One unfolding book holds several interpretations of a botanical form, reflecting how shared learning materials can be adapted with care.
Find learning materials you can trust and adapt them with care
By Arbab Naseebullah Kasi, Chief Executive Officer - CEO, Feel Worldwide Foundation Inc.
A teacher finds a beautifully explained lesson. It costs nothing to read. The examples, however, use unfamiliar institutions, the diagram cannot be understood without color, and the class needs a version in another language.
The teacher can see the material. Can the teacher change it?
That question separates free access from a more useful educational freedom: permission to adapt a resource to the people who will actually use it. Open educational resources, usually called OER, make that freedom possible when their rights and conditions are clear.
The promise reaches beyond the price of a textbook. An educator can revise an explanation, repair an inaccessible activity or build a lesson around a local context without rebuilding everything from the beginning. But permission is only the start. The result still needs accurate content, thoughtful teaching, proper credit and someone responsible for keeping it useful.
Understand what open actually permits
UNESCO adopted its Recommendation on Open Educational Resources on November 25, 2019. It describes educational and research materials that are in the public domain or openly licensed, allowing no-cost access and reuse, including adaptation and redistribution.
The recommendation addresses five areas: people’s capacity to create and use OER, supportive policy, inclusive quality, sustainable models and international cooperation. That scope matters. A repository full of files is not, by itself, a functioning educational system.
A free-to-read webpage may retain ordinary copyright restrictions. A subscription library may offer excellent access without allowing public redistribution. A downloadable worksheet may permit classroom printing but forbid editing. None of these permissions should be guessed from the absence of a price.
Look for an explicit license attached to the particular resource. Read the exception notices too. A book’s overall license may exclude a photograph, a map or a quotation supplied by someone else. If the permission needed is missing, ask the rights holder or choose another resource. Applicable copyright exceptions may also matter, but they require their own assessment.
Start with the learning task rather than the search box
Before searching, describe what the learner should be able to do. “Understand percentages” is broad. “Compare two discount offers and explain which costs less” gives an educator something concrete to assess.
Then note the intended level, language, subject boundaries and available teaching time. A technically correct university chapter can still be a poor choice for an introductory workshop. A resource written for one jurisdiction may contain examples that are misleading elsewhere.
The Open Textbook Library offers a subject-based starting point for textbooks that can be used and adapted. University libraries and specialist repositories can also help locate suitable resources. Treat a repository entry as a lead. Follow it to the source, inspect the edition and verify the rights statement on the actual item you intend to use.
Keep a short record while searching: title, creator, source link, publication or revision date, license and any exclusions. Add a sentence explaining why the resource fits. This small habit prevents the frustrating discovery, after hours of editing, that nobody saved the original credit or checked the image rights.
Read the license before making the adaptation
Creative Commons provides standardized licenses, but the letters have different consequences. Its license overview is a useful starting point, followed by the applicable license terms.
CC BY 4.0 permits sharing and adaptation, including commercial use, with required credit, a license link and an indication of changes. Do not imply the original creator endorses your version.
CC BY-SA 4.0 adds ShareAlike conditions. When sharing an adaptation, use the same or an officially compatible license as applicable. Do not assume every other open license is compatible.
CC BY-NC 4.0 limits use to noncommercial purposes. The actual use matters. A nonprofit’s status does not automatically make every use noncommercial, as the Creative Commons FAQ explains.
CC BY-ND 4.0 allows redistribution under its conditions but does not permit sharing adapted material. A translation is generally an adaptation. Merely changing file format is different. If a lesson must be translated or substantively revised, do not treat an ND label as permission to distribute that revision.
There are combined licenses as well, including NC-SA and NC-ND. Public-domain status and the CC0 dedication are different again. Record the complete license name and version, not just “Creative Commons.” These summaries are practical orientation, not a substitute for the legal terms or advice on a difficult case.
Combining resources also needs care. A collection of separate works and a new adaptation can have different licensing consequences. Check compatibility before merging material, and explain which license covers which component. Adding a permissive label to your own contributions cannot remove restrictions on somebody else’s content.
Judge educational quality separately from legal permission
An open license tells you what you may do. It does not certify the quality of what you found.
Read the resource as a learner would. Does the explanation make sense without knowledge the lesson has not yet introduced? Are the examples accurate? Do the practice questions test the stated objective? Work through the answers yourself, including the apparently simple arithmetic.
Check consequential claims against reliable current sources. A historical discussion may remain useful for years, while information about health, regulations or software can become outdated quickly. Note where local professional review is necessary rather than treating a general lesson as advice for every situation.
Look at whose lives appear in the examples. A budgeting exercise that assumes a monthly salary, a bank account and a private car may obscure the concept for learners whose circumstances differ. Adapt the setting where appropriate without reducing the intellectual challenge or replacing one stereotype with another.
It helps to ask a colleague to review the proposed lesson for subject accuracy and an intended learner to try its instructions. These are different tests. An expert may miss a confusing step precisely because the step feels obvious to them.
Learn from adoption without promising identical results
Tidewater Community College in Virginia offers a documented example. Its business administration Z-Degree began as a pilot in 2013 using OER to remove textbook costs. In a college report describing the fall 2017 position, TCC reported that 10,221 students had taken a Z-course and estimated textbook savings of $1 million.
Those are historical figures reported by that institution, not a current national estimate or a savings promise for another program. The report also described one student using savings for childcare and other necessities, and a faculty member valuing the freedom to align resources with learning outcomes. These accounts show what participants found useful. They are not a representative survey or proof that every learner had the same experience.
