Learn how to use OER Common Common Core Alignment and Evaluation Tool to align appropriate resources to the Common Core State Standards, and to evaluate the resource against certain aspects of quality.

Learn how to use OER Common Common Core Alignment and Evaluation Tool to align appropriate resources to the Common Core State Standards, and to evaluate the resource against certain aspects of quality.

Use this guide to evaluate open education resources (OER) according to five criteria: credibility, relevance, learning and support features, accessibility, and openness. The guide will help curriculum developers and teachers think through important considerations when using OER. It was developed through a process of literature review, aggregation of similar tools, and direct input from educators in an EdTech Maker Space, under the Teaching Skills That Matter (TSTM)-SkillBlox Instructional Support Pilot.

This guidebook was created by ISKME, in partnership with the Science Education Resource Center (SERC) at Carleton College. The document provides a practical reference for curators and authors of STEM OER, and contains 23 accessibility criteria, or elements, to reference as they curate, design and adapt materials to be accessible for STEM learners.

The primary audience of this resource is STEM postsecondary faculty, instructional designers, and others responsible for course design and pedagogy who seek to:

- Expand their knowledge about accessibility and ways to integrate it into their STEM curriculum and instruction
- Design openly licensed STEM courses and course materials that support both access and use by learners
- Curate existing STEM content that expands upon traditional textbooks and courseware to address variability in learning
- Identify and add meaningful keywords, or tags, to the STEM OER they create, so that their OER can be more easily discovered across platforms

Professional learning teams on campus are also encouraged to use this framework as part of training to facilitate integration of accessibility concepts into STEM course design and pedagogy.

The framework and guide development was supported by a mini-grant program facilitated by Bates College and the SCORE-UBE Network (Sustainability Challenges for Open Resources to promote an Equitable Undergraduate Biology Education), with funding from The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. The framework and guide were developed by ISKME and SERC with input from 21 STEM faculty members from across the United States, and in collaboration with the project’s Working Group of accessibility experts: Andrew Hasley and Hayley Orndorf, both with BioQUEST’s UDL Initiative and the Quantitative Undergraduate Biology Education and Synthesis (QUBES) Project; Hannah Davidson, Plymouth State University; and Cynthia Curry, National Center on Accessible Educational Materials (AEM)/CAST.