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Guide to Open Educational Resources

(OERs)

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What are OERs?

Open educational resources (OER) are digital materials that can be re-used for teaching, learning, research and more.

OERs are available for free through open licenses, which allow uses of the materials that would not be easily permitted under copyright alone.

Examples include• Courses• Course materials (lectures, presentations, assignments,

assessments)• Videos, podcasts, images• Articles, journals, books• Software

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Tips: Whenever possible grab the embed code. Then, you may integrate the OER content directly into your online course without having to link the students elsewhere.

Utilize the OER Collections listed in the Resources tab. You may also search for content using your search engine. For instance, Google will allow you to search for free and open content by toggling “Usage Rights.” Click here for more information on this subject.

Other Considerations•Try to avoid OER “over-usage” and ask yourself what benefit a particular OER will have for your students.

•Decide how the OER will be used (as the basis for a conference discussion, for an assignment, etc.) and provide clear instructions to students for its use.

•Consider how an OER will need to be adapted to meet the particulars of the class learning objectives.

•Before the start of each new semester be sure to check whether the URL is still valid and whether the OER was updated since you last accessed it.

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Multimedia Education Resource for Learning and Online Teaching (MERLOT): http://www.merlot.org/merlot/Links to a number of great resources for both learning & teaching across a range of academic disciplines. Includes guides, videos, images, assignments, assessments, tutorials, etc.

MIT Open Courseware (OCW): http://ocw.mit.edu/Comprehensive repository of materials from many classes at MIT.

OER Common: http://www.oercommons.org/Free to use, openly licensed resources from k-12 to college courses

Khan Academy: http://www.khanacademy.org/Started by an MIT alum to help teach his cousins via YouTube, it now serves 1800+ courses in mathematics, science, finance, and history.

McGraw Hill CampusHundreds of e-textbooks and digital resources, including Powerpoint presentations, test banks, image libraries, assignments and other valuable resources from some of the most trusted textbook publishers in the nation. Available through ANGEL. Click here for information on accessing and using this resource.

There are a number of portals into the world of OERs…the best of such portals are as follows:

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Below is a partial list of sites that offer subject-specific OERs:

•AMSER (Applied Math and Science Education Repository)

•Berklee Shares (Music)

•Chemistry Collective

•DLESE (Digital Library for Earth System Education)

•Harvard Open Collections Program (History)

•HEAL (Health Education Assets Library)

•iLumina (Science and Mathematics)

•NEEDS (National Engineering Education Delivery System)

•Questia (Humanities and Social Sciences)Contact e-learning

for assistance on

finding OERs that

are specific to your

course

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Sources for free online textbooks:•Bookboon•Textbook Revolution •Free Online Textbooks •Flat World Knowledge •Global Text Project

Search Google Books for free, electronic versions of books. You May be surprised by how many books are completely or partially available on this site.

“The cost of course textbooks has long been a source of financial anxiety for college students. ….Students of two-year public colleges spend, on average, $850 a year on textbooks. The cost of the average college textbook increased 186 percent between 1986 and 2004.” From the Report “Traditional Textbook Alternatives: Considering new solutions to the affordability challenge “ by Shireen Deboo. Click here to read the full report.

Searching for free e-textbooks can be time-consuming. Check out these resources that include thousands of textbooks that are available online