The OER landscape is complicated, and the SUNY Oneonta OER Initiative is here to help you find what you need for your classes. Ed Beck or Jennifer Jensen are happy to help with course material searches, or to talk with you about the different types of OER available out there.
Find OER Content
- Ready-to-Adopt OER: SUNY OER ServicesSUNY OER services offers campuses user-friendly technology to adopt, adapt, and tailor existing OER for individual needs, as well as providing guidance for creating and distributing new materials.
- OpenStax TextbooksOpenStax is a nonprofit educational initiative based at Rice University. OpenStax publishes publish high-quality, peer-reviewed, openly licensed college textbooks that are absolutely free online and low cost in print. OpenStax has also developed low-cost, research-based courseware that gives students the tools they need to complete their course the first time around.
- Open Textbook LibraryThe University of Minnesota maintains the Open Textbook Library. This is a repository of original open books that have been adopted at other major universities. The University of Minnesota allows other faculty members to review books, and makes those reviews available to potential adopters.
- BC Open TextbooksTextbooks at BC Open Textbooks are created (or, where possible, re-created from existing open educational resources) by BC post-secondary faculty, reviewed by B.C. faculty and made available under a Creative Commons license.
- Directory of Open Access BooksThe primary aim of DOAB is to increase discoverability of Open Access books. The directory is open to all publishers who publish academic, peer reviewed books in Open Access.
- OAPEN LibraryThe OAPEN Library contains freely accessible academic books, mainly in the area of humanities and social sciences. OAPEN works with publishers to build a quality controlled collection of open access books, and provides services for publishers, libraries and research funders in the areas of deposit, quality assurance, dissemination, and digital preservation.
- OER Commons Textbook HubISKME's digital librarians have curated collections of Open Textbooks and supplementary resources to help leverage OER in your classroom. Whether you are looking for more affordable options for your students, or dynamic content to inspire your own teaching and learning practice, this hub, organized by discipline and provider will help you discover the resources you need at your fingertips.
- SUNY/Milne Open TextbooksMilne Open Textbooks at SUNY Geneseo is a catalog of open textbooks authored and peer-reviewed by SUNY faculty and staff.
- Pressbooks DirectoryThis directory provides an index of 2,403 books published across 96 Pressbooks networks. Pressbooks is an open source content management system designed for creating books that is popular with OER creators.
- National Academies PressThe National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine publishes open access reports in Earth and Life Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Health, and Physical Sciences.
- MERLOTA free online database of Open Educational Resources (OER). A program of the University of California State University Long Beach. MERLOT stands for Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching.
- Lumen LearningLumen Learning: Lumen provides a simple, well-supported path for faculty to teach with open educational resources inside the LMS.
- Carnegie Mellon OLICarnegie Mellon Online Learning Initiative was a pioneer of interactive online textbooks. Their catalog is available for free to all SUNY institutions.
- MIT Open CoursewareOpen SUNY MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW) is a web-based publication of virtually all MIT course content. OCW is open and available to the world and is a permanent MIT activity.
- Open Course LibraryA collection of high quality, free-to-use courses that you can download and use for teaching. All content is stored in Google docs making it easy to access, browse and download.
- Saylor AcademySaylor Academy is a nonprofit initiative working since 2008 to offer free and open online courses to all who want to learn.
- OASISOpenly Available Sources Integrated Search (OASIS) is a search tool that aims to make the discovery of open content easier. OASIS currently searches open content from 51 different sources and contains more than 152,779 records.
- Mason OER MEtafinderThe Mason OER Metafinder searches seventeen targets in real-time, instantly returning the top several hundred or so relevant hits from each site.
- MERLOTThe MERLOT collection consists of tens of thousands of discipline-specific learning materials, learning exercises, and Content Builder webpages, together with associated comments, and bookmark collections, all intended to enhance the teaching experience of using a learning material. All of these items have been contributed by the MERLOT member community, who have either authored the materials themselves, or who have discovered the materials, found them useful, and wished to share their enthusiasm for the materials with others in the teaching and learning community. All the materials in MERLOT are reviewed for suitability for retention in the collection. Many undergo the more extensive "peer review" for which MERLOT is famous.
- OER CommonsOER Commons offers a comprehensive infrastructure for curriculum experts and instructors at all levels to identify high-quality OER and collaborate around their adaptation, evaluation, and use to address the needs of teachers and learners.
- Open Textbook Adoption GuideA quick 5 step guide to adopting open textbooks.
- Open Textbook Adoption WorksheetA worksheet for adopting open textbooks by Judy Baker at Rice University.
- OER Evaluation Guide for FacultyA worksheet for faculty on evaluating open educational resources.
Openly Available Sources Integrated Search (OASIS)
Evaluate OER
Like any textbook or course material, OERs vary in quality. Take some time to evaluate the content in the same ways you currently assess content to include in your courses.
Because OER are often digital materials, it may be helpful to use an OER-specific evaluation rubric such as the BC Campus Evaluation Criteria (see image below), Open Textbook Network Rubric, or the Affordable Learning Georgia Criteria.
[Image from Faculty Guide for Evaluating Open Education Resources at BCcampus, CC BY 4.0]