In This Section:
By the end of this module, you should be able to:
Remember, OER refer to educational materials that include permission for anyone to use, modify and share. In its simplest form, the term OER describes any educational resource (including curriculum maps, course materials, textbooks, streaming videos, multimedia applications, podcasts, and any other materials that have been designed for use in teaching and learning) that are openly available for use by educators and students, without an accompanying need to pay royalties or license fees.
Materials that are under full copyright, or which are not accompanied by a specific license allowing anyone to copy, adapt and share them, are not Open Educational Resources. An example of this would be library resources available through Cowles Library such as ebooks, online articles, and streaming media. You can use these materials only within fair use provisions or copyright exceptions.
Perhaps the most important first step when searching for OER is knowing what you are looking for. Are you seeking OER video lectures that discuss Microeconomics? Alternatively, are you looking for a full OER course on Psychology? If you can narrow down your search to a particular discipline and have an idea of the types of OER content you are seeking, your searching will be much easier.
As you begin your search for relevant open educational resources, it is important to take a few pre-planning steps before diving into the various search tools available. For a moment, put yourself in the shoes of your students when they are asked research a topic for a paper. They identify a topic, outline keywords, plan their search strategy, compile relevant resources, and evaluate their results. Your search for OER won’t be very different from this approach. Below is a great list of questions to ask yourself and pre-thinking approaches to do BEFORE you begin your search.
Once you’ve answered the questions listed above, you’ll have a better sense of where to start your search for OER.
There are billions of openly licensed resources out there; it is easy to feel overwhelmed when trying to find relevant resources.
This video provides a nice overview of two common search repositories and search tools for finding OER. (watch until 4:06; we will cover evaluating in the next section).
Faculty Select (EBSCO) Faculty Select is a good place to start looking for OER, Drake-owned textbook alternatives, and more. Keep in mind, however, that not everything contained within Faculty Select is OER. It is listed here because everything contained within it will be free to the student. It does contained some library-licensed materials that can be used as textbooks.
Faculty Select is a search tool that allows you to search across:
Please watch this short (2:46) video demonstrating Faculty Select.
Searching OER Repositories (includes Open Textbooks, but also many other types of OER)
Searching an OER Repository can result in a productive search experience since the resources have been curated and organized into various categories including discipline, format, and open license. Many repositories have either peer reviews or a rating scale where users have shared their perception or experience with the resource.
Start by trying these well-known and user-friendly repositories:
OER Commons - the go-to repository if you are looking for supplementary resources from lesson plans to full courses. Due to the amount of material in OER Commons, they provide many options for limiting and filtering your searches such as discipline, material type of OER, format, education level and more. Use their Advanced Search features to your advantage to fine-tune your results.
MERLOT - provides access to curated online learning and support materials and content creation tools, led by an international community of educators, learners and researchers. Like OER Commons, it is a go-to resource for supplementary resources. MERLOT also has an ISBN search feature. By using an ISBN, you can find MERLOT Open Educational Resources (OER) that can be used to supplement most textbooks. This allows you to find open courses, journal articles, other texts, and other learning materials that you can use to complement textbooks that you might consider adopting for your courses.
OASIS (Openly Available Sources Integrated Search) - Developed by SUNY OER Services, this robust search tool aims to make the discovery of open content easier. OASIS gives the user access to various open resources, such as textbooks, courses, interactive simulations, and modules. OASIS searches content from 52 different sources. It is recommended that you use the "Advanced Search" feature to filter your results by broad subject. You can also filter your results by OER type, source, license-type, and can narrow your results to "reviewed resources."
Searching for Open Textbooks
If you are looking for an open textbook to replace your current, commercial textbook, start by searching the two resources listed below.
Open Textbook Library - supported by the Open Textbook Network at the University of Minnesota, resources available include mainly college-level open textbooks. The repository includes faculty peer reviews, licensing information, a summary of content, format availability, and direct links to resources. It can be searched by keyword or by browsing discipline areas.
OpenStax - a non-profit out of Rice University, OpenStax, offers peer-reviewed open textbooks in a variety of subject areas. Their focus is on high enrollment lower-level undergraduate textbooks. Student and instructor resources are available along with multiple digital formats for download. If students prefer a print copy, they can purchase one, typically for less than $65. OpenStax books will also appear in search results from the Open Textbook Library.
Drake librarians put together an extensive online Library Guide related to OER. It is a nice supplement to your learning in these modules.The guide has extensive lists of additional options for finding OER. Look at what is also listed there:
Now it's time for you to find a few open educational resources you might want to consider for adoption.
Step 1: ORGANIZE YOUR SEARCH. Use the list of pre-planning questions and strategies listed above in the box "Getting Started: What are you looking for?"
Step 2: IDENTIFY: Choose from Faculty Select, a repository, open textbook search tool, or other OER search tool listed above. Search and find at least two potential open educational resources of interest.
Step 3: COMPILE: Use this template (below) to start your list of relevant OER. Be sure to take note of the open license on that resource (more about open licensing in Modules 4 & 5). Note: You may find some things that could be useful in whole or in part, that's fine!
OER Search Template - Compile - Make a copy and save it locally (on your own computer). Send the link (when assignment is completed) to: teri.koch@drake.edu. Note: here is an example of a completed OER Search Template you may find useful.
In 2014, the Babson Survey Research Group found that the three biggest deterrents to faculty for using OER all had to do with how hard it was to find them. They found the same in 2016. When you used these resources in the "Knowledge Check!" activity (above), did you find what you were looking for? What difficulties did you have?
Please submit your response and discuss with other participants in the Module 2 Discussion channel in Teams before October 27.
Information for this module was adapted from "Carrie Gits SPARC Capstone - ACC Learn OER" by Carrie Gits licensed under CC BY 4.0.
