Converting traditional textbooks and course materials into Open Educational Resources represents both an opportunity and a challenge for educators. The motivation is compelling: faculty frustrated by expensive textbooks that don’t perfectly align with their courses, students struggling with textbook affordability, and institutions seeking to reduce educational costs drive conversion projects. However, the path from traditional materials to openly licensed, shareable resources requires systematic planning, technical understanding, copyright clarity, and often substantial time investment.
The conversion process differs fundamentally depending on starting materials. Converting an institution-owned textbook differs from adapting an already-open resource and differs again from remixing multiple sources into an entirely new curriculum. Similarly, simple adoptions (using existing OER with minimal changes) require far less effort than major adaptations or complete creations.
Phase 1: Assessing Your Starting Position and Defining Conversion Goals
Before beginning any technical conversion work, educators and institutions must clearly define what they’re converting from, what they want to achieve, and what resources the conversion requires:
Understanding Your Current Materials
Begin by conducting an audit of existing course materials: Is there one primary textbook, or does the course draw from multiple sources? Are materials in physical, digital, or hybrid formats? Who owns the copyright—the individual faculty member, the institution, the publisher, or shared contributors? This copyright clarity is essential; you cannot legally license materials under Creative Commons unless you own the copyright or have documented permission from all copyright holders.
Defining Conversion Scope
OER conversions operate on a spectrum from minimal to comprehensive:
Minimal adoption simply uses existing high-quality OER without modification—requires minimal faculty time.
Light adaptation modifies 10-20% of an existing OER, perhaps removing irrelevant chapters, adding local examples, or updating statistics.
Substantial adaptation remixes multiple existing OER sources or adapts 50%+ of an existing resource, substantially restructuring content for institutional or pedagogical reasons.
Complete creation develops entirely new OER from scratch, the most time-intensive approach.
Institutions should clarify which scope they’re supporting through incentive programs. A grant offering $2,000 stipends appropriately supports light adaptation but may inadequately compensate substantial adaptation or creation.
Establishing Success Metrics
What does successful conversion look like? Common institutional goals include:
- Cost savings to students (track savings through per-student cost analysis)
- Adoption rates (percentage of faculty using OER)
- Accessibility improvements (WCAG 2.1 Level AA compliance)
- Pedagogical innovation (changes in learning outcomes, engagement metrics)
- Community benefit (other institutions using or adapting your materials)
- Timeline for conversion (when should conversions occur?)
Clear success metrics guide later evaluation and identify whether conversion efforts achieved intended goals.
Phase 2: Conducting Rights Clearance and Copyright Assessment
Before any adaptation or licensing occurs, educators must systematically address copyright issues—often the most complex and legally consequential aspect of conversion:
Identifying Copyright Ownership
The first essential question: Who owns the copyright to materials you’re converting?
Your own materials created outside employment using personal time, typically vest copyright with you as the creator. You can license these under Creative Commons without restriction.
Institutional materials created during employment or with institutional support typically vest copyright with the institution (policies vary). You must verify your institution’s intellectual property policy and obtain institutional permission before licensing to CC.
Co-created materials with students, colleagues, or contractors require documenting each contributor’s copyright ownership and securing agreement for CC licensing from all parties. Some institutions allow student work for OER with student consent; others prohibit including student materials in widely distributed OER.
Third-party content embedded in your materials—images, charts, quotations, videos, or other copyrighted elements—requires separate rights clearance from respective copyright holders.
Assessing Third-Party Content
A critical conversion step involves inventorying all third-party content embedded in materials you plan to convert:
For each element, determine: Is this content copyrighted? Who owns it? Under what license is it released (if any)? Can this content legally be included in CC-licensed OER?
Permissible third-party content includes:
- Public domain works (published before 1929 in the U.S., federal government works, works published without copyright notice)
- Works licensed under Creative Commons with compatible licenses
- Works used under fair use doctrine (though fair use provides weaker protection than explicit licensing)
- Works where you’ve obtained explicit permission from copyright holders
Problematic third-party content includes:
- Commercial images from photo services without OER licenses
- Copyrighted charts or visualizations from commercial sources
- Licensed educational videos or media
- Text excerpts from copyrighted textbooks
- Illustrations or graphics from commercial publishers
Managing Third-Party Content: Three Strategies
When materials contain copyrighted third-party content, three strategies are available:
Strategy 1: Replace with open-licensed alternatives. Remove copyrighted images and replace with Creative Commons-licensed images from Wikimedia Commons, Flickr, or other open repositories. Find replacement charts and visualizations or create your own. This approach maintains pedagogical function while ensuring legal compliance.
