Where to Find OER
You can find OER in many different places. We will focus our searches for the first part of this module on repositories and collections because they provide curated and focused links to resources. They also usually include tools to narrow down your search to find the most relevant resources. Repositories also often provide useful reviews.
Below are some of the most useful repositories and collections with a brief description:
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OER Commons: OER Commons is a public digital library of open educational resources. Explore, create, and collaborate with educators around the world to improve curriculum.
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Open Textbook Library: The Open Textbook Library provides a growing catalog of free, peer-reviewed, and openly-licensed textbooks.
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OpenStax: Based at Rice University OpenStax offers high quality textbooks with adaptive learning technology, designed to improve learning outcomes through personalized educational paths.
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MERLOT: The MERLOT system provides access to curated online learning and support materials and content creation tools, led by an international community of educators, learners and researchers.
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California Open Online Library for Education (COOL4ED): The three State of California Higher Education Systems are working together to provide easy access to quality FREE and OPEN eTextbooks that everyone and anyone can use for teaching and learning.
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Open SUNY Textbooks: Open SUNY Textbooks is an open access textbook publishing initiative established by State University of New York libraries and supported by SUNY Innovative Instruction Technology Grants.
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Skills Commons: The US Department of Labor’s Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) program has created a free and open online library called SkillsCommons containing free and open learning materials and program support materials for job-driven workforce development.
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BC Campus Open Ed: A collection of open textbooks aligned with the top 40 highest-enrolled subject areas in the province [British Columbia].
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Open Oregon Educational Resources: Promotes textbook affordability for community college and university students, and facilitates widespread adoption of open, low-cost, high-quality materials.
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Mason OER Metafinder (MOM): Simultaneously search OER repositories.
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Canvas Commons: Found in your Canvas campus account, these courses are openly licensed.
Practice Searching
Though this seems like a long list do not be overwhelmed. Choose a few links from the list and spend 5 minutes or so in each trying out a search for materials in your discipline. On the next page we will look at various search strategies for searching in repositories.
