4 Types of OER (and where to find them)

There are a multitude of OER out there to choose from, including textbooks, courses, multimedia, data, and supplementary materials. These can be found by searching regular search engines (like Google) by using certain keywords but it is much easier to find them through dedicated OER repositories or websites. The examples below are just a sampling of such repositories and websites.

Repositories

SOL*R (Shareable Online Learning Resources)  –  This is BCcampus’ OER respository.

Creative Commons Search  –  A repository of various types of media, including images, music, and videos.

OER Commons  –  A large collection of a variety of types of OER, including textbooks, courses, and ancillary materials.

MERLOT  –  “a curated collection of free and open online teaching, learning, and faculty development services contributed and used by an international education community.”

OER Handbook for Educators  –  “a guide for those who are just getting started in the creation of open educational resources (OER).”

The Orange Grove – A digital OER repository of instructional resources that can be reused, remixed, redistributed.

Textbooks

BCcampus’s BC OpenEd Resources page is a good place to start to find both general information about OER and a list of textbooks that have been “created…or…re-created from existing [OER] by BC post-secondary faculty, reviewed by B.C. faculty and made available under a Creative Commons license.”

The eCampusOntario Open Library contains more than 250 free OER. Since the initial launch in 2017, eCampusOntario has continuously improved the library to meet the needs of Ontario post-secondary educators and learners.

OpenStax  –  Supported by Rice University, OpenStax has a huge collection of open, peer-reviewed textbooks on a large variety of subjects.

Project Gutenberg  –  A collection of tens of thousands of digitized books available for download; audiobooks are also available.

AU Press  –  Athabasca University’s AU Press publishes open access journals and books with a focus on Canada, the North American West, and the Circumpolar North.

Libretexts – Open, accessible, free, interactive textbooks.

Open Textbook Library – This library includes a number of open, accessible books that can be downloaded for free or printed for a low cost.

Courses

Khan Academy  –  A collection of instructional videos and practice exercises on topics including math, science, programming, history, English, economics, and standardized test prep.

MIT OpenCourseWare –  offers free access to almost all MIT course content.

Saylor Academy –  a non-profit organization committed to providing free and open online courses.

Coursera –  an educational platform partnered with dozens of prestigious universities and institutions (including MoMA, Stanford, Yale, the University of Toronto, and the University of London).

Open Course Library – A collection of quality, free, downloadable courses that can be used for teaching.

Utah State University Open Courseware – offers free access to a number of courses offered at Utah State.

SUNY OER – Offers ready-to-adopt courses in a variety of areas.

Multimedia

Creative Commons Search –  A repository of various types of media, including images, music, and videos.

Pexels – A free stock photo website, consisting of photos that are tagged, searchable and easy to find.

Vimeo  –  Videos with a CC license can be found through Advanced Search options.

Flickr: Creative Commons – Flickr is an “online photo management and sharing application” and many photos are available under CC licenses; Flickr allows searching by type of license.

Supplemental materials

Supplemental, or ancillary, OER materials can include lecture notes, lesson plans, PowerPoint presentations, assignments, and activities.

PhET  –  Interactive math and science simulations with lesson plans and activities

OER Commons  –  A large collection of a variety of types of OER, including textbooks, courses, and ancillary materials

OASIS – A collection of a variety of OER which includes textbooks, courses, course materials, interactive simulations, audiobooks, videos and more.

Citizendium – A community of authors developing quality, free knowledge that can be shared

Connexions– OpenStax CNX is available in two formats: Pages and Books which is accessible and can be reused.

HippoCampus – free and accessible videos, presentations and simulations.

Internet Archive’s OER Library – A library of OER that contains a number of accessible courses, video lectures, and supplemental materials from universities in the US and China.

IOER (Illinois Open Educational Resources) – offers free, open, quality educational and career content.  The tools can be used to find, share, and produce resources.

National Science Digital Library – A library of resources that educators can access to reuse, revise for their own courses.

Skills Commons – Free OER that can be used in workforce development and training.

Teaching Commons – A collection of OER including open textbooks, syllabi, lectures that can be reused, revised, redistributed.

Lumen Learning – Offers open, accessible OER materials to improve learning.

Other OER lists

Many universities have research guides related to finding OER and that provide lists of various repositories and resources, so be sure to check your home institution.

Simon Fraser University

University of British Columbia

Kwantlen Polytechnic University

British Columbia Institute of Technology

University of Victoria

University of Northern British Columbia

Virginia Tech VTechWorks

The University of Minnesota Libraries