images, links, exercises or answer keys missing or broken?
- Bias and gaps: whose perspective is missing? Is anything presented as settled that is in fact disputed?
Habits of source evaluation, such as asking who made something and why, apply just as much to open material as to anything else. If you find errors, you can usually correct them in your own copy if the license allows, or tell the creator.
Make the structure obvious
Students can struggle when a course draws from several open sources with different styles and layouts. To keep things clear:
- give a one-page map of what each resource is for and when it is used
- say exactly which pages or sections to read, rather than “the whole book”
- put links in one place, such as your course page or learning management systems, instead of scattering them across emails
- use consistent labels for activities and deadlines
If sources disagree on terminology or notation, point it out. Otherwise students may think they have misunderstood.
Pace sensibly
Open textbooks and online readings are easy to over-assign because they cost nothing to add. Reading time is still limited. A rough rule is to try the task yourself, then allow learners noticeably longer than you needed, since you already know the subject. Mix formats across a week so there is variation: a short reading, a video, a practice set. Build in a lighter week now and then.
Pace matters even more with independent study. Break long chapters into chunks with a question or task at the end of each, so learners can tell whether they have understood. Keeping each unit within reasonable limits helps manage cognitive load, particularly for beginners meeting new ideas.
Give resources a job
Material works best when learners must do something with it. Instead of “read chapter 3”, try “read pages 12 to 18 and be ready to explain the difference between X and Y”. Pair reading with retrieval practice, such as a short quiz or a few questions answered from memory, since many studies of learning suggest that recalling material helps it stick, though effects vary by task and learner.
Where the resource includes exercises, tell students which to do and whether answers are available. Consider adding your own short check at the end of each unit so you can see who is stuck before an assessment rather than after.
Make sure everyone can reach it
Before the course starts, test links on a phone and on a slow connection. Check whether students need an account, special software or a large download. If some learners have limited access to devices or data, offer a printable or downloadable version, which open licenses generally allow you to provide. Confirm that videos have captions and that documents work with a screen reader. Some resources fall short here, and it is better to find that out in week zero than in week three.
Avoid common mistakes
- Choosing by price alone. A free resource that does not fit the course costs more in teaching time than it saves.
- Mixing too many sources. Three consistent sources usually beat ten varied ones.
- Ignoring license conditions. Keep credit lines intact and respect conditions such as ShareAlike or NoDerivatives when copying or editing.
- Forgetting about link rot. Websites move. Save a local copy where the license permits and note the date you accessed the original.
- Assuming it replaces teaching. A resource is content. Explanation, feedback and encouragement still come from you.
- Using unchecked answer keys. Test them yourself before marking from them.
Gather feedback and adjust
After each unit, ask learners two or three short questions: what was clear, what was confusing, and what took too long. Many teachers use a brief anonymous form for this. Note patterns and adjust: replace a weak reading, add a diagram, split a chapter. Over a couple of terms, you will have a set of materials fitted to your learners, and a log of what you changed and why.
Keep expectations measured. Research on open resources suggests that learners often do about as well as with conventional materials, with cost savings being the most consistent finding, but results vary by context and the evidence is not uniform. The quality of the teaching around the material matters at least as much as the material itself.
Share back
If you correct an error, add a better example or translate a section, consider sharing your improvement under the same license, if it allows. Even a short message to the original creator helps. That small habit is what keeps open collections improving, and it costs very little once you have your change log in order.