TeachCenter-Plugin for Open Educational Resources (OER)

Since November 2020, the policy on Open Educational Resources (available in German; OER for short) has been applied at Graz University of Technology. The purpose of this guideline is to present TU Graz's OER policy for the promotion of open educational resources.

With the OER collection, you can create an annotated collection of openly licensed materials provided by other university lecturers on OERhub.at for your students in the TeachCenter.

If you are an OER-certified teacher, you can also use the OER plugin in TeachCenter to manage the open educational resources of your TC courses and publish them to OERhub.at, where they can then be found by everyone and be included in OER collections.

Open/Close

Providing openly licensed content with the OER collection

What is the OER collection and who can use it?

The OER Collection activity can be added by all teachers in their TeachCenter courses. This activity allows you to use OERhub.at, the search engine for open educational resources from Austrian higher education institutions, and compile a collection of openly licensed materials for your students. You can also comment on this collection.

Students will then see a list of materials with a preview and your comments and can access the materials directly via OERhub.at or the respective links.

Creating an OER collection in TeachCenter and managing content

Activate edit mode in your course.
Click on the plus icon > Activity or Material in the appropriate section and select OER Collection.
OER collection
Enter a title and click Save and Display.
In the OER Collection tab, you will see the buttons Manage Resources, Search in OERhub and Student preview, as well as an overview of the resources available in the collection, which is of course empty at the beginning.
Overview of OER collection
Click on the button Search in OERhub to start a search. You can first search for a keyword and then narrow down the results with filters, for example, to specific file formats or languages.
Search OERhub

Filter and add resources
You can open the resource to view it in more detail or use the corresponding button Add to collection.
To add multiple resources to your collection at once, use the checkboxes on the left-hand side, then scroll to the bottom and choose With selected > Add to collection > Start from the drop-down menu.
Multiple selection

Note: All resources are initially hidden from students.

Go to the Resources tab to manage and comment on the content you added.
To make a resource visible to students or hide it, click on the three dots > Show / Hide directly next to the respective content. Alternatively, you can also use the multiple selection option.
To change the order of the resources, click on the three dots > Move.
To comment on the resource, click on the three dots > Edit annotation.
You can also remove resources from the collection by clicking on the three dots > Remove from collection or using the multiple selection function.
Options for resources

You can view your OER collection from your students' perspective. To do this, click on the Student preview button in the OER collection tab.

Student preview shows resource, description of the resource, licence and annotation — Student preview with annotation

Managing and publishing your own OER with the TeachCenter OER plugin

What is the TeachCenter OER plugin and who can use it?

The OER plugin in the TeachCenter allows you to manage and publish files with open licences (Open Educational Resources). These files can also be TUbe videos.

The plugin is connected to the OERhub, which means that the metadata of the uploaded files can be publicly searched via the OERhub and your OER can also be used by others (e.g. with the OER collection). This means that your OER will reach a wider audience.

If you create OER for teaching that are not directly related to a TeachCenter course (presentations etc.), you can use the OER repository by the TU Graz library to transfer your files to the OERhub.at. It is then not necessary to upload the files to the TeachCenter and release them again via the plugin.

Only OER-certified teachers can receive access to the TeachCenter plugin. You can find all information on OER in-house training at TU Graz on the relevant TU4U page.

After successfully completing the in-house training, the TeachCenter team will activate the plugin for you in the TeachCenter, which you can then find in the main menu via More - OER.

Uploading files and setting the licence

In the TeachCenter, you can set a Creative Commons licence for files, either directly when adding a file to the course, after adding a file to the course or later in the settings of the OER plugin.

Adding the licence when adding a file to the course

Activate the editing mode in your TeachCenter course and add an Activity or Resource in the desired section. Select File.
Name the file. In the Select Files section, click on the plus icon to open the file picker.
Select files button
Choose a file from your computer.
Define the author and licence in the upload window.

Choose licence during upload
Click Save and go to the course.

Editing a licence after a file has been added

Click on the three dots > Edit settings next to the file to open the activity settings.
Edit file settings
In the Select Files section, click on the file. You can change the author and licence in the window that opens.
Change licence of an already uploaded file

Setting the licence directly in the OER plugin

It is also possible to set the licence directly in the OER plugin shortly before publishing the file.

The licence of TUbe videos also has to be set directly in the OER plugin.

Making the licence visible to students

The licence information is not visible to students by default. To inform students about the licences of your documents:

Insert the licence information directly into the file, e.g. in the footer. Keep in mind the TASL rule for correct licensing information for OER.
Add the licence information to the description of the file and have the activity shown on the course page.

Overview of the OER plugin

Once you are registered as an OER-certified teacher, you can use the plugin in TeachCenter via the main menu: More - OER.

OER in the main menu via More - OER — OER in the main menu

All OERs that are set to “release” in the TeachCenter will be uploaded to a library repository (OERhub.at) at regular intervals. The date of the next upload can be seen directly in the plugin. This makes it easier for other teachers to find your OER. You can also search other teachers' files on OERhub.at.

This is a box informing one about the next release date. It says the day, date, time and the hours, minutes, seconds remaining until the next release — next release date

All files and TUbe videos in your TeachCenter course are listed in the plugin as a list or on cards. You can see at a glance whether all the necessary information for release has been added and whether the file has already been flagged for release or has already been published.

The Plugin shows a filter and search option on the top left, buttons for editing the course metadata, preferences, default settings and display settings on the top right, and the files as cards below — Overview of the OER plugin in the TeachCenter

Manage file metadata and release files

Some metadata is automatically collected, e.g. file names, course metadata and licences.

If the message Not all requirements for release are met is displayed on the file tile, this means that mandatory metadata is still missing. Click on the gear icon and complete at least the missing mandatory fields (file name, author, licence, context).

On the file card, there is a gear icon to edit the file in the upper righthand corner — Gear icon for editing a file

Metadata consist of title, abstract, context, licence, person(s), tags, language and resource type — Setting the metadata

By ticking Marked for release, the file will be added to the library catalogue on the date of the next upload. You can also ignore files if they are not to be published.

Two checkboxes: Mark for Release or ignore — Release or ignore

When all requirements for the release are met and the file has been marked for release, you will also see this information on the file tile. The file is then automatically published on the date of the upload.

A file ready for publication shows "marked for release" and "all requirements are met" — A file ready for publication

Settig default values and course metadata

If you often publish OER with similar metadata (e.g. always the same subject or licence), you also have the option of defining a default setting that is automatically applied to all files. To do this, click on Preferences directly in the OER plug-in at the top right.

A menu opens in which you can define default values that are applied to all new files when they are edited for the first time.

Preferences may consist of Context, LIcence, Person(s), Tags, Language, Resource Type, ÖFOS — Preferences

Despite the default settings, you can override the metadata for individual files. If you want to reset a file to its default settings, you can also do this with the Reset button at the bottom.

Each file also has course metadata, i.e. information about the course(s) in which this file is used.

By clicking on the Course Metadata button, you can see in which course(s) the file is used. Some metadata are taken automatically from TUGRAZonline. If you are not satisfied with these, you can also overwrite the course metadata (e.g. add a description of the contents and learning objectives).

Course metadata consist of Title, Structure, Content, Objective, Organisation, Language, Lecturer. They can all be overwritten with a checkbox after the field. — Edit course metadata

You can also exclude the metadata of a course by ticking the corresponding box. This means that this course information will not be added to the file when uploading.

Help & Contact

The OER Canvas helps plan and create OER!

For questions on TeachCenter and the OER plugin: tc@tugraz.at

Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution CC BY 4.0 International

TU Graz Educational Technology