4 Finding Open Educational Resources

Searching for and finding open educational resources is not that different from searching for any other type of resource. It is a good idea to know what you are looking for and why. You will also find that there are many repositories and federated search engines but as you become more familiar with them you will develop your favourites.

Searching for OER — Tips to Get you Started

1. Look at the table of contents in commercial textbooks for inspiration.
2. Look for smaller pieces of content (topics, chapters, ancillary materials, etc.).
3. OER repositories are often multidisciplinary, and resources come in a variety of types and formats.
4. If searching by keyword, start with broader concepts and then narrow down using discipline-specific terms and/or limiters available on the platform.
5. Use Boolean Operators (the words “and,” “or” and “not” can boost the power of your search). Check out the Adopting a Savvy Search System  in the Ontario Extend “Curator” module for more information.
6. Use the repository filters (i.e. filter for licence and/or material type, etc.). Remember though that not all repositories are organized the same way: some offer filters and reviews to help refine search results, while others do not have these features.
7. Some repositories include resources that are “free” but not. necessarily “open”, therefore take the time to verify the copyright or licence terms of each item to confirm if it is an OER.
8. Pay attention to the open licence (remember, you can always ask for permissions beyond the licence).
9. Keep track of information. Some OER’s are catalogued in more than one repository so there may be duplication.
10. If you can’t find an OER in the repositories, try searching Google! If available, use the “advanced search” function.
11. May not find an exact replacement for a commercial resource: some adaptations and using more than one OER may be required.
12. Ask a librarian and/or the person responsible for OER at your institution to help!
13. Shop around and keep coming back! There is no “one-stop shop” for OER. Access different repositories (and continue checking because they are always growing and being updated).

Suggested OER Repositories and Sources

These repositories are a good starting point to find a wide variety of open educational resources.

• B.C. Open Collection (BCcampus)  – Multidisciplinary
• eCampusOntario Open Library  – Multidisciplinary. Some recent resources created as part of the Virtual Learning Strategy (VLS) have an Ontario Commons license, which is more restrictive than a Creative Commons license.
• LibreCommons by LibreTexts  – Multidisciplinary
• Lumen Learning  – Multidisciplinary
• Mason OER Metafinder  – Multidisciplinary. This tool makes it possible to search two types of collections: OER repositories and “Deeper Search”, i.e. archives and other content in the public domain.
• MERLOT  – Multidisciplinary; Federated Searching. MERLOT includes copyright-protected content. Search results are presented in three categories: “MERLOT Collection” (mostly OER), “Other Libraries” (pointing to other open collections), and “The Web” (including education and government sites).
• Milne Open Textbooks  – Multidisciplinary
• OASIS (Openly Available Sources Integrated Search)  – Federated Searching
• OER Commons  – Multidisciplinary
• OpenStax  – Multidisciplinary
• Open Textbook Library  – Multidisciplinary
• PennState University Libraries ROAM  – Multidisciplinary
• Pressbooks Directory  – Multidisciplinary. This directory includes copyright-protected content.
• Teaching Commons  – Multidisciplinary

This is an adaptation from Finding Open Educational Resources and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License​