Introducing the Open Publishing Style Guide
In today's digital landscape, Open Educational Resources (OER) have emerged as a powerful catalyst, reshaping the way knowledge is created, disseminated, and consumed. As educators, we can harness these dynamic resources to engage learners effectively.
This Open Publishing Style Guide is for academic and professional staff who are developing open educational resources. This guide details the expected organisational style and copyright processes for Deakin-developed OER, along with technical tips to create accessible and dynamic accessible learning resources.
Why this Guide?
- To ensure the development of quality resources in line with Deakin's brand and style requirements
- To ensure that developed resources are as accessible as possible.
Before you start developing your OER:
Explore the OER Guide
To understand what OER are and how they can be used, read through the Open Educational Resources (OER) guide. OER are different from other learning resources you create in that they are released with an open licence enabling adaptation and reuse, meaning others can use your resource and change it to suit their teaching need - with an attribution. Refer to What can I do with OER? for more details on reuse.
Check existing resources
Before you start to develop a resource, explore existing collections for quality resources you may be able to reuse or adapt. Sites such as Pressbooks or the Open Textbook Library include online books and OER Commons or MERLOT have a range of resource types. For more searching ideas, look at the How to find OER tab on the OER guide.
Contact the library Open Education
Team for advice
Please discuss your OER project with the Open Education Team and include the Copyright Team in the discussion from the start. We can let you know about available supports and guide you through the process. Opening this communication channel early helps to avoid issues later. Email our team at opened@deakin.edu.au and the copyright team at copyright@deakin.edu.au.
Read this guide
OER can be many types of resources in varying formats. Some formats are easier to reuse and adapt than others and more accessible for users. In addition to the Deakin Style requirements, this guide includes information to guide format choice and accessibility tips.
Talk to others in your faculty
OER projects are different from other resources you develop as these will be made available external to Deakin with a Creative Commons licence. Prior to embarking on an OER development project, talk to others in your school and faculty, especially your Director of Teaching to ensure that your project aligns with faculty strategic plans
Before you publish an OER:
Evaluate the resource through an equity and accessibility lens
This guide includes information on developing accessible resources in varying formats. Considering resource accessibility in planning and early development embeds technical aspects from the start, ensuring that the resource is accessible and usable for as many people as possible. Rubrics are available for assessing the accessibility and equity of an OER.
Copyright check and approval
Prior to release, the resource undergoes a copyright check. This is to ensure that the material included is suitable for inclusion in an open resource with a Creative Commons licence and includes text, image based and other content.
Consider the licence
There are are various aspects to Creative Commons licences including non-commercial, share alike and no derivatives. The licence that you select impacts the ways in which the resource can be reused. Consider which is the most relevant and impactful for the resource you have created.
Notify the library
To increase discoverability of the resource, we can add it to our OER catalogue, the Deakin OER Commons page and our library. Please email the Open Education Team.