Strategy 2: Seek permission. Contact copyright holders requesting permission to include their work in CC-licensed OER. Some rights holders grant permission enthusiastically; others refuse. The process can be time-consuming and unpredictable. When seeking permission, specify exactly which works you wish to use, the scope of distribution (international online access), and the specific CC license you’re applying.
Strategy 3: Rely on fair use doctrine to justify limited inclusion of copyrighted material for educational purposes. However, fair use is fact-specific and never certain—it provides defense against copyright claims but not prior permission. Using fair use for OER materials is legally riskier than explicit licensing.
Many educators converting materials choose Strategy 1 (replacement) as the most practical and legally secure approach. This requires time to identify alternative open resources but ensures clear legal status.
Phase 3: Selecting Format and Technical Platform
The technical platform and file format significantly influence conversion complexity and downstream usability. Understanding format options is essential:
Document Formats and Editability
Not all digital formats are equally editable. A critical principle: PDFs are problematic for OER conversion because they are locked formats designed for finished display, not for editing:
PDF files are extremely difficult to edit. Converting PDFs to editable formats through Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is time-consuming and error-prone. PDFs should be avoided for OER that will be shared in editable formats.
Editable formats optimal for OER include:
- HTML files (web-based format, highly accessible, widely compatible)
- Word documents (.docx files) (familiar to most educators, easily edited)
- Google Docs (cloud-based collaborative platform, accessible to most educators)
- OpenOffice/LibreOffice documents (open-source alternatives to proprietary formats)
- Markdown files (simple text format enabling version control and conversion to multiple outputs)
- LaTeX (specialized format for mathematical and scientific content)
Format selection depends on content type and technical capacity. For general textbooks, HTML or editable word processing documents work well. For mathematics-heavy content, LaTeX or Markdown with proper math rendering are preferable.
Publishing Platforms for OER Creation and Adaptation
Several platforms facilitate OER adaptation and creation, each with distinct strengths:
Pressbooks (institutional or PressbooksEDU subscription options) represents the most popular OER authoring platform:
- Web-based editing interface similar to WordPress
- Imports multiple formats (Word, ePub, HTML)
- Exports to mobile-friendly website, PDF, EPUB, and multiple other formats
- Pressbooks Directory enables discovery by other educators
- PressbooksEDU users can clone and adapt existing Pressbooks materials
- Strong accessibility and metadata support
- Requires institutional subscription or individual paid account
LibreTexts provides a comprehensive platform combining content creation, adaptation, and remixing:
- OER Remixer feature simplifies combining content from multiple sources
- Campus Bookshelves for institution-specific customization
- Learning Objects marketplace for discrete instructional units
- Integration with learning management systems
- No cost for educators creating content
OER Commons offers direct content creation and hosting without subscription:
- OpenAuthor platform enables direct creation on the site
- Alternative: upload source files for hosting and sharing
- Discovery through the OER Commons repository
Google Docs/Sites provide free, accessible alternatives requiring no specialized training:
- Familiar interface for most educators
- Real-time collaborative editing
- Free account creation required only
- More limited formatting and publication options compared to specialized platforms
LMS-hosted options (Canvas, Blackboard, Moodle) allow creating and sharing materials within your institution:
- Integration with existing student learning spaces
- Institutional support available
- More limited external discovery and reuse compared to dedicated OER platforms
Phase 4: Digitization and Technical Conversion
For materials beginning as physical books or documents, digitization represents a critical preliminary step. Digital conversion involves multiple substeps:
De-binding and Page Preparation
If working with physical textbooks, careful de-binding prevents damage while preparing pages for scanning:
- Gently remove bindings without tearing pages
- Organize pages sequentially
- Trim margins if needed for clean scanning (improves OCR accuracy)
- Review pages for damage and repair or note concerns
Scanning or Photographing
Two approaches work for digitization:
- Professional scanner or book scanner produces high-quality images with minimal shadows
- High-quality mobile phone camera offers faster, less invasive alternatives (useful when preserving physical book integrity matters)
Scanning produces image files rather than editable text, requiring subsequent conversion.
