OER Brainstorm Document
- OER Brainstorm ToolInterested in getting started with OERs? Use this OER brainstorm tool to help you strategize.
OpenStax Samples at Lehigh
Interested in previewing OpenStax books? Lehigh has acquired 15 OpenStax samples that are available on reserve at Fairchild Martindale Library.
What are Open Educational Resources?
"Open Educational Resources are teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use and repurposing by others. OER include full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks, streaming videos, tests, software, and any other tools, materials, or techniques used to support access to knowledge."
Source: Hewlett Foundation
OASIS - Search for Openly Available Content
Free online eBook providers
Typically, purchasing eBooks is nearly as costly as buying a new copy of the print version. There are, however, quite a few resources on the open web where you can find free eBooks, particularly titles whose copyright has expired and now reside in the public domain.
HathiTrust - A partnership of academic and research institutions; offers a collection of millions of titles, most in public domain, digitized from libraries around the world.
Project Gutenberg - A digital library of free eBooks in the public domain. Most items are available to read online, as kindle files, and as EPUB files.
Bartleby - Publishes thousands of free online classics.
Archive.org - Offer over 8 million freely accessible eBooks.
Amazon*- Many public domain titles are available for free as Kindle or online reads. Try searching "free classics." You will need to sign in to an Amazon account to access these titles.
Google Books* - The world's most comprehensive database of digitized books, some of which have full-text access, and many of which have partial-text access.
(*While these can be great resources, please be aware that the quality of the digitized items can be poor.)
Laboratory Instruction Videos and Related Content
The purpose of this library guide is to identify freely accessible videos and other content that are relevant to conducting undergraduate laboratory work. Some commercial entities are mentioned in the guide; their mention is *not* a product endorsement and is just offered for your convenience and information.
Open Textbooks
In response to increasingly burdensome textbook prices in higher education, many institutions and faculty are moving towards open textbooks as a way to control costs for students (for example, the Textbook Affordability Project at Temple). Open textbooks are freely available to download and use, and usually distributed under a copyright license that allows educators to share and remix content.
- Open Textbook LibraryThe Open Textbook Library offers textbooks that have been funded, published, and licensed to be freely used, adapted, and distributed. These peer-reviewed books can be downloaded for no cost, or printed at low cost. All textbooks are either used at multiple higher education institutions; or affiliated with an institution, scholarly society, or professional organization.
- OpenStaxOpenStax is a nonprofit based at Rice University with the mission to improve student access to education. Their first openly licensed college textbook was published in 2012, and their library has since scaled to more than 25 books for college and AP courses used by hundreds of thousands of students.
- Directory of Open Access BooksDirectory of peer reviewed open access books submitted by academic publishers. Books are free to read and share non-commercially, but licenses vary.
- MIT Online TextbooksWeb-based publication of MIT's course content. Some of these online textbooks are open-licensed electronic versions of print books. Others are self-published online books, or course notes which are so thorough that they serve as an alternative to a conventional textbook.
- WikibooksWikibooks is "the open-content textbooks collection that anyone can edit."
- SUNY Open TextbooksThe Open SUNY Textbook (OST) project, which originally launched from SUNY IITG, is offering services to support wide faculty adoption of OER that can be effectively sustained, improved and shared, as well as delivered to students.
Other Open Educational Resources
Beyond textbooks: other Open Educational Resources include notes, syllabi, streaming video, and supplementary course materials. Here are some resources that help you identify open access (i.e., freely available) educational resources.
- MERLOT IICalifornia State University System's curated collection of free and open online teaching, learning, and faculty development services contributed and used by an international education community. Peer-reviewed and rated content includes more than 3,000 textbooks (free login required).
- OER CommonsA digital public library and collaboration platform that allows users to build course content from existing content (including lectures, case studies, and textbooks), or contribute your own. Includes content from all education levels.
- Carnegie Mellon University Open Learning InitiativeOffers open online courses for use by students or instructors, including practice exercises and assessments. Courses can be used by module.
- Open Syllabus ProjectThe Open Syllabus Project searches textbooks that are used together on the same syllabi, as well as metrics on use and frequency. This may prove useful for building syllabi or identifying alternate textbooks.
- OPEN.ED@PSUOPEN.ED@PSU offers open educational resources and complete courses written by Penn State faculty. These materials are freely available for you to use, reuse, revise, remix, and redistribute under a creative commons license.
- Climate Literacy and Awareness Network (CLEAN)Resources in CLEAN include 700+ ready to use lesson plans, scientific data, visualizations, interactive computer models, and virtual field trips that have been peer-reviewed by scientists and educators.
Online Courses
- Yale Open CoursesOpen Yale Courses provides free and open access to a selection of introductory courses taught by distinguished teachers and scholars at Yale University. The aim of the project is to expand access to educational materials for all who wish to learn.
- Harvard University Online Learning [free]The Harvard Online Learning portal provides a gateway for the public to access Harvard’s extensive learning content. This site does not host any direct learning content, but rather pulls together and indexes courses and learning materials from professors, centers, schools, libraries, and initiatives across the Harvard campus.
- edXEdX is a nonprofit online initiative created by founding partners Harvard and MIT and composed of dozens of leading global institutions, the xConsortium. EdX offers interactive online courses and MOOCs from the world’s best universities and institutions.
- Khan AcademyKhan Academy offers practice exercises, instructional videos, and a personalized learning dashboard in subjects including math, science, computer programming, history, art history, economics, and more. Most content is at the secondary education level.