3.4 Content in an LMS (Learning Management System)
Learning Objectives
By the end of this chapter, you will be able to:
- Understand how titles and citations should be mentioned when adding OER to an LMS.
- Know the different types of resources found in the LMS.
Some instructors wonder how they should cite an open textbook that has been added to and adapted for an LMS. Here are some steps to consider.
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- Assign a different title to the LMS version in order to differentiate it from the original open textbook using, for instance, names of the post-secondary institution and course. These details will not only make citation easier, but identification of the adapted LMS version clearer. For example, if the original title is “Introduction to English,” the LMS version for ABC Community College could read “ABC Community College’s Introduction to English for LMS.”
- There should be both an attribution and copyright statement included in the citation clearly identifying that the LMS version is an adaptation and lays out the changes and additions made. (See Adaptation Statement.)
- Authors who have contributed to the adaptation should be included in the citation. Here is an example from Introductory Chemistry-1st Canadian Edition
of how this could look in a citation:
Unless otherwise noted, Introductory Chemistry is © 2011 David W. Ball. The textbook content was produced by David W. Ball and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, except for the following changes and additions, which are © 2014 Jessie A. Key, and are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Adaptations need not be restricted to open textbooks. Many instructors prefer to add openly licensed content from an open textbook to an online course within a learning management system (LMS) such as Moodle or D2L. This is legally possible because Creative Commons’ open-copyright licenses do not restrict where content is used, added, or changed as long as the terms of the content’s license are followed.
Like any adapted work, the course within an LMS that contains some or all of an open textbook–or other OER–must include both an attribution and a copyright statement, as well as lay out the changes and additions made to the original version. Placement of these statements should be at the beginning of the course where it is clear and can be easily found. (See Adaptation Statement.)
