Research Guides: Open Educational Resources: Finding OERs

OER Repositories

For available OER in a variety of subjects, below is a brief list of several high-quality resources:

BC Open Collection
A curated selection of OERs that can be accessed by educators. Curated and managed by BC Campus - an open education organization funded by the Canadian government to support universities and colleges in the province of British Columbia.
Directory of Open Access Books
A searchable database of peer-reviewed scientific monographs that have been made accessible by academic publishers in open access. DOAB was established by OAPEN (Open Access Publishing in European Networks) Foundation.
LibreTexts
Created by UC Davis with the support of Department of Education grants, LibreTexts contains open textbooks and other OERs.
Milne Open Textbooks
Containing openly-licensed, peer-reviewed textbooks from the State University of New York, SUNY Open Textbooks provides open textbooks as well as consultation services for faculty interested in adopting or creating OER.
Minnesota OER Commons
Part of a statewide collaborative called Minnesota Learning Commons (MnLC), which offers consulting, training, and a suite of tools for the use of OER in K12 and higher education.
OER Commons
Teaching and learning materials that you may freely use and reuse. Launched by ISKME (Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education).
OpenStax
Peer-reviewed, openly-licensed textbooks, which are available in free digital formats and for a low cost in print. Includes a free core set of ancillary resources for every book it publishes.
Open Textbook Library
The Open Textbook Library is unique among OER indexes. Faculty are encouraged (and sometimes incentivized) to write reviews of OERs within the Open Textbook Library. For information about the OTN check the website). Purdue libraries are a member of this network.

Subject-Specific OER

Private Academic Libraries of Indiana (PALNI) have created a list of OERs that work with courses included in the Indiana Core Transfer Library. The Indiana Core Transfer Library is a comprehensive, continually updated list of courses that are pre-approved for transfer between all Indiana public college and university campuses and five independent colleges and universities (assuming adequate grades were earned).

OER Consortiums and Organizations

Open Education Consortium
The Open Education Consortium (OEC) is a non-profit, global, members-based network of open education institutions and organizations.
SPARC
SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) is a non-profit advocacy organization that supports systems for research and education that are open by default and equitable by design.
Open Education Network
An alliance of hundreds of colleges, universities, and consortia partners working together to advance the use of open textbooks in higher education,

Locating Ancillary Material

Ancillary-Specific Platforms

PHET Interactive Simulations
Founded in 2002 by Nobel Laureate Carl Wieman, the PhET Interactive Simulations project at the University of Colorado Boulder creates free interactive math and science simulations. PhET sims are based on extensive education research and engage students through an intuitive, game-like environment where students learn through exploration and discovery.
Sage Math
SageMath is a free open-source mathematics software system licensed under the GPL. It builds on top of many existing open-source packages: NumPy, SciPy, matplotlib, Sympy, Maxima, GAP, FLINT, R and many more. Access their combined power through a common, Python-based language or directly via interfaces or wrappers.
H5P OER Hub
H5P makes it easy to create, share, and reuse interactive content by providing a range of content types for various needs.
You can create interactive content by adding the H5P plugin to your WordPress, Moodle or Drupal site, or integrate it via LTI with Canvas, Brightspace, Blackboard and many other VLEs that supports LTI integration.
MyOpenMath
MyOpenMath is designed for mathematics, providing delivery of homework, quizzes, and tests with rich mathematical content. Students can receive immediate feedback on algorithmically generated questions with numerical or algebraic expression answers. And it can do so much more, providing a full course management system, including file posting, discussion forums, and a full gradebook, all designed with mathematics in mind.

Repositories with Ancillary Materials

OER Commons
Teaching and learning materials that you may freely use and reuse. Launched by ISKME (Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education).
Teaching Commons
The Teaching Commons brings together high-quality open educational resources from leading colleges and universities. Curated by librarians and their institutions, the Teaching Commons includes open access textbooks, course materials, lesson plans, multimedia, and more.
LibreTexts
Created by UC Davis with the support of Department of Education grants, LibreTexts contains open textbooks and other OERs.
SkillsCommons
The US Department of Labor’s Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) program created a free and open online library called SkillsCommons containing free and open learning materials and program support materials for job-driven workforce development. The OER 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.
MERLOT
The MERLOT system provides access to curated online learning and support materials and content creation tools, led by an international community of educators, learners and researchers.

Institutional Repositories

GALILEO Open Learning Materials
GALILEO Open Learning Materials brings together open educational resources throughout the University System of Georgia, including open textbooks and ancillary materials.
UNI ScholarWorks
The purpose of UNI ScholarWorks is to collect, preserve and make available the research and creative and scholarly output from the University of Northern Iowa (UNI) community.

Open Courseware

MIT OpenCourseWare
MIT OpenCourseWare is a web based publication of virtually all MIT course content. OCW is open and available to the world and is a permanent MIT activity.
eCampusOntario H5P Studio
A place to create, store, and share your H5P activities. Built in collaboration with Wilfrid Laurier University Library, this platform will provide a jumping-off point for educators to connect over open modules.