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Benefits of Verification

The most important benefit for Teacher Verification is having access to textbook solutions. Keeping exercise solutions restricted to teachers is why we take so much care to ensure only actual teachers become Verified.

The second benefit that we only entrust with verified teachers is the option to invite other teachers. This is important, because inviting another teacher will auto-verify that teacher upon registration.

The last major benefit of verification is being able to request a free copy of a textbook in our catalog. Our goal is to provide better service than traditional publishers, and as part of that, we want to help get our book into more teachers' hands.

Getting Verified

Only teachers at accredited educational institutions are eligible to become Verified at this time. There may be some exceptions where teachers at small or difficult-to-assess schools cannot be Verified. On occasion, we may grant Partial Verification, which provide access to a free desk copy.

Standard Processes

1. Get a formal invite

If you know a teacher who is already Verified and they can confirm you are a teacher at a formal institution, ask them to invite you as a teacher. Share this link with them: openintro.org/invite. Once they invite you, you'll become Pre-Verified and receive an email with registration instructions. Or if you had already registered previously and are invited, your account will be immediately upgraded to Verified Teacher if it was not already.

2. Standard application with a faculty page

If you don't know an already-Verified Teacher who can vouch for you, then the next best option is to provide a link to a faculty page on your school's website that lists both your name and email address. We can often use this page as a "third-party reference". Please note that we will not be able to use unofficial school pages as references, including Google Sites, non-academic company pages, and personal websites.

3. Use another colleague as a reference

If you do not have a faculty page that meets the criteria in #2, perhaps you know another faculty member who does have a faculty page listing their email address on the school's website. If so, they can be your reference -- it will only take about 2 minutes of their time, and the process is all online.

• During registration, you will have the option to provide this information as an alternative to your own faculty page.
• If you would like to use this option but have already registered and more information was requested (possibly directing you to this page), share the faculty page of your colleague along with their name and email addess with the OpenIntro Staff member who contacted you.

Common Challenges

To learn more about why we do not accept screenshots or similar sources of information for applications, please see this blog post.

No faculty page

We recommend that teachers without a faculty page find another teacher who they know (and who knows them) and could serve as a reference via option #3 above. Without a faculty page or a colleague reference, it is difficult to get Verified.

• Even if you do not have a faculty page or a colleague meeting the criteria in #3 above who can serve as a reference, we still recommend that you apply for Verification with any information that you do have; sometimes over a few emails (or some additional research by us) reveals a trusted third-party reference that we can use. That said, you should be prepared for the likely-but-not-certain outcome that you will not be able to get Verified if you do not have a qualifying faculty page or reference.

Teachers who have recently moved schools

If (1) you have recently moved schools, (2) your previous email address is listed on a faculty page, and (3) you still have access to that email address (or get messages forwarded to your new address), we can use your previous email address for verification. When you register, you can (and should!) still use your new email address, and then when you fill out the verification application, just use the URL from your previous position. Then watch for an email to your old email address to finalize your Verification, which should arrive within a few days of registering.

Non-English websites

If a referenced school's website is not in English, we may encouter issues when reviewing an application. These issues are often overcome using Google Translate, but this service does not reliably work with some languages. We recommend registering as a teacher to apply for Verification, and if we are unable to use a webpage due to translation issues, we'll send a follow-up note to you.

• Once verified, if you speak a non-English language that you think may be difficult for Google Translate to work reliably and would be open to volunteering to help us with cases in this language, please contact us after your account has been verified.

Google Sites + newer school websites

We have strict criteria that we require to be met (that we do not disclose publicly) for us to evaluate a school website. That said, one blanket statement we can state is that a school webite built as a Google Sites page will not qualify, because these pages do not allow us any real vetting options. Additionally, newly created school websites or newly registered website domains may require additional vetting before we can use them as references. (A proficient web programmer can create a fake school website that on Google Sites or in a new domain that looks legitimate in about an hour.)

Exclusion reasons

In general, we only will Verify accounts of current teachers who are teaching at a formal institution. We do not Verify: parents of students, self-study individuals, students in courses (using our resources or not), tutors, industry professionals, and former teachers.

Inviting Fellow Teachers

When a Verified Teacher invites a fellow teacher, that the fellow teacher is automatically Verified after registering. This means the Verification process, which can take some time and effort for both the teacher and a member of OpenIntro's Staff, is avoided. This also means it is very important to only invite actual teachers. (We revoke Verification of both the inviter and invitee when a non-teacher has been invited.)

You might wonder, what happens if I invite a teacher who is already registered? If the teacher is registered and Verified, then we don't send any email. That is, the teacher doesn't receive a notification of your invitation. If the teacher is registered but not Verified, then your invite will automatically verify that teacher, and they'll receive an email indicating that you verified her / his account. Currently, we do not tell you which state the invitee is in -- unregistered, registered but unverified, or registered but verified -- though this may change in the future.

Have feedback? Send us a message! We're actively working on improving the system further.