LibGuides: Open Educational Resources (OER): Open Educational Resources

Open Educational Resources (OER)

Open educational resources (OER) are learning materials, including high-quality textbooks, that are intentionally created to be freely accessible to everyone. Anyone can copy and redistribute them.
The purpose of using OER is to reduce overall educational costs, especially for students with limited resources, while maintaining equivalent standards of quality.
Explore OER topics below or select a new topic on the left navigation bar.
Find recommended open textbooks and e-textbooks at the Montgomery Library under Open Resources by Subject.

What are Open Educational Resources?

Open Educational Resources are openly licensed materials that are freely accessible for educational distribution. This means the original authors did not claim copyright, but included a Creative Commons license statement or icon indicating their intention for the work to be distributed for free with minimal restrictions. Examples of OER include textbooks, syllabi, lectures, assignments, games, etc. These are web resources that users may share if attribution is given to the original author.

Remixing and adapting of the material may also be possible depending on the type of Creative Commons license that the author applied to the work. (A Creative Commons license releases some of the copyright restrictions that would ordinarily apply.) At the item level, find this information under "license" or "terms of use." As an author, you can license your own original work with a Creative Commons license, or you can license a work you have derived from other appropriately licensed works. The most common Creative Commons (CC) license is the Creative Commons Attribution license (CC BY). This license lets others remix and reuse the work if the user gives attribution to the original creator and provides a link to the original work.

For more information about how Creative Commons licenses are used, visit creative commons.org.

OER vs. Open Access vs. Library Resources

Open Educational Resources: Teaching and learning materials that can be altered and reused by anyone under the conditions of the Creative Commons license of the work.

Open Access Resources: E-books and articles that the publishers make freely accessible to anyone.

Library Resources: Resources that are affordable and accessible to current students and faculty because the institution has paid for access.

Compare Resources
FEATURES	OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES	OPEN ACCESS RESOURCES	LIBRARY RESOURCES
The work can be saved	yes	yes	yes
The work can be altered or scaled	yes	no	no
New content can be added to the work	yes	no	no
A new version of the work can be distributed	yes	no	no
The work is free to user	yes	yes	yes
User has perpetual access to the work	yes	maybe	no

Tips for Finding Open/Free Textbooks

Use the databases and collections below to search for OER textbooks as well as e-books at the Montgomery Library that may be suitable for your courses.

How to Select and Evaluate OER: Backward Design

Faculty are encouraged to use the "backward design" method, which means first reassessing learning outcomes and objectives on their syllabi and then locating OER materials or other free library resources that align. It is common to select chapters from multiple open textbooks that align with the natural subdivisions within a course. Even if you prefer to use your regular textbook, open textbooks can be used for supplementary or remedial readings for students who need more background knowledge.

Faculty evaluating OER generally consider the following criteria:

Clarity/comprehensibility/readability - Is the material at the appropriate level for students and does the content flow smoothly from section to section?
Content/technical accuracy - Is it accurate? Peer-reviewed? Are there any other types of errors or formatting issues?

OER Textbooks vs. Multi-user E-Books at the Library

Before diving into the OER textbook databases, you might want to check the Montgomery Library electronic resources for published electronic textbooks and reference works that our students can access for free. This can be a good option since library resources save money and should be of high quality. If you would like to confirm whether an electronic textbook is permanently available in the library collection and available for multiple users, please contact the Instruction & Reference Specialist.

Below are links to the main databases at the Montgomery Library that contain electronic textbooks. To narrow down results in a database for textbooks, use keywords in your search such as "introduction to" or textbook. For example, you might try the following Boolean search in the library databases listed below:

biology AND ("introduction to" OR textbook)

Library Databases for Finding E-Books to Use as Course Texts:

Gale eBooks This link opens in a new window
Formerly called Gale Virtual Reference Library, this is a database of encyclopedias, almanacs, and specialized reference sources for multidisciplinary research.
eBook Collection This link opens in a new window
Search EBSCOhost's e-book collection containing over 180,000 books in electronic format covering a broad range of academic subjects.

