Share your Work
License and Accessibility Check
Be sure your work is eligible to be shared. In order to release your work with a Creative Commons license or in the public domain, your work should be cleared from all copyright issues. Your open content can include:
- Content that you created yourself that has an open license on it; and
- Content that someone else created that has an open license on it (or is in the public domain).
Where you are using other content, is your use allowed? Did you include an attribution back to the original? Did you add an open license to all of your own content?
Hopefully, you considered good accessibility practices from the beginning. Consider doing a final accessibility check and improve your materials where possible. A few very basic practices that should become habits:
- Images have alt tags
- Video is captioned
- PDF’s are machine readable
- Document structures use headings to support navigation by screen readers
- Links are anchored to descriptive text rather than the word “here”
Ready to Share
Next, you will need to host your file or files in an online place accessible to others. Consider uploading your files to Google Drive (be sure to make the files viewable to the public and give multiple people “owner” roles) or upload and host them to another publicly available platform.
After hosting your files, contribute them to OER repositories. We recommend:
- Open Textbook Library - if your material is in the format of a complete book
- OER Commons - submit here regardless of the format of your materials; you’ll need to create an account
- Open Oregon Resources page - Oregon faculty post here to let others know what they are using and whether they can be contacted about their course.
Remember to share locally as well: email your department chairs, deans and colleagues; present at meetings and conferences, etc. It is also good practice to check in with those providing OER support at your institution to see if there are local suggestions or requirements for sharing.