Optical Character Recognition (OCR)
OCR software converts image scans into editable text:
- Microsoft OneNote, Abbyy FineReader, or similar tools read text from images
- Accuracy depends on scan quality—clean, high-contrast scans produce better results
- OCR results require substantial proofreading as scanning errors are common, especially with complex layouts, tables, or mathematical notation
Proofreading and Correction
OCR errors are virtually inevitable. Systematic proofreading is essential:
- Read entire text comparing to original scans
- Correct misread words (especially similar characters: “1” vs. “l”, “0” vs. “O”)
- Verify mathematical equations and formulas
- Check tables and special formatting
- Note sections requiring particular attention and flag for review
This proofreading phase is time-consuming but critical for quality.
Phase 5: Content Adaptation and Restructuring
With materials in editable digital format, the substantive conversion work begins: reviewing, adapting, removing, and enhancing content to align with OER principles and institutional needs:
Removing Irrelevant Content
Many textbooks include chapters or sections unnecessary for your specific curriculum. OER enable removing extraneous material, streamlining courses to essential content:
- Identify chapters students don’t need
- Remove out-of-date material or examples
- Consolidate redundant or overlapping topics
- Delete low-value supplement material
This streamlining benefits students by focusing on essential material while reducing overall resource size and download times.
Adding Localization and Cultural Relevance
A distinctive OER advantage involves adding local context—examples, case studies, images, or references specific to your institution, region, or student population:
- Add local case studies alongside generic examples
- Include regional historical references
- Incorporate student demographics into examples and scenarios
- Feature local institutions, researchers, or practitioners
Localization increases student engagement and relevance while maintaining international accessibility for others.
Updating and Correcting
Convert textbooks may contain outdated statistics, superseded research, or factual errors. OER enable rapid improvement:
- Update statistics to latest available data
- Incorporate recent research or developments
- Correct factual errors identified during review
- Replace outdated technology examples
This living-document aspect represents a distinctive OER advantage—commercial textbooks remain frozen until new editions, while OER can be continuously improved.
Enhancing Pedagogical Elements
Adapt pedagogical approaches to institutional learning objectives and evidence-based practices:
- Revise learning objectives for clarity and alignment to course goals
- Redesign assessment items for validity and alignment
- Add formative assessments enabling student self-checking
- Enhance learning supports for diverse learners
- Incorporate active learning strategies and reflection prompts
Phase 6: Accessibility Compliance and Enhancement
Converting materials to OER provides an opportunity to systematically improve accessibility for students with disabilities—a responsibility and a distinct advantage of OER:
WCAG 2.1 Level AA Compliance Verification
Before releasing OER, verify compliance with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 Level AA:
- Color accessibility: Color is not the only means of conveying information (charts use patterns plus color; links use underlines plus color)
- Image alternatives: All images, charts, graphs include descriptive alternative text
- Video accessibility: Videos include captions (synchronized text) and audio descriptions (narration of visual content)
- Text readability: Sufficient contrast between text and background; readable font sizes; simple language
- Navigation accessibility: Content is organized logically; can be navigated using keyboard alone
- Form accessibility: Form fields include clear labels; error messages are informative and specific
Tools for accessibility testing include:
- Automated checking: WAVE, Axe DevTools, or similar browser extensions identify common issues
- Manual testing: Screen reader testing (NVDA, JAWS), keyboard-only navigation, color contrast verification
- Expert review: Accessibility specialists can conduct comprehensive audits
Adding Captions and Audio Descriptions
If converting materials include videos, adding captions benefits deaf and hard-of-hearing students while improving comprehension for all learners:
- Obtain or create transcripts of video content
- Synchronize transcripts to video timeline as captions
- Add audio descriptions (narration of visual information) for students who are blind or visually impaired
- Include descriptions during appropriate pauses in dialogue
Tools for captioning include:
- YouTube’s automatic captioning (requires manual review for accuracy)
- Dedicated captioning software (CADET, 3play Media)
- Professional captioning services (outsourced transcription)
Accessible Mathematics
If converting materials include mathematical notation, ensure accessibility:
- Use accessible math rendering (MathJax, KaTeX) rather than image-based equations
- Provide alternative text descriptions for complex mathematical expressions
- In Pressbooks, LaTeX and MathML are rendered with MathJax automatically
Phase 7: Licensing and Rights Management
With converted content finalized and accessible, establish clear licensing terms:
Choosing Appropriate License
Select a Creative Commons license communicating how others can use your OER. CC BY is most strongly recommended for educational resources, permitting maximum reuse and adaptation:
- CC BY: Allows reuse, adaptation, and commercial use with attribution
- CC BY-SA: Allows reuse and adaptation (with attribution) but requires derivative works use identical license
- CC BY-NC: Allows reuse and adaptation for non-commercial purposes only
- CC BY-NC-SA: Combines non-commercial restriction with Share Alike requirement
For textbooks and major educational resources, CC BY-SA is often chosen to ensure derivative works remain open, while CC BY maximizes adoption.