CU Search
Select the E-Book tab to filter only e-books. To find textbooks, try creating Boolean searches using terms such as textbook and "introduction to."

JSTOR This link opens in a new window
JSTOR is an online archive of full-text academic journals and e-books in all fields.

Assistance from Library Staff

Feel free to schedule an in-person or online Personal Research Appointment with the Instruction & Reference Specialist, who can help track down sources for your course. Also consider looking at recommended OER textbooks and other materials organized by subject, listed in the left navigation bar.

Top Recommended Databases/Collections of OER Textbooks

OpenStax
OpenStax contains peer-reviewed, openly licensed, free textbooks. Instructors can create an instructor account that grants special access to test question banks and other resources.
Open Oregon
Course materials used by Oregon community college and university instructors to reduce textbook costs. This source is beneficial since you can see what materials instructors have found to be useful for specific courses.
Open Textbook Library
Textbooks in the Open Textbook Library are free to distribute, and are licensed to be freely adapted or changed with proper attribution. Reviews from instructors are included. It includes both basic and advanced-level textbooks.
Libretexts
Platform for accessing and customizing OER textbooks and other materials
British Columbia Open Collection
Selection of OER resources meeting high standards set by educators in British Columbia, Canada.
DOAB: Directory of Open Access Books
DOAB is a discovery service for peer-reviewed open access books and book publishers.

Other Sources for Quality OER Materials:

Library of Congress Open Access Books
This is a growing online collection of contemporary open access e-books.
MERLOT (Multimedia Education Resource for Learning and Online Teaching)
Access curated online learning and support materials and content creation tools, led by an international community of educators, learners and researchers.
OAOPEN.org
OAOPEN promotes and supports the transition to open access for academic books from European networks.
OER Commons - Advanced Search
OER Commons is searchable by material type/medium, subject area, and other parameters. Find textbooks by checking "Textbook" under "Material Type" when searching.
OER Commons - Open Textbooks
Platform for easily browsing textbook titles organized by subject, level, and other parameters
Open Access MUSE
Discover open access resources in the Humanities from Project Muse.
Open Library from Internet Archive
The goal of the Open Library is to make published works available to everyone in the world. Make a personal account to log in to the Library.
Open Research Library
The Open Research Library (ORL) includes more than 200,000 open access books.
Open Textbook Initiative
These open textbooks are approved by the American Institute of Mathematics
PDXOPEN
The Portland State University Library publishes open educational resources (OERs) and open access textbooks that are free to anyone in the world.
Project Gutenberg
Find some of the world’s great literature here, with focus on older works for which U.S. copyright has expired.
Standard Ebooks
Use this collection of high quality, open source, public domain ebooks free of U.S. copyright restrictions.

Library Resources - Free Films/Videos

The library also provides free access to several film databases, which can support your course objectives for learners who benefit from audio-visual sources.

Films On Demand: Master Academic Collection This link opens in a new window
The Master Academic Package from Films on Demand contains nearly 40,000 films that will both educate and entertain students and faculty on a wide range of subjects including history, biology, business and economics, engineering, computer science, technical and trade skills, art and architecture, music and dance, philosophy and religion, geography, environmental science, anthropology, language and literature, mathematics, psychology, sociology, political science, and more.
Films on Demand: Archival Films & Newsreels This link opens in a new window
This collection provides archival and historical films from multiple sources such as the Prelinger Archives, WPA Film Library, United Newsreel collection, Universal Newsreel collection, and recordings from the National Archives and Records Administration.

Using Library Links in Moodle

Instructions for creating links to online library resources:

Locate the item using CU Search.
Click the underlined title of the item.
Click on the Share icon.
Copy and paste the link into your Moodle course section.

Users are prompted to enter their Moodle credentials for access to library resources.

Please contact the library staff for assistance with creating links for your courses.