In this section you will be introduced to places you can find quality OER for your courses. You have likely used an OER in your work or as a supplemental resource for your courses already. If you have linked to a TedTalk in your class, you have used an OER! If you have used an image found on Wikimedia Commons, you have used an OER! In this section, we will explore the different ways to find quality OER to incorporate into your courses.
At the completion of this module, you will know places to look for quality OER and you will identify OER that may be relevant courses that you teach.
CLO 3 Identify Places to Find Quality OER
MLO 3.1 Find major OER repositories
MLO 3.2 Identify sets of OER that would be useful for courses you teach
You can find OER in a few different ways. Many OER have been included in repositories that specifically cater to OER materials. Repositories provide a variety of material formats along with advanced filters to narrow your search. When searching OER repositories, you may find videos, full textbooks, case studies, course modules, and more. The large amount of materials in these repositories can be overwhelming and it may be helpful to focus on smaller collections. Some repositories include selection criteria or provide evaluation tools for faculty reviews.
There are also a number of OER textbooks associated with specific institutions or university presses. For example, OpenStax out of Rice University focuses on open textbooks for introductory courses. If you teach a large introductory course, you may find a good match for your course in OpenStax. The section’s readings will highlight some additional institutions or presses that provide quality OER materials.
Finally, you can find openly licensed work through search engines like advanced Google searches or Mason OER Metafinder (MOM). These will include a wide variety of results and it can take extensive time to review materials.
New OER are published all the time. If you do not find an OER that works for your course, more materials may be available in the future. Thanks to the Creative Commons License attached to OER, you can also modify the materials to fit your needs. Please see Module 5 for more information on customizing OER.
Finding & Evaluating OER for Higher Education Courses: (Minutes 0:00-28:58, Sam Harlow and David Tully, Open Fridays OER Webinar series) In this OER Fridays! webinar, Sam Harlow and David Tully share where to find and evaluate OER. The first half of the webinar covers how to find OER for your courses.
Repositories and Search Tools (OER Starter Kit) In this chapter of the OER Starter Kit, you will find a breakdown of the different types of repositories available. For helpful places to start, please see “Best Bets.” For subject specific repositories, please see the “Subject-Specific Repositories.”
Knowing where to Find OER: (University of Hawaii)- A breakdown of different types of repositories. Additionally, information on advanced Google searches for CC licensed work.
Finding CC licensed Content (Lumen Learning) - A helpful resource to learn how to identify Creative Commons licenses on digital resources like websites and videos
OpenStax by Rice University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Finding and Evaluating OER for Higher Education Courses by Sam Harlow and David Tully is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.
The OER Starter Kit by Abbey K. Elder is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.
UH OER Training by William Meinke is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.
Finding CC Licensed Content in Adopting Open Educational Resources in the Classroom by Lumen Learning is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
George Mason University Libraries. (n.d.). The Mason oer metafinder (MOM). https://oer.gmu.edu/?page_id=967#mom.
As you learned in Section 3.1, there are many ways to search for OER including using repositories or conducting advanced searches using Google. It can be overwhelming to sift through materials to identify quality OER to include in your courses. This section will highlight select repositories for you to begin your OER search. These repositories feature either a variety of materials with advanced filter options or limited formats like only complete textbooks. Additionally, the UNC System OER Hub will provide materials already identified by other UNC System faculty as quality OER.
The accompanying activity to this section provides the space to note course topics to use for searching OER repositories. The activity can be completed after browsing the repositories below. However, it can be helpful to complete the activity while searching these repositories to note key OER for your course.
OER Repositories
OER Commons - This repository is multidisciplinary and it contains a variety of materials including open textbooks, videos, courses, modules, and more. Searches can be narrowed to subjects like business, education, history, life science, physical science, social science, and more. Additionally, searches can be narrowed to education levels such as lower division (college), upper division (college), or graduate-level.
UNC System OER Hub (OER Commons) - In this repository built on the OER Commons platform, you will find materials identified by UNC System faculty as quality OER to use or supplement with other course materials.
Open Textbook Library- This is a curated library of over 800 open textbooks in a variety of disciplines. The collection can be browsed by subjects or searched using keywords. The library is maintained by the Open Education Network at the University of Minnesota. Books added to the Open Textbook Library must meet specific criteria. Additionally, many books in the collection include faculty reviews.
Repositories and Search Tools (OER Starter Kit)- Find examples of subject repositories in the ‘Subject-Specific Repositories’ listed in this chapter. If you did not find useful materials using the repositories above, you may want to add subject-specific repositories to your search.
Activity
This activity can be completed while reviewing the repositories listed above. The goal of this activity is to identify OER that cover topics included in your current textbook. You will be asked to include the pricing and topics of your current textbook. Additionally, you will be asked to search recommended repositories for possible OER materials. Finally, you will be asked to reflect on your findings.
For recommendations on evaluating OER, please see MLO 4.
OER Treasure Hunt Worksheet: Use this worksheet to identify OER for your course.
OER Commons by ISKME is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
UNC System OER Hub on OER Commons by ISKME is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Open Textbook Library by Open Education Network is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
The OER Starter Kit by Abbey K. Elder is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.
OER Treasure Hunt Worksheet is an adaption of the OER Treasure Hunt Worksheet by SPARC Open Education Leadership Program, and is used under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.