Guides: Fair Use & Copyright: Find Open Educational Resources

OER Websites and Search Tips

Instructors can find OER in a variety of resources. Most OER organizations or collaborations have a database or central list of resources that faculty have added. Some databases also feature annotations or faculty feedback. Additionally, many disciplines have their own OER websites. The list below is not comprehensive but can instead be used as a starting point for faculty doing interdisciplinary work or work in any discipline. Remember that not all of the learning materials in these repositories and sources are OER for modifying but most of the content is freely available under Fair Use and/or with attribution.

General Education Search

OpenAlex
OpenAlex is a free and open catalog of the world's scholarly research system including 48 million open access works and 1.9 billion citations.
Follett Discover
A simultaneous search of publisher-provided resources and OER materials. Provided by the Gordon College Bookstore.
Lumen Learning
Lumen Learning offer OER courses in over 50 college subjects
OER Commons

Recorded Lectures & Video Tutorials Search

Open Textbooks

Modular Course Components

Complete Courses

OER and OCW Search Engines

Math

My Open Math
Provides free problem sets for practice. Almost ten textbooks already designed for courses.
American Institute of Mathematics: Approved Open Textbooks List
Over 15 open textbooks covering different levels of calculus, algebra, and statistics.
Scottsdale (AZ) Community College Math Blog
Free links and pre-developed courses used at Scottsdale.

Humanities

Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB)
A basic search for OA books, including OA textbooks.
Open Humanities Press
Open books and journals, mostly on theoretical topics/ frameworks.
Art Images for College Teaching
University of Michigan compilation of images for teaching or assignment purposes.

Language Learning

Center for Open Educational Resources and Language Learning
Foreign language resources and activities -- more heavily covers the romance languages

Sciences

National Science Digital Library
Provides a robust search to limit by activity type, media format, and age level.
PLOS One
More advanced, specific science resources that are open and could be used in a classroom setting.
AMSER: Applied Math and Science Educational Repository
Funded by the NSF and organized by large LC headings.
The Chem Collective
Created by a group of faculty and staff at Carnegie Mellon to help those teaching/ learning Chemistry.
Scitable by Nature Education
A free science library and personal learning tool. Currently concentrates on genetics and cell biology.

Social Sciences

Open Acess Publishing in European Networks
Contains freely accessible academic books, mainly in the area of Humanities and Social Sciences.

Health

HEAL (Health Education Assets Library)
Images, videoclips, animations, presentations, and audio files that support healthcare education

Tips for Searching OER:

Use the advanced searching feature if there is one. This will save you some time and limit your search.
Start with broad terms (ex. disease instead of cancer) and then narrow.
As you narrow, think about disciplinary language. Is there something else this topic might be referred to as?
If you still aren't getting good results, try to start with the browsing feature (even if it's very broad). Sometimes the term your searching isn't used but you still know it would be under a broad subject like "humanities" or "writing".

Also, see below for an infograpic which visualize the process of searching for OER.
*Note: this infographic was adapted and modified from the University of Texas at Austin's original infographic. For more information, see their Center for Open Educational Resources and Language Learning website.

Infographic about seaching for open educational resources