Open Educational Resources

Definition of Adapt

The term, adaptation, is commonly used to describe the process of making changes to an existing work.  Though, we can always replace "adapt" with revise, modify, alter, customize, or other synonyms that describes the act of making a change.

One of the biggest advantages of choosing an open textbook is it gives faculty the legal right to add to, adapt, or delete content in the text to fit their specific course without obtaining permission from the copyright holder.  This is possible because the copyright holder has already granted permission by releasing their work using an open - or Creative Commons - license.  This type of license gives users permission to use and reuse, share, copy, retain, and modify the textbook without consulting the author

From "Adaptation Guide" by BC Campus CC BY 4.0

Found a resource that you'd like to adapt for use in the classroom?

Check the license: if the resource is in the public domain or has a CC license not marked with a "no derivatives" (ND) clause, you're good to go!

Here are some examples of how OER material can be a adapted:

• Scaling or labelling an image
• Splicing or editing a video
• Change imperial measurements to metric
• Replace outdated examples with current ones
• Add Canadian content and context to an American text

Attributing a Derivative

If you've modified an existing work to make a new one, you'll need to add additional information to your attribution:

• The title of the new work
• Indicate that it is a derivative of the original
• The license under which you are sharing your work
• Your name

Want to adapt a textbook?

BC Campus's Open Adaptation Guide provides a practical reference as to how to customize or adapt an open textbook.

Looking for Trades specific information?

This BC Campus toolkit provides information specific to the integration of OER into Trades coursework and a snapshot of the OER adoption process.

Ready to license your adapted work?

In a few clicks, find the correct license with the help of Creative Commons.

Source: Open Educational Resources (OER) 101 by NAIT CC BY 4.0

6 Steps to Modifying an Open Textbook (BC Campus)

From BC Campus, this resource details six basic steps for modifying any OER.

Modifying an Open Textbook: What You Need to Know (Rebus Community)

What you need to consider in remixing/creating OER, including licensing, identifying formats, accessibility and ease of use of different formats.

What is Localization? ( (Openstax)

From Openstax, this document addresses modifying works so that they reflect your teaching needs and your student needs.

Unless otherwise noted, MHC's OER website is licensed under a  Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.