OER Faculty Guide: Finding & Using OER

Unless you are creating your own OER entirely from scratch, you'll want to find existing OER you can adapt and remix.

Here we provide some recommendations for getting started.

Finding OER

1. How to Find & Evaluate OER (video, 6 minutes)

2. Finding OER Collections: search Open Washington's Open Resource Repository & other repositories.

3.Skyline Recommends: Skyline OER by Discipline (Subject)

4. Skyline Recommends: OER by Format (Multimedia)

Evaluating OER

Once you've selected potential OER of interest you'll want to evaluate those resources for accessibility and other important factors.

1. If you haven't done so already, watch How to Find & Evaluate OER (video)

2. Review Evaluate OER from Iowa State University, a research guide that also recommends tools for evaluating for accessibility (CC BY)

3. Review Evaluating Resources, a useful one-page module with videos and evaluation tools by Alisa Cook (CC BY) 

2. Review a Faculty OER checklist from BC Open Campus.

Finding OER Collections (Repositories)

While many organizations have compiled collections of OER you can select from, Open Washington provides an OER finder that's free and extensive. Search OER repositories for free; begin by signing up and then select your format of choice.

Additional OER Repositories with a focus on textbooks:

• OER Commons: A comprehensive source of OER materials and information. A one stop location most types of material including:

  Full university courses, complete with readings, videos of lectures, homework assignments, and lecture notes.
  Interactive mini-lessons and simulations about a specific topic, such as math or physics.
  Adaptations of existing open work.
  Electronic textbooks that are peer-reviewed and frequently updated.

• Openstaxcollege Great source of peer-reviewed textbooks. Tend to lean more toward the sciences.

  Usually have additional resources such as ppt slide shows and tests to go along with textbook.

• Open Textbook Library This library is a tool to help instructors find affordable, quality textbook solutions. All textbooks in this library are complete and openly licensed.
• Community College Consortium 

  Open textbook collection more focused on Community College level materials, although many of them do contain those as well.

• College Open Textbooks 

  A collection of colleges, governmental agencies, education non-profits, and other education-related organizations that are focused on the mission of driving awareness, adoptions, and affordability of open textbooks.