OER sharing guide
If you have adopted or created open course materials (OER), you may find that you want to share, or maybe you have received requests to share from instructors both within and outside PCC. Sharing is what the open movement is all about, and this page outlines some technical considerations for sharing content created at and hosted by PCC. If the materials are open content (e.g., CC-by/share alike), owned by you, the instructor, or are in the public domain, you can share them with others.
Make sure you are not violating copyright before you share! Not sure? Check out the PCC library copyright information. If you have any questions about OER adoption, creation, or licensing contact the OER support librarian at oer@pcc.edu.
Sharing with others at PCC
Sharing whole courses or individual content items with your colleagues at PCC is easy. You can add an instructor to your course as “Instructor Copy Course Content”, and they will be able to copy content from your D2L course to theirs, but will not have the ability to make changes to your course. You, as the course owner, can read more about how to add a current PCC D2L user to your course. Once you add them to your course, they can read more about how to copy content from one course to another. Alternatively, you can export course content or whole courses as a Brightspace package and share the zipped file with your colleague. Read more about exporting your course.
Special considerations for course copy within PCC
Some components of a D2L course don’t require any special considerations when you make a course copy. There are a few that need additional steps, though. Below, you will find a list of the most common types of content that require additional steps for sharing and how to do it.
You have an HTML page with a Kaltura video, activities created with H5P, or VoiceThread activities embedded.
If you are sharing videos hosted in Kaltura MyMedia, Google Drive, H5P activities, or VoiceThread activities, make sure the external learning tool gets copied during the course copy process. If you copy the entire course, no need to worry! If you are sharing VoiceThread content, check out their documentation on sharing content, and schedule a consult with an ITS if you need assistance.
Here’s how to ensure the external learning tool gets copied during the course copy process.
If you are copying components and not the whole course, you want to make sure to select the associated external learning tool links, then you can select each individual video or voice thread assignment from the list provided.
You have Google Docs, Slides, Spreadsheets, or Jamboards you want to share
If your course contains any Google files, you will need to consider how you want to share them before you allow someone to copy your course. Here are some options:
- Make a copy of the Google file and give ownership to the person you are sharing it with. They can update the links in D2L after they make the course copy.
- Add the person who is making a copy to your Google file as a viewer. They can make their own copy and add a new link to their D2L course.
Sharing Outside PCC
If you want to share OER with others outside PCC, several considerations need to be made before you share. Keep in mind the special considerations noted above. You will need to make the same considerations if you are sharing outside PCC.
Sharing whole courses outside of PCC
D2L Brightspace allows a few options for sharing whole courses with others.
- You can export a course with a D2L course backup, which Canvas can import
- You can export a common cartridge, which all major LMS can import except Moodle
Sharing content outside PCC
Tools that do export to other platforms:
- You can export just the files (a zip file)
- You can use tools like Respondus to export just quizzes/questions
Tools that don’t export to other platforms or may have cross-platform sharing issues:
- Rubrics don’t have an agreed-upon standard, so they won’t export to other platforms. You can print your rubric as a PDF to share.
- My Media/*Kaltura, H5P, Zoom, Films on Demand, VoiceThread, and other external learning tools are embedded using PCC settings and may have issues loading or may require account permissions the other instructor does not have at their institution.
- Links to YouTube and other 3rd party sites that we don’t manage could become corrupted, no longer persist, or could pose a browser security issue when imported into another learning platform
*Regarding Kaltura videos – since we no longer have restrictions on our bandwidth, we’ve removed restrictions for hosting from other Oregon EDU domains. It does allow playback on .instructure.com, .blackboard.com, .desire2learn.com, .google.com, and all public oregon .edu sites, which should cover most. If the domain is included, it should work to copy and paste into the other school’s LMS, but there may be cross-site listing issues we can’t control. If the domain is not listed, contact dlhelp@pcc.edu to request it.
| To Canvas | To Blackboard | To Moodle | |
|---|---|---|---|
| From D2L | You can export a course with a D2L course backup You can export a common cartridge | You can export a common cartridge | Try exporting just the files (zip) |
If you have any questions about licensing, where to find OER, or need tips on creating OER, check out the OER Library Research Guide. For more help, contact dlhelp@pcc.edu