Documenting Third-Party Content Licensing
Clearly document the licensing of any third-party content embedded in your OER:
- List each third-party component with its original license
- Indicate where readers can access original materials
- If items are under more restrictive licenses than your overall OER, clearly note this distinction
- For adaptations, document what components you’ve modified or added
For example, a Pressbooks document might include a “Licensed Content” page specifying:
“Image on page 12 (forest ecosystem diagram) by Sarah Chen, used under CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Forest_ecosystem.jpg). All other content is original and licensed under CC BY 4.0.”
Adding License Metadata
For web-based OER, include machine-readable license information:
- Use Creative Commons License Chooser to generate proper HTML/RDF metadata
- Include visible license badges linked to full license text
- Ensure search engines can identify your materials’ license status
Phase 8: Distribution and Repository Hosting
Converting materials to OER brings limited value if educators cannot find and access them. Systematic distribution is essential:
Primary Distribution Channels
Institutional repositories: Upload to your institution’s repository (if available), making materials discoverable through institutional search and library catalogs.
Discipline-specific repositories: Many disciplines maintain specialized repositories where educators search for discipline-specific OER:
- Open Textbook Library (multidisciplinary)
- MERLOT (multimedia and discipline-specific collections)
- PhysicsEd (physics resources)
- ChemEd DL (chemistry resources)
- Similar specialized repositories exist across disciplines
General OER platforms:
- OER Commons (accepts direct uploads with OpenAuthor or file hosting)
- Pressbooks Directory (if using Pressbooks platform)
- Wikibooks (for collaborative development)
Institutional course management: Upload to Canvas, Blackboard, Moodle, or similar institutional LMS for student access.
Documentation and Discoverability
Create clear descriptive metadata enabling educators to find your OER:
- Title and author information
- Subject/discipline tags
- Learning level (K-12, undergraduate, graduate)
- Learning objectives
- Format information (textbook, course, module, etc.)
- Prerequisites or related courses
- License information
- Accessibility features documented
Strong metadata dramatically improves discoverability and adoption rates.
Attribution and Derivative Works
When sharing converted OER, clearly communicate:
- Original source if adapting existing OER
- Contributors who participated in adaptation
- Significant changes made during conversion
- How others can access source files for further adaptation
Practical Example: Case Study of Textbook Conversion
To illustrate conversion workflow, consider Tracy Harvey’s conversion of her Child and Youth Care course at Lethbridge Polytechnic:
Initial Challenge: Tracy identified that no single textbook perfectly matched her course content. Using multiple textbooks was wasteful, and more concerning, she observed that students were not purchasing required books—a signal that textbook affordability was creating barriers.
Solution Design: After learning about OER in professional development, Tracy designed a course compilation strategy: rather than using traditional textbooks, she would search for high-quality open educational resources, curate appropriate materials for each topic, and organize them into a cohesive curriculum.
Implementation: Tracy invested substantial time locating open resources aligned to her learning objectives, evaluating quality, and organizing materials into a curriculum structure. She added her own ancillary materials (discussion guides, assignments, reflection prompts) designed to connect open resources to her pedagogical approach.
Results: Students accessed comprehensive, curated materials free of charge, eliminating textbook costs. Tracy maintained full pedagogical control, could continuously improve the curriculum, and students benefited from current, relevant materials updated regularly based on classroom feedback.
This practical example illustrates key conversion principles: Converting to OER need not mean creating entirely new materials; thoughtful curation of existing OER, supplemented with institutional materials, creates effective, affordable courses.
Conclusion: Converting From Textbook to OER as Strategic Educational Practice
Converting traditional materials to Open Educational Resources requires deliberate, multi-phase planning addressing copyright clearance, format selection, content adaptation, accessibility compliance, and systematic distribution. While demanding significant time investment, successful conversions produce lasting benefits: substantially reduced costs to students, materials aligned precisely to institutional pedagogies, continuously improving resources, and accessible materials serving diverse learners. Whether adopting existing OER, lightly adapting good materials for local context, or substantially remixing multiple sources into new curricula, the conversion process fundamentally enables educators to shift from passive consumers of commercial textbooks to active creators of educational resources serving their specific communities while contributing to the broader open education ecosystem.