Finding OER
Looking for materials to use in your classroom? Consider OER!
Open Educational Resources (OER) are guided by the idea that high-quality educational materials should be available to everyone.
OER are educational materials—everything from a single lesson plan to an entire textbook—that save students and teachers money because they are free to use, customize, and share.
OER are openly licensed, which makes it easy to personalize materials and infuse them with fresh, relevant content.
There are many types of OER materials available!
Materials from Virginia's Academic Library Consortium
Includes syllabi, assignments, and courses.
Free to stream videos
Places to find free to use images.
How to evaluate OER materials
Evaluating OER is similar to evaluating possible textbook adoptions, like assessing the reading level and how well it matches your learning objectives. But remember that with open-licensed materials you have the flexibility to adapt the content to what works for you.
- Peer review of material available on many OER sites
- Reputation of author or institution
- Pedagogical approach
- Accuracy of content
- Alignment with course objectives or learning outcomes
- Appropriate reading level
- Technical quality (clear visuals, production value)
- Clear licensing declaration: Creative Commons license, public domain, or your own fair use determination for copyrighted works. **This might be a good time to create an attribution statement as your decide on resources you know you'll want to use.
from: https://guides.kirkwood.edu/opentextbooks
- Open Textbook OER Evaluation RubricThe review rubric that is used by the Open Textbook Network's Library, developed by BCcampus.
VIVA
The VIVA Faculty Textbook Portal is a catalog to assist Virginia public college and university faculty in finding and selecting open and affordable textbooks for their courses in one place. The Portal is part of a wide-scale Open and Affordable Initiative by VIVA to provide no-cost and barrier-free access to course curriculum resources for students and researchers. The Portal contains over 200,000 titles from VIVA's shared library collections, open access textbooks, and ebooks available for VIVA to purchase on behalf of public colleges and universities throughout the state.
VIVA Open is a collection of Open Education Resources adopted, adapted, and/or created by faculty and higher education professionals at Virginia institutions.
Books & Journals
- American Institute of MathematicsA list of open source or open access textbooks have been judged to meet the evaluation criteria set by the AIM editorial board.
- Directory of Open Access Books (DOBA)DOAB is a discovery service for peer reviewed open access books and book publishers that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed books.
- HathiTrustHathiTrust is a shared digital repository created by major research libraries. It offers searching of the full text of books and full access to works in the public domain for more than 18+ million digitized items.
- InTechOpenPublisher of Open Access books and journals in the fields of Science, Technology and Medicine. They provide support services for faculty who wish to publish a book or journal and make it available via Open Access.
- Milne Open TextbooksPublisher of Open Access books and journals in the fields of Science, Technology and Medicine. They provide support services for faculty who wish to publish a book or journal and make it available via Open Access.
- NobaNoba features college-level chapters (focused on psychology topics), written by experts and licensed under Creative Commons, that can be used to build customized digital textbooks. Search the catalog of chapters; organize the topics and chapters in the order you choose; “publish” the resulting digital text either online or as a downloadable PDF.
- OpenstaxA part of Rice University, they publish high-quality, peer-reviewed, openly licensed college textbooks that are free online and low cost in print.
- Open Textbook LibraryA library of open access textbooks to help instructors find affordable, quality textbook solutions. All textbooks in this library are complete and openly licensed, and the system allows for peer review.
- Project GutenbergProject Gutenberg is an online library of more than 70,000 free eBooks.
- University of Pittsburgh Press Digital EditionsPitt Press has select items as open access, including titles from the Pitt Latin American Series, Pitt Series in Russian and East European Studies, and Composition, Literacy and Culture. The majority of these titles are out-of-print, but are now available online.
- arXivarXiv is a free distribution service and an open-access archive for 2,308,272 scholarly articles in the fields of physics, mathematics, computer science, quantitative biology, quantitative finance, statistics, electrical engineering and systems science, and economics. Materials on this site are not peer-reviewed by arXiv.
- Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)DOAJ is a discovery service for peer reviewed open access journals that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access journals.
- InTechOpenPublisher of Open Access books and journals in the fields of Science, Technology and Medicine. They provide support services for faculty who wish to publish a book or journal and make it available via Open Access.
- Open Library of HumanitiesThe Open Library of Humanities (OLH) is an award-winning, academic-led, diamond open-access publisher of 28 journals based at Birkbeck, University of London.
OER Materials General
- B.C. Open Collection Course Materials for EducatorsFind free, open, and customizable materials by course or subject.
- COERLLThe COERLL is one of 15 National Foreign Language Resource Centers funded by the US Department of Education. The overall mission of these federally-funded centers is to improve the teaching and learning of foreign languages by producing resources (materials and best practices) that can be profitably employed in a variety of settings.
