About this Guide

Welcome to uOttawa’s OER by Discipline Guide! It contains suggestions of Open Educational Resources (OER) assembled and curated by librarians for courses offered at the University of Ottawa.

Purpose

“The problem with open educational resources is that I feel like we’re in such a large pool, and I can’t find anything with my small spoon.” – Marie-Cécile Domecq, Research Librarian (Health Sciences), University of Ottawa (2020)

Searching for OER can be a daunting and time-consuming task, and has been identified as an ongoing challenge by instructors and librarians alike. This guide was developed with the goal of facilitating the discovery and use of OER at uOttawa by presenting professors (and students) with suggestions of free and open teaching and learning resources in their subject areas.

This guide was heavily inspired by the one created at McMaster University and others (see “Credits“). Like other lists of this type, it is far from complete and continues to be a work in progress. Version 1.0 (June 2021) focuses mostly on open textbooks for 1000-level courses. In the coming years, more resources will be added, including for 2000, 3000, and 4000-level courses.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the shift to online learning have demonstrated how difficult, if not impossible, it is for academic libraries to acquire resources usually assigned in courses, especially digital textbooks, to help alleviate the burden on students already affected by economic uncertainty.^[1] OER are free, accessible, and adaptable alternatives to commercial teaching materials.

We invite you to share your OER adoptions with us so they can be included in this guide by completing the adoption form.^[2] If you have other OER to suggest, please do so through the Suggestions, Comments, and Corrections form.

We hope that uOttawa faculty, instructors, and students will find this guide (and its French version) helpful as they consider the options available for quality, open educational resources for their courses.

Suggested timeline for updates

Version 2.0 – June 2022

Version 3.0 – June 2023

Version 4.0 – June 2024

Additions and major revisions will be made each June (ahead of the Fall term) and while minor revisions will be made in November (ahead of the Winter term).