LibGuides: Open Educational Resources: Find, Evaluate and Adopt OER

Find OER for your course

BCcampus Open Textbooks Collection
Over 260 titles in subjects offered by BC postsecondary institutions and instructors.
Pressbooks Directory
Provides an index of over 3,500 books published across the Pressbooks network.
eCampusOntario Open Library
Provides access to more than 600 free and openly-licensed educational resources. The library was launched in 2017 in partnership with BCCampus.
LibreTexts
Choose from Course LibreTexts (customized textbooks) or TextMaps (designed for easy modification and adoption). Strong Chemistry content.
Directory of Open Access Books
A joint service of OAPEN, OpenEdition, CNRS and Aix-Marseille Université.
USask Open Textbooks
Open Academic Publishing Platform at the University of Saskatchewan.
Athabaska University Press
PDFs of academic books. Can be downloaded in full or by chapter. Licensing prohibits derivative works (i.e. adapting textbooks). Humanities and Social Sciences focus.
University of Alberta Press: Open Access Titles
Significant titles from University of Alberta Press are made Open Access rather than allowed to go out of print.
Milne Open Textbooks
Catalogue of open textbooks authored and peer-reviewed by SUNY faculty and staff
GALILEO Open Learning Materials
OER from the University System of Georgia, including open textbooks and ancillary materials.
National Academies Press
Publications can be read online for free or downloaded as PDFs via a free account. Health Sciences focus.
OpenStax
Rice University-based collection of 40 peer-reviewed college textbooks.
Open Book Publishers
UK-based Open Access publisher in Humanities and Social Sciences.
Open Textbook Library
University of Minnesota-based collection of free, peer-reviewed postsecondary- or professional-level textbooks.
Textbook Equity
College-level textbooks currently or recently used in US postsecondary institutions.
Open Oregon Educational Resources
List of OER course materials that Oregon community college and university instructors are currently using.
OER in Development by Discipline
Appendix B in the BCcampus OER by Discipline Directory. Find OER currently in production that can be used in the future.
Zero Textbook Cost
OER textbooks developed by College of the Canyons, available via Google Drive. See ECCE content.

Mega-sites offer textbooks and other OER materials.

Pressbooks Directory
Provides an index of over 3,500 books published across the Pressbooks network.
MERLOT
Discipline-specific OERs, including textbooks, presentations, assignments, courses and more. Postsecondary focus. All content is peer-reviewed.
OER Commons
Discipline-specific OERS, including textbooks, lectures, assignments, courses, and more. Elementary, middle, high school and postsecondary. Click Discover > Collections to explore resources in your discipline.
SOL*R (Shareable Online Learning Resources)
Textbooks, courses, and tools and technologies, compiled by BCcampus.
Open American
A list of some of the most popular OER collections.

MIT OpenCourseWare
Almost all MIT course material, including reading lists, lecture notes, and assignments. Over 2400 courses available. Note: selected readings are not open; reading lists link out to Amazon listing.
Open Course Library
Syllabi, learning activities, reading lists, and assessments for Washington's 81 highest enrolled college courses. Some required readings from low cost textbooks ($30 USD or less).
Saylor.org Academy
Nearly 100 full-length courses at college and professional levels. Most content created by Saylor Academy is licensed for reuse (excluding final exams).
Lumen Learning
Evidence-based courseware to support student success.

Learning objects are resources designed to enrich education (e.g. assignments, audiovisual material).

HippoCampus.org
Videos, animations and simulations in core academic areas. Middle school, high school and postsecondary.
WISC-Online
Over 2500 learning objects, including assessments, animations, simulations, case studies, drills/practices and templates.
Community of Online Research Assignments (CORA)
Research and information literacy assignments, adaptable across disciplines.
ChemCollective
Virtual labs, learning activities, and concept tests.
PhET
Interactive, research-based simulations of physical phenomena.

Directory of Open Access Journals
DOAJ is an independent index, which contains almost 17,500 peer-reviewed, open access journals covering all areas of science, technology, medicine, social sciences, arts and humanities.

Search multiple sources quickly

The Openly Available Sources Integrated Search (OASIS) searches across 52 sources of open educational resources. Learn more here.

The Mason OER Metafinder (MOM) searches across 18 sources of open educational resources. Learn more here.

Need a textbook? Start with BCcampus

Finding and Using OER Guide from BCCampus
A one-page PDF guide to finding information on Open Licenses, Open Textbooks, General OER Collections, and Open Media Searches. From BCCampus.

Evaluate and adopt OER

CAUL-CBUA: Approaching and Evaluating Open Textbooks

"Open Textbook Infographic" by the Council of Atlantic University Libraries (CAUL-CBUA) is licensed under CC-BY 4.0.

Evaluating OER Checklist
Adapted from Affordable Learning Georgia's "Selecting Textbooks" guide.

Faculty Guide for Evaluating Open Education Resources by BC OEL is licensed under CC-BY 4.0.

If you are using an open textbook:

T ell BCcampus. Your answers will automatically populate their adoption stats.
Tell VCC Library. Contact your subject librarian (find them on your subject guide) to have a print copy added to the VCC Library collection.
For more information, check out BCcampus' Open Education Adoption Guide.

If you are using any OER:

Check the license to see how you can use the resource. Learn more about frequently used OER licenses.
Share the OER with your students. We suggest adding the link to your course Moodle.
When adopting (e.g. linking in Moodle) or adapting an OER, acknowledge the creator(s) of the original work with an attribution statement. Visit CCCOER's Attributing OER page to learn how to write an attribution, and where to place it. Find example attribution statements in BCcampus' Faculty OER Toolkit.

Steps to Using OER

Set aside time: Searching for OER takes time & persistence, just like research.
Look at your current text: Is your current textbook available through the library databases?
Locate an OER text: Check to see if a whole OER textbook already exists for your course.
Browse open repositories: Browse several repositories to see what content is available
Supplement: Look at your learning objectives and find different materials for different topics.
Ask for help: Call a librarian to get help. You can do this at anytime!

"Six Steps to OER" by Northwestern Michigan College (NMC) Librarians, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license / Modified text from original by Lesley University Library.

Hard-back OpenStax books come to Canada

Canadian textbook distributor, Vretta, is now taking orders for many of the OpenStax books hosted in the BC Open Textbook Collection. Their order page lists: a pricelist, refund policy, and bulk order discount for organizations and individuals who order 10 or more books.

Buyers may also purchase these books through Amazon.ca. Look for Vretta as the distributor.

Open Educational Resources: Find, Evaluate and Adopt OER

Search the BCcampus Open Textbook Collection