- EuropeanaWe display digital cultural heritage from over 4,000 different European providing institutions. Contains images, documents, books, sound and video recordings, and 3D files.
- LibreTextsThe LibreTexts mission is to unite students, faculty and scholars in a cooperative effort to develop an easy-to-use online platform for the construction, customization, and dissemination of open educational resources (OER) to reduce the burdens of unreasonable textbook costs to our students and society.
- MERLOTOER materials from the MERLOT collection consists of tens of thousands of discipline-specific learning materials, learning exercises, and Content Builder web pages, together with associated comments, and personal collections.
- MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW)MIT OCW is an online publication of materials from over 2,500 MIT courses across all disciplines.
- OER CommonsOER Commons offers a comprehensive infrastructure for curriculum experts and instructors at all levels to identify high-quality OER and collaborate around their adaptation, evaluation, and use to address the needs of teachers and learners.
- Skills CommonsA large set of open educational materials (including syllabi, assignments, assessment tools, quizzes/tests, etc...) developed by Federal TAACCCT Grant recipient colleges. ER can be found, reused, revised, retained, redistributed and remixed by an individual, institution, and industry for free with the proper attribution to the original author of the resources.
OER Materials STEM
- PhET Interactive SimulationsIncludes “interactive simulations for science and math.” Can be useful for mathematics, physics, engineering, and other subjects. All simulations are open source.
- QUBESThe QUBES platform hosts hundreds of teaching materials, reference materials, and cloud-based software free to use and adapts using open Creative Commons licenses.
- Virtual Lab and Science Resource DirectoryThe BCcampus Open Education Virtual Lab and Science Resource Directory lists free science resources designed to support remote science education.
Free Online Streaming Sources
The following are free sites to watch online videos. Some sites have Creative Commons licenses, some are in the public domain, but some have copyrighted materials. Check the FAQs and About sections of the individual web sites to verify you can use the material before using a video in or for a course.
- 60 Minutes Full Episodes
A collection of full episodes of CBS news program 60 Minutes.
- Academic Earth
A collection of free online courses from top universities around the world. Topics covered include art & design, business, humanities, and computer science.
- Al Jazeera
A collection of shows and documentaries from the network.
- American Indian Film Gallery
A collection of more than 450 films by and about Native Americans ranging from 1925-2010.
- American Rhetoric
A collection of historic speeches presented in video, audio, and text.
- Archeology Channel Video Guide
A collection of over 150 films that cover a variety of archeological topics and places.
- Archive of American Television
Interviews with actors, directors, editors, and others who are in the television industry.
- BBC Online Archive
Themed collections from the BBC Archives of radio and TV programs, documents and photographs from as far back as the 1930's.
- Business of Fashion
Interviews with designers, fashion films, and discussions of important fashion news.
- Civil Rights Digital Library
Access to films, audio recordings, images, and texts related to the Civil Rights Movement in the United States in the 1950's and 1960's.
- C-Span Video Library
An archive of all the C-SPAN programming that has aired since 1987. Programs from all three C-SPAN channels have been recorded and indexed for searching.
- Digital Public Library
A collection of text, images, audio recordings, and moving images from a variety of American libraries, museums, and archives.
- EVIA Digital Archive
Digital archive of ethnographic field videos.
- Folkstreams.net
A National Preserve of Documentary Films about American Roots Cultures streamed with essays about the traditions and filmmaking. The site includes transcriptions, study and teaching guides, suggested readings, and links to related websites.
- Great Performances
Classical music, opera, popular song, musical theater, dance, drama, and performance documentaries.
- Harvard Open Courses
Videos for free courses offered through the Harvard Extension School's Open learning Initiative. These courses taught by Harvard faculty cover subjects such as art & humanities, languages, literature, and science.
- HippoCampus
A project of the Monterey Institute for Technology and Education (MITE) that provides high-quality, multimedia content on general education subjects to high school and college students. Subjects include math, natural science, social science, and humanities.
- Internet Archive
This library contains over a million digital movies uploaded by Archive users which range from classic full-length films, to daily alternative news broadcasts, to cartoons and concerts. Many of these videos are available for free download.
- Khan Academy
A collection of over 4000 videos that cover math, science (biology, chemistry, and physics), finance, and history. These videos are all about 10 minutes long and created to help students learn at their own pace.
- MIT OpenCourseWare
A Collection of MIT course content available for free.
- Moving Image Research Collections Digital Video Depository
Free online public access to copies of archival film and video from several of MIRC's collections including Fox Movietone News, Chinese Film Collection, local television news, and USC Athletic Department.
- National Film Board of Canada
Documentary and animated films that explore the world from a Canadian point of view.
- Open Video Project
A collection of educational and ephemeral films collected and hosted by UNC Chapel Hill.
