On December 31, 2026, OER Commons will be retiring all Open Author resources created in the legacy editor (AKA Open Author 1). This document provides information on the rationale behind the process, what to expect, and steps that users can take to find and preserve their Open Author 1 materials. For information on how to back up your Open Author 1 resources, click here.
Why are these changes happening?
The first Open Author editor was launched in 2012, enabling anyone with an account on OER Commons to create, share and remix OER with the world, hosted for free on OER Commons. Between then and when the original editor experience was retired in 2023 (as we transitioned to the refreshed and more robust editing experience currently available), users created thousands of openly licensed materials with over one hundred fifty thousand collective views to date.
Even though we retired Open Author 1’s editor, we kept the lessons that users created with it so that learners and educators could continue to find and use them because we knew how much work went into creating them. Many of the resources are over ten years old now though, and now that Open Author 1 has been retired for over two years, we believe the time is right to do some important and necessary housekeeping – while supporting authors who choose to migrate their content into the new editor.
We're making this decision for two reasons, both of which are ultimately in service to a better experience for all users: improved site accessibility and an overall healthier platform and collection.
Accessibility
In April 2024, The US Department of Justice released rules regarding the accessibility of web content and mobile apps provided by state and local governments. These rules specified a set of standards that providers are required to follow in order to reduce barriers to access information provided by government agencies. While OER Commons is not a government agency, many of our partners rely on us and our platform to curate and share educational resources, and we are supporting them in this.
See also: Accessibility @ OER Commons
ISKME has been working to ensure that our platform aligns with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Version 2.1 (WCAG 2.1) Level AA standard. Ensuring an accessible web experience for all is an ongoing effort and we are happy to undertake it. Given that the Open Author 1 editor is no longer accessible to users though, we are focusing our efforts on improving the accessibility of Open Author 2 content and its editor so that our development capacity is focused responsibly and efficiently.
Platform & Collection Health
Being able to serve over 20,000 visitors a day from all over the world is a weighty task for our developers, and curating the over 100,000 resources in our collection (with more added every day) keeps our librarians busy, too. Phasing out Open Author 1 content frees our staff up to focus on maintaining -- and improving! -- other parts of OER Commons platform that are still actively used so that our users can make the most of their time on our site.
Phasing out old services to facilitate developing new ones is a common and necessary step in software development as technology changes and evolves. Likewise, weeding out older resources to help patrons discover newer or more accurate ones is part of what makes a library a valuable service to its community. By now, many Open Author 1 resources are over ten years old and deserve a look over by their authors. With the Open Author 1 editor being phased out, we encourage authors to review any materials they created with it and decide what content they would like to migrate to Open Author 2. Migrating the content to Open Author 2 also lets authors make any changes needed to bring their resources into compliance with WCAG rules, which we support with the built-in accessibility checker.
See also: OER Commons Collection Policy
What to expect
We're making this announcement now to make sure that authors have plenty of time to decide what to do, if anything, with their Open Author 1 materials. We'll also send out more notices as we approach the end of the year through the various channels we have at hand; the last thing we want is for this to be an unwelcome surprise! As the end of the year approaches, we don’t expect that we will extend the deadline. However, we can commit to not moving the date sooner than the current December 31st deadline.
Our team is working to make sure that everyone has the tools they need to find and preserve their works if they so choose. Our librarians may reach out to authors directly with questions or comments as they review the collection for quality resources, but ultimately it will be each author's responsibility to preserve their own materials. To support them, we've put together a help article outlining three ways that authors can save their resources.