Open Educational Resources (OER): Find OER

Search Engines for OER

Searching for OER, can seem like a daunting and overwhelming task. Thankfully there are some search engines that allow you to focus your search efforts for OER:

• OASIS - OASIS is a search engine that allows you to search several OER repositories at once. It is rather intuitive, and even has some easy to use filters to search for materials based on its type.
• OER Commons - This repository is also a great search engine for OER, as a majority of OER materials can be found here.
• Mason OER Metafinder - Developed by George Mason University, this metafinder/search engine, searches across 18 different sources devoted to OER.
• Creative Commons Search - This search allows you to search for images, videos, and other multimedia that has been tagged as having a Creative Commons License.

OER Textbooks

Believe it or not, there are a bunch of great resources for finding OER Textbooks, in a variety of disciplines:

• BC Campus OpenEd - British Columbia created a repository of OER Textbooks that is very high-quality. They have texts in a variety of disciplines and are constantly adding new sources.
• Open Textbook Library - Based out of the University of Minnesota, this is a great place to look for OER Textbooks.
• OpenStax - OpenStax is a nonprofit educational initiative based at Rice University, they have a good collection of core OER Textbooks and also include other instructional resources (lecture slides, test banks) with the titles.
• Galileo Open Learning Materials - As part of the Affordable Learning Georgia initiative, the University System of Georgia have developed OER Textbooks in a variety of subjects.
• LibreTexts - This is a great resource for finding OER Textbooks in the STEM discipline areas.
• Open Oregon - As the name implies, this is an initiative based out of Oregon, that includes a few OER Textbook titles.
• Open SUNY Textbook Library - Open SUNY focuses on OER courses, but also has a collection of OER Textbooks.

If you are having trouble navigating each of these OER Textbook resources, you can also use the OASIS OER Search Engine, which allows you to search a majority of these places with one search.

OER Repositories

In addition to specific repositories focused on textbooks, there are repositories that can be used to find all types of OER:

• OER Commons - One of the larger repositories of OER content, it focuses on a variety of disciplines and is a great place to start.
• MERLOT - MERLOT is a curated online library of OER that has been contributed from various academic institutions.
• Skills Commons - Created by a federal grant, Skills Commons focuses on OER related to workforce training and industry.
• Open Course Library - Started by the State of Washington's Community and Technical Colleges Consortium, it includes a lot of OER resources and low-cost alternative instructional materials.
• The Orange Grove - Florida's Open Educational Resource Repository. Has texts, materials, and learning objects across various disciplines.
• CCCS Learning Object Repository - This isn't quite OER, but is instead a system-wide repository of learning objects, that are shared from other community colleges in CCCS.