- Open Yale Courses
Free access to a collection of introductory courses taught by distinguished faculty from Yale University.
- PBS- American Experience
Full length episodes of the PBS series American Experience.
- PBS- Art:21
Almost 1000 hours of original documentary footage chronicling contemporary art and artists. Features artists, art installations, exhibitions, and performances at galleries and museums.
- PBS- Frontline
Online access to select Frontline episodes from 1983- present covering a variety of subjects including health, education, and business.
- PBS- LearningMedia
Instant access to tens of thousands of classroom-ready, digital resources including videos, audio, photos, and even in-depth lesson plans for grades K-13. The site requires registration but all the content is free for educators, students and families.
- PBS- Main
Full length programs from the Public Broadcasting System.
- PBS- NOVA
Selected programs covering topics from ancient worlds to evolution to physics and math.
- PBS-POV
A collection of full-length and short films from the POV series.
- Stanford Health Video Library
A collection of programs featuring prominent doctors presenting the most recent research on numerous health issues.
- TED Talks
A collection of short presentations and speeches presented by a wide variety of acclaimed individuals at the annual TED conference.
- Thanhouser Films Online
Over 50 films produced by the Thanhouser Company between 1910-1917. This collection was pulled together with the help of the Library of Congress, the American Film Institute, The National Film and Television Archive, The British Film Institute, The Museum of Modern Art, George Eastman House, and The Netherlands Filmmuseum.
- UbuWeb
An independent resource dedicated to all strains of the avant-garde, ethnopoetics, and outsider arts. Artists include Jasper Johns, Banksy, Andy Warhol, and many others.
- USDA YouTube Channel
Videos produced by the USDA about a variety of topics including current events, food safety, and nutrition.
- WGHB Open Vault
Online access to unique and historically important content produced by the public television and radio station WGBH. The ever-expanding site contains video, audio, images, searchable transcripts, and resource management tools, all of which are available for individual and classroom learning.
- YouTube Movies
Full length feature films and documentaries available to stream for free or pay-per-view.
from the University of South Carolina Library
Image Resources
- Academic Search CompleteDesigned for college students, this scholarly resource contains indexing and abstracts for more than 13,780 journals, with full-text for more than 9,000 of those titles. To find images using Academic Search Complete, type in your search term and then scroll down to Image Quick View Types. Check B/W Photo, Color Photo and Illustration. Once you select an image, review the cite and permissions links to review what the image can be used for.
- Centre for Better AgingPositive and realistic images of older people, available in the public domain.
- Disabled and HereThis is a disability-led effort to provide free & inclusive stock images from our own perspective, with photos and illustrations celebrating disabled Black, Indigenous, people of color (BIPOC).
- Dollar StreetPhotographs of families, their homes, and how they live around the world. Organized by income, topic, and geography. Images are CC International 4.0
- Gender Spectrum CollectionThe Gender Spectrum Collection is a stock photo library featuring images of trans and non-binary models. Images are licensed CC-BY-NC.
- Google ImagesTo find royalty-free images using Google, search for your subject. Then click on: Tools => Usage Rights => Creative Commons Licenses
- Images of EmpowermentPhoto library of women’s activities from around the world. The images show the connection between women’s work, their health, and ability to care for themselves and their families. Available free to use to non-commercial users, Creative Commons licensing (CC-BY-NC 4.0)
- JSTOR
JSTOR is a multidisciplinary digital library of academic journals, books, and primary sources. NOTE: Artstor's collections are moving to JSTOR and the Artstor website will be retired on August 1, 2024. Learn more about this resource migration from JSTOR here: https://www.jstor.org/artstor
- Library of Congress ImagesThis page features items from the Library of Congress' (LOC) digital collections that are free to use and reuse. The LOC believes that this content is either in the public domain, has no known copyright, or has been cleared by the copyright owner for public use.
- NappyPhoto library of Black and Brown people, licensed CC0, free to use.
- NASA Image and Video LibraryImages, video, and audio from the NASA archives.
- New York Public Library Digital ImagesHundreds of thousands of images from the NYPL collections. The materials are labeled with statements that indicate how you may reuse items, and what sort of permission, if any, you need to do so.
- PICNOIA co-op of stock image photography. A space where publishers, bloggers, website owners, marketers, designers, graphic artists, advertisers and the like can easily search and find diverse multi-racial images. Images are free to use.
- Smithsonian Open AccessHere you can download, share, and reuse millions of the Smithsonian’s images—right now, without asking. You have easier access to over 4.9 million 2D and 3D digital items from our collections. This includes images and data from across the Smithsonian’s 19 museums, nine research centers, libraries, archives, and the National Zoo.
- UnsplashOver 2 million free, high-resolution images.
- Wikimedia CommonsA collection of freely usable media files to which anyone can contribute.