Open Author: Remix & Edit Your Lesson

Step 1: Register on OER Commons

As your first step using Open Author to redesign and develop your lesson, you will need to register on the OER Commons website Links to an external site.. On the OER Commons home page, click "Register Now", and follow the screen prompts.

Register OER Commons.png

If you would like additional information on the OER Commons registration process, please view this brief video (2:08 minutes) Links to an external site. below:

Step 2: Remix (Copy) the Original Lesson in Open Author

As the next step in redesigning and developing your lesson, you will need to remix (i.e. make a copy of) the original Open Author lesson that you evaluated and will now redesign and redevelop. Note: You will make your edits within this new remixed copy. For an overview of how to remix your lesson, please watch the following video (9:07 minutes) Links to an external site.:

Step 3: Editing your Lesson

The following video (4:53 minutes) Links to an external site. provides an overview of how to use Open Author on OER Commons to edit your remixed lesson's content based on the project requirements in our Design Guide (see the pages that follow in this module for an overview of the Design Guide). Note that the video includes instructions on creating a new resource, but for this project, you will be working from the copy of the lesson you evaluated and remixed (i.e. copied) rather than creating a new lesson from scratch.

Authoring Features

The numbers on the image below identify important authoring features for developing your prototype. Assuming you are familiar with creating and editing documents using word processing applications such as Microsoft Word and Google Docs, you should feel right at home using Open Author to revise your lesson.

Open Author Toolbar-2.png

  1. Title, Save, Preview: Once your document is titled, you can save and preview it.
  2. Import from Google Docs: As described in the video above, the fastest way to get underway with developing your prototype is to import your Design Proposal from Google Docs.
  3. Menu Bar: The menu bar in Open Author provides basic text editing functions, such as bullet and number list, adding tables, and aligning text.
  4. Editing your lesson: Once you have imported your Design Prototype, you are ready to edit your lesson to redesign the lesson materials.
  5. The Table of Contents: Note how the heading structure dictates how your Table of Contents is developed. Please use the heading protocols as displayed within the Design Guide.
  6. Link: Use this feature to add a link to a website or other online resource.
  7. Insert Media: Please review the section below for more information on how to insert media in Open Author.
  8. Reference: Open Author offers a convenient way to cite and reference (as footnotes) the resources you use in your lesson.
  9. Next Step: When you are done drafting your prototype, move to the next tab to describe your lesson by clicking on "Next Step: Describe".

How to Add Media in Open Author

To extend your lesson beyond text in Open Author, you have the ability to include media from the following file types using the "Insert Media" button [7] on the toolbar above.

  • Image files (.jpg, .png, .gif)
  • Audio files (.mp3)
  • Video files (.mpg, .wmv, mp4, .flv)
  • Documents (.pdf, .doc, .docx, .ppt, etc)

As described in the Help function within Open Author, media is added at the location of your cursor when you click the ‘Insert Media’ button. You can add media by either uploading a file from your computer or inserting media from a website. Note that if the license on a YouTube video does not allow for it to be embedded, the video will not be displayed in your resource. In addition, .doc and .pdf files can only be attached to your resource as files for other users to download. If you want to insert the text of a document into your Open Author resource, you need to copy and paste the document's content into Open Author.

How to Insert Media: A Video Demonstration

The following video (8:31 minutes) demonstrates how to add three types of media, including images, video, and a document. The process is similar for the other supported media file types.