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OER (Open Educational Resources): Find

OER links to sources of free ebooks intended for educational use.

Steps for searching

  1. Guides by Subject
    PCC Guides by Subject: Google Docs made by Portland Community College librarians in response to requests for help from instructors. They vary in depth. 
    Saylor OER Courses by Subject: OER courses by subject/class created for instructors building open courses. Excellent resource.
  2. Complete Courses
    Saylor.org: Offers full courses online. Though they charge students to enroll, they have composed their courses using mostly open materials that can be copied, adapted, etc.
    Lumen Learning: Offers complete courses composed of mostly open materials that can be copied and adapted for free. Lumen also offers partnering with institutions to manage and adapt resources for courses at a cost to students. Contact us if you would like to partner with Lumen.
    Open Course Library: This WA project offers 81 of Washington's most enrolled courses. There are a lot of great readings in these course files. Great community college content
  1. Complete Textbooks
    Open Textbook Library: Hundreds of complete, open college-level textbooks. Many include peer-reviews.
    Open Stax: Rice Connexions is providing peer reviewed, quality open textbooks.
  2. Large Repositories
    OER Commons: Offers a variety of OER at a variety of levels and subjects. Use limiters on left side of results page.
    MERLOT: One of the biggest OER repositories, but a bit unwieldy and difficult to search. Use limiting options on the left side of results page.
    Mason OER Metafinder: Searches 15 OER repositories simultaneously. 
  3. Library Resources
    Consider filling in some of the gaps by using library resources, such as ebooks and articles.
  4. What's next?
    Searching for OER can be tricky, but librarians are happy to help! Contact us for help with your search!
    See the "big list" for even more places to look for OER.
Search: Mason OER Metafinder - Get records from 15 OER repositories
 

Guide information

This guide is adapted from the excellent resources at the University of Pittsburgh, Portland Community College, Virginia Tech, and UMass Amherst Libraries.

Licensed with CC-BY
This content in this guide is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.