The example suggests two sensible questions for a new adoption: what costs will learners actually avoid, and what can educators improve because they have permission to adapt? It does not justify assuming that replacing a textbook alone will improve completion or grades. Teaching, course design, student support and the way participants enter a course can all affect outcomes.
Make one adaptation that solves a real problem
Imagine an educator preparing a short lesson on comparing percentages. This is an illustrative scenario, not a Foundation project or a report of an actual class.
The educator finds a suitable openly licensed explanation, verifies that adaptation and the intended distribution are permitted, and preserves its source information. Rather than rewrite the whole chapter, the educator changes one unfamiliar shopping example into a locally understandable comparison and adds an explanation of a common mistake.
Every numerical change must carry through to the worked answer and any assessment. If the revised question asks for the final price after a discount, the answer should not stop at the discount amount. Adaptation creates new opportunities for error as well as relevance.
A reviewer checks the mathematics. A language reviewer checks that a translation preserves the distinction between a percentage and a percentage point. A learner tries the directions without coaching. The educator records what changed and why before releasing the revised lesson.
This is a manageable first project. Success means a defined learning task becomes easier to attempt and understand, with rights and quality checked. It does not require converting an entire curriculum in one weekend.
Treat accessibility as part of the lesson
Permission to revise a resource is particularly valuable when the original format excludes learners. Yet an adaptation can also remove accessibility features accidentally.
The BCcampus accessibility checklist offers practical checks for headings, images, links, multimedia and mathematical content. Use real heading structure rather than enlarged bold text alone. Give informative images meaningful text alternatives. Check captions for accuracy, and provide transcripts where needed. Do not make color the only way to understand a distinction.
For the percentage lesson, a picture of two price labels should not be the only place the prices appear. Put the amounts and the question in readable text. Verify that the equations make sense through text-to-speech, not only when viewed on the page.
Test the version that learners will receive. A well-structured source document can become a poorly ordered PDF. A translation can break line wrapping. An embedded activity may require a mouse even when the surrounding text is accessible. Invite feedback from users of assistive technology, address identified barriers and state any remaining limitations clearly.
Keep learner privacy outside the open license
An open content license does not grant unlimited rights over the people who appear in the content. The CC BY 4.0 notice explicitly warns that privacy, publicity and other rights may still limit use.
Do not assume that a learner’s name, photograph, voice recording or personal story belongs in a publicly reusable lesson because the surrounding worksheet is open. Separate permission to participate in teaching from permission to publish identifiable contributions. For children, follow applicable safeguarding, consent and data-protection requirements.
Prefer invented, clearly labeled examples when real personal details are unnecessary. Check filenames, comments and document properties for information that could identify someone even after visible names have been removed.
Also distinguish the resource from its delivery platform. A book may be openly licensed while an accompanying service requires accounts or collects activity data. Review those terms separately. Publishing a lesson openly should not quietly turn into publishing the learner.
Give credit that helps the next person
Creative Commons recommends the useful attribution pattern title, author, source and license, often shortened to TASL. Preserve supplied notices and credit information required by the applicable license, and identify changes. For version 4.0, the title is recommended rather than universally required, but including it helps people locate the original.
A practical credit line should let another educator find the original work, see who created it, understand the reuse conditions and distinguish your alterations from the source. Put this information where it will travel with the resource, not only on a webpage from which a detached file may later circulate.
When several people contributed, preserve the relevant chain of attribution. Credit the source creator rather than Creative Commons merely because CC supplied the license. Acknowledge a translator or adapter accurately without presenting them as the author of the original.
If you release your own material openly, first confirm that you control the necessary rights. Employment agreements, commissioned illustrations and third-party extracts may complicate that decision. Choose the license deliberately. CC licenses are designed to remain effective for compliant recipients; changing your mind later does not recover copies already distributed under those permissions.
Budget for maintenance and measure what matters
An OER project needs a named maintainer, an editable source and a record of revisions. Give each release a version number and date. Keep earlier releases identifiable, record corrections and specify when the content should next be reviewed.
For example, a later version might correct a calculation while another adds a translation. A brief change log lets educators decide whether their existing copy needs replacement. Avoid silently overwriting a file while leaving the same title and no explanation.
Count the full work involved: selection, rights review, adaptation, translation, accessibility checks, teaching and updates. A zero license fee does not make those activities costless. Where possible, distribute an editable format alongside the learner-facing version so the next educator can make improvements responsibly.
Evaluate the adoption with a modest set of questions. Could learners obtain the materials when needed? Could they complete the intended task? Which instructions caused confusion? What did adaptation and maintenance cost?
When reporting savings, explain the comparison. A publisher’s list price multiplied by enrollment may not reflect what learners would actually have spent, especially where they previously rented, borrowed or went without a book. Keep estimated avoided costs separate from observed learning outcomes. Both matter, but neither substitutes for the other.
Leave the next educator something useful
The strongest open resource is more than a file with a license badge. It is understandable, accessible, credited and possible to improve. Someone else should be able to discover where it came from, know what they may change and trust that its latest revision has been checked.
Start with one lesson that needs improvement. Find a promising source, verify permission, make a careful adaptation and test it. The value of openness becomes tangible when the next learner encounters an explanation that fits, and the next educator can build on work that has not been locked away.
Educators, librarians, translators and institutions interested in a defined collaboration on resource selection, adaptation or accessibility can submit a partnership inquiry to Feel Worldwide Foundation. Describe the audience, materials, permissions and contribution you propose. Any collaboration would require review and agreement on scope, capacity and responsibilities.
If you would like to support the Foundation’s wider mission, you can make a donation. Review the available giving options and terms; this article does not announce a funded OER program or promise that donations will be restricted to one.
