LibGuides: Seneca Libraries Staff Guide to Open Educational Resources: Find OERs

Federated OER Search

Openly Available Sources Integrated Search (OASIS)

Openly Available Sources Integrated Search (OASIS) is a search tool that aims to make the discovery of open content easier. As of December, 2019 OASIS searches open content from 98 different sources and contains 368,234 records.

OASIS is being developed at SUNY Geneseo's Milne Library.

Top Four OER Repositories

eCampus Ontario Open Textbook Library

A curated collection of over 150 of the best open textbooks from other sources. Most book pages include comprehensive reviews by Canadian professors. All resources are available in an easy to edit format.

OpenStax CNX

A nonprofit initiative of Rice University, OpenStax provides access to tens of thousands of learning objects, called pages, that are organized into thousands of textbook-style books in a host of disciplines, including more than 20 open textbooks originally authored by OpenStax.

Open Textbook Library

Open textbooks on a variety of subjects created by the University of Minnesota. This collection lists more books than the eCampus site, but fewer books are reviewed.

Open Educational Resource 2017 Textbook List

This is an updated, discipline specific OER textbook list for departments at Sacred Heart University, compiled by Zach Claybaugh and Chelsea Stone.

**You can find textbooks, resource sites and course support resources developed by our own faculty on the Seneca Faculty Guide to Open Educational Resources: Seneca-created OERs.

Hit a Wall? Practical Pathways When You Can‚Äôt Find the OER You Need

More OER Repositories

This list is not comprehensive and will always be a work in progress.

Collection and URL	About	Strengths	Weaknesses
2012 Book Archive https://2012books.lardbucket.org/	A publisher released all of their textbooks under a Creative Commons license as a pilot project in 2012. While they chose to discontinue the pilot, copies of the books were uploaded to this site.		Any updates these books receive by their original authors will be unavailable on this website.
College Open Textbooks http://www.collegeopentextbooks.org/	A collection of twenty-nine educational non-profit and for-profit organizations, affiliated with more than 200 colleges, is focused on driving awareness and adoptions of open textbooks to more than 2000 community and other two-year colleges.	Reviewers ensure the quality of open textbooks Focus is on community and other two-year colleges Includes open courses Some material includes Instructor Resources	Repetition of content from other collections Many resources are not made in a format that is easy to edit
eCampus Ontario Open Textbook Library https://openlibrary.ecampusontario.ca