Promote Your OER

Why Promote Your OER

Congratulations on creating an OER! That is a significant accomplishment. However, publication alone does not guarantee discovery. This is why we’ve developed this toolkit: to help you promote your work in a scholarly environment saturated with high-quality content. By promoting your OER, you help to make it discoverable, signal its credibility, and (hopefully) increase its impact. Just as raising awareness and expressing gratitude require intentional efforts, so does promotion.

What Promoting Your OER Can Look Like

Your promotion efforts will be most effective if they are purposeful and proportional. Start by identifying where your intended audiences already gather and how information typically circulates in those communities. You can work with your university’s internal communications directors or external marketing experts for insight here. From there, set goals that help your OER get more eyeballs. Examples of “S.M.A.R.T.” (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound) goals related to promoting your OER might include:

• Make the OER discoverable: Within one month of publication, ensure the OER is deposited in at least one relevant OER repository and indexed with accurate metadata (e.g., subject, license, format, and accessibility features).
• Leverage existing professional networks: Within one academic term, share the OER within at least two professional communities (e.g., listservs, teaching networks, or forums), accompanied by a short description of how the resource can be used or adapted.
• Support peer adoption: Within six months, document at least one external adoption, adaptation, or inquiry about the OER. Don’t forget to capture this information as evidence of impact!
• Integrate promotion into routine activities: During the next conference, workshop, or department meeting, include a brief mention or slide, highlighting the OER and where it can be accessed.
• Sustain visibility over time: Within one year, update or reshare information about the OER to reflect revisions, adoptions, student impact, or related publications (rather than treating promotion as a one-time event).

As with awareness and gratitude, promotion should be tailored to the norms of your field and institution. In some disciplines, listservs or conference proceedings may be more effective than social media. In others, repository visibility or peer recommendation may carry the most weight. Additionally, don’t overextend yourself to such an extent that you’re spending more time promoting your OER than working to improve it (or building a new one!). Your goal is not ubiquitous promotion (remember, “If you’re promoting to everyone, you’re promoting to no one”), but strategic promotion.

Key Audiences and What They Need to Hear

While the core message of “this OER would be great to use, adapt, or adopt” should remain a constant, the emphasis should shift depending on who you are trying to reach. Some examples of key messaging could include:

• Student Perspective:
  • This resource is free, accessible, and designed to support your learning.
  • The OER will remain available beyond a single course or term.
  • All students benefit when resources are openly shared.
  • Your use and feedback can help improve the resource for future students.
• Faculty Perspective:
  • This OER is a peer-produced, credible learning resource.
  • This resource can be adopted, adapted, or remixed to fit different courses.
  • Adoption or adaptation can be documented as evidence of scholarly engagement, innovative teaching, and/or collaboration.
• Administrator or Staff Perspective:
  • Promoted OERs extend institutional impact beyond campus boundaries.
  • Promoted OERs showcase innovation, institutional access, and public scholarship.
  • Evidence of adoption and adaption strengthen the case for continued investment.
  • OER promotion can align with broader goals around reputation, outreach, and student success.

Questions for Reflection

• Where do your intended audiences already go for teaching and learning resources? Who has access or the ability to add to those resources?
• What is one, simple thing you can do right now (in the next 20 minutes!) to promote your OER?
• How might your messaging need to shift for different audiences (e.g., students, faculty, administrators)? What values would you emphasize for each?
• How can you sustain the visibility of your OER over time rather than treating promotion as a one-time effort? Are there annual touch points in your academic year that you could build upon (e.g., campus bookstore deadlines, curriculum review processes)?
• Thinking ahead to what happens after you promote your OER: What counts as meaningful evidence of impact for your OER, and how will you capture it?

Assets You Can Use to Promote Your OER

Select the title or image for each asset’s guidance and templates.

Promoting Your OER Assets

Sample	Asset
	Faculty Video Testimonials Create a video story or written narrative from you (or a colleague) highlighting how the OER improved student learning, equity, cost savings, or another impact.
	Textbook Sticker Templates Small, eye-catching stickers of your textbook’s cover with a QR code for laptops, notebooks, or water bottles that spark conversations and give students immediate and forever access.
	Slide Deck Template A ready-to-use set of slides you can drop into classes, department meetings, or workshops to explain your OER’s purpose, impact, and how others can adopt it.
	Tabletop Display and Flyer Template A simple, print-ready mini-poster or trifold you can place at events or in common areas to showcase your OER’s features, access link, and student benefits.
	Bookmark Templates A take-away with a short pitch and QR code/URL so students and colleagues can quickly find, share, and reuse your OER.