“Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching, learning, and research resources released under an open license that permits their free use and repurposing by others. OER can be full courses, course materials, lesson plans, open textbooks, learning objects, videos, games, tests, software, or any other tool, material, or technique that supports access to knowledge.” — SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition)
Consider using OER to:
- Reduce textbook costs for students.
- Increase access to course materials (e.g., available on-demand across devices).
- Build collaboration (between educators, between students and educators).
- Improve flexibility and material quality (e.g., tailored material for specific purposes, adding current content).
OER reduce barriers to education while increasing the quality of teaching and learning.
Where to Find OER Textbooks
- In online textbook collections. OpenStax has free learning modules and textbooks both developed and peer-reviewed by educators. Open Textbook Library is another collection that pulls titles from multiple OER sources.
- By discipline. OER textbooks serve many fields, including commonly required coursework and high-enrollment classes. The PSU Library curates materials by discipline.
- By PSU faculty. PSU has its own publishing initiative, PDXOpen, which supports faculty in developing open-access textbooks.
- Using search engines. Two great options to begin your search are OASIS and Mason OER Metafinder (MOM), which search across OER repositories and thousands of entries. These are particularly helpful for more advanced or specialized courses.
How to Use OER
- Share existing work: Because OER are licensed under Creative Commons (CC), you can share them at no cost. Just follow the terms laid out by the creator.
- Modify existing work: Modifying an Open Textbook: What You Need to Know is a five-part, step-by-step guide for faculty and those who support them.
- Author your own work: Authoring Open Textbooks is a helpful guide for “faculty, librarians, project managers, and others.”
- Involve students in authoring collaborative work: A useful starting point is A Guide to Making Open Textbooks with Students.
Where to Find Other Forms of OER (and Free Teaching Materials)
- Khan Academy: A collection of instructional videos, practice exercises, and other educational videos across many subject areas.
- Moving Image Archive: Over a million free films, movies, and other videos. Many (but not all) are available for free download. Be sure to check for permissions information in the video description.
- YouTube Education University: Primarily a collection of lectures in various disciplines. YouTube offers a filter so you can search for videos published under Creative Commons licensing.
- Wikimedia Commons: Openly licensed and public domain images and visual media hosted by Wikimedia.
- Flickr: Many photos on Flickr are available for free use and editing with a Creative Commons license.
- Unsplash and Pixabay: While all photos on these sites are free to use, photographers appreciate being credited to help expose their work. Crediting can simply be including the photographer’s name and a link to their profile and/or photo.
- Bloomsbury Academic: A collection of books and digital resources in the humanities, social sciences, and visual arts.
- Project Gutenberg: Over 58,000 free eBooks digitized and proofread by volunteers, with a focus on older works for which U.S. copyright has expired.
- OER Commons: “A public digital library of open educational resources,” including syllabi, lesson plans, assignments, modules, textbooks, etc.
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