Welcome! This book is intended to help guide University of Iowa faculty and students working with Open Educational Resources (OER), whether you’re getting ready to use an OER for the first time, adapting or remixing existing OER, creating your own, or some combination of these things.

This guide is itself an OER. It uses the Pressbooks platform and is licensed to be reused by anyone, anywhere, and in any way.

Using this Book

Part I: Using OER will introduce you to what OER is, what exactly makes a text “open,” and how to find OER materials.

Part II: Creating and Sharing OER looks at the importance of creating OER, what goes into making an OER textbook, and resources for OER textbook authors at the University of Iowa.

Parts III–VI are part of the OpenHawks Style Guide, a new addition to the Getting Started Guide. Part III: Formatting will help you get acquainted with the Pressbooks platform, teaching you how to add and edit content in Pressbooks. Part IV: Writing, Grammar, and Punctuation will guide you on editing the punctuation and style mechanics of your book. Part V: Citations will look at how to cite content in your book from attributions to footnotes to citation styles. Part VI: Media will help you better understand how to add images, tables, and embedded content to your textbook.

Part VII: Accessibility and Inclusivity will provide information on making your textbook accessible, with chapters on how to organize text, how to include accessible images and links, and a checklist for accessibility you can use as you review your textbook.

Part VIII: Teaching and Advocating for Open looks at the renewable nature of open pedagogy and the various ways institutions can implement open educational resources.

In the Appendix of this book, you will find resources on finding OER resources online and at the University of Iowa, as well as additional information on the terms used in this guide and how to format citations. In the Appendix, you will also find a brief editing checklist and style sheet that you can use during the production and review process of your book.