Open Educational Resources
Finding and using OER for teaching
Why OER?
"Why Open Educational Resources Matter" by Brendan Walsh
Open Educational Resources (OER), including Open Textbooks "are teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use and re-purposing by others"
Finding OER to use...General
Major OER Repositories
General (all disciplines and formats)
- Mason OER Metafinder (MOM)Real-time federated search for OER content. Like a Google for OER resources.
- OER CommonsOER Commons provides a single point of access to the highest quality content from around the world. Users can search across over 50,000 vetted and fully-indexed OER, ensuring a high level of resource relevancy and discovery.
- Open Education Consortium Search/MERLOTThe Open Education Consortium in collaboration with MERLOT offers a search engine on OER. General search yields results from the integrated database of the Open Education Consortium and MERLOT.
Open Books/Textbooks
- OER Commons - Higher Ed Textbook HubA "hub" pulling together several potential sources of Higher Ed Textbooks & supplements.
- Open Textbook LibraryThe Open Textbook Library provides a growing catalog of free, peer-reviewed, and openly-licensed textbooks. Open Textbook Library is supported by the Center for Open Education and the Open Textbook Network.
- OASISOpenly Available Sources Integrated Search (OASIS) , developed at SUNY Geneseo, searches more than 155,000+ records from 52 different sources that have been carefully selected in collaboration with SUNY OER Services. It allows you to limit search results by license, type, subject, source, and reviews available
- OpenStax CollegeOpenStax College offers students free textbooks that meet scope and sequence requirements for most courses. These are peer-reviewed texts written by professional content developers.
- Milne Open Textbooks - SUNYMilne Open Textbooks (formerly Open SUNY Textbooks) is an open access textbook publishing initiative established by State University of New York libraries and supported by SUNY Innovative Instruction Technology Grants.This pilot initiative publishes high-quality, cost-effective course resources by engaging faculty as authors and peer-reviewers, and libraries as publishing service and infrastructure.
- Open Book PublishersOpen Book Publishers publishes academic texts in hardback, paperback, pdf and ebook editions, but they also include a free online edition that can be read via their website, downloaded, reused or embedded anywhere.
- OAPEN LibraryOpen Access Publishing in European Networks - The OAPEN Library contains freely accessible academic books, mainly in the area of humanities and social sciences.
- B.C. Open Textbook CollectionA growing selection of open textbooks for a variety of subjects; reviewed by faculty; some include ancillary materials (e.g., quizzes, test banks, slides, videos).
Finding OER to use...Discipline-specific
Smaller &/or Discipline-Specific Repositories
Sciences
- National Science Digital LibraryProvides a robust search to limit by activity type, media format, and age level. (Actually a pre-defined subset of the OER Commons)
- PLoS OneMore advanced, specific science resources that are open and could be used in a classroom setting.
- AMSER: Applied Math and Science Educational RepositoryFunded by the NSF and organized by Library of Congress subject headings. Aimed at Community and Technical Colleges, but free for all.
- The Chem CollectiveCreated by a group of faculty and staff at Carnegie Mellon to help those teaching/learning chemistry.
- Scitable - by Nature EducationA free science library and personal learning tool. Currently concentrates on genetics and cell biology.
Math
- My Open Math--Open Textbook StoreSmall set of textbooks designed for courses as well as free problem sets for practice.
- American Institute of Mathematics: Approved Open Textbook ListMore than 15 open textbooks covering different levels of calculus, algebra, and statistics.
Humanities
- Directory of Open Access BooksA basic search engine for OA books, including OA Textbooks.
- Open Educational Resources for the Digital HumanitiesCompiled through University College London, these resources focus specifically on the digital/technical application of humanities concepts or texts.
- Open Humanities PressOpen books and journals, mostly on theoretical topcis/formats.
Language Learning
- Center for Open Educational Resources and Language LearningForeign language resources and activities; more heavily covers the romance languages.
- Last Updated: Jul 18, 2024 2:37 PM
- URL: https://guides.mtholyoke.edu/OER
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Subjects: How-To Guides
Tags: oer, oers, open_educational_resources, open_textbooks