Open Textbook Review Criteria
Accessibility / Interface
The text is free of significant interface issues, including navigation problems, distortion of images/charts, and any other display features that may distract or confuse the reader or screen-reading software.
Usage Rights
The usage rights allowed by the copyright holders / contributors meet the needs of you and your students. (For example, if you want your students to update an OER, you may want to look for a work that has a Creative Commons license that allows for derivative works.)
Comprehensiveness
The text covers all areas and ideas of the subject appropriately and provides an effective index and/or glossary.
Content Accuracy
Content is accurate, error-free and unbiased.
Relevance Longevity
Content is up-to-date, but not in a way that will quickly make the text obsolete within a short period of time. The text is written and/or arranged in such a way that necessary updates will be relatively easy and straightforward to implement.
Clarity
The text is written in lucid, accessible prose, and provides adequate context for any jargon/technical terminology used.
Consistency
The text is internally consistent in terms of terminology and framework.
Modularity
The text is easily and readily divisible into smaller reading sections that can be assigned at different points within the course (i.e., enormous blocks of text without subheadings should be avoided). The text should not be overly self-referential, and should be easily reorganized and realigned with various subunits of a course without presenting much disruption to the reader.
Organization Structure Flow
The topics in the text are presented in a logical, clear fashion.
Grammatical Errors
The text contains no grammatical errors.
Cultural Relevance
The text is not culturally insensitive or offensive in any way. It should make use of examples that are inclusive of a variety of races, ethnicities, and backgrounds.
This content was modified by Laura Harris at SUNY Oswego. Most of this content was developed by BCcampus. It is a derivative of the Peer Review criteria used by Saylor.org, which is a derivative of the review rubric used by College Open Textbooks,which was adapted from the American Library Association Choice Selection Policy.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.
Other Evaluation Criteria and Tools
- Evaluating Resources from Affordable Learning GeorgiaAdopting, modifying, or creating an open textbook for your course is a big decision, requiring you to evaluate new resources often on your own. Because of this, Affordable Learning Georgia has created a list of criteria for evaluating OER.
- Achieve Open Educational Resource (OER) RubricsThis site includes a handbook, videos and set of presentation slides that give instructions on how to apply the rubrics and use the online tool, as well as examples of what different ratings mean under each rubric. The information included in in the handbook, videos and slides is meant to mirror one another, with specific examples included in the handbook and slides.
This guide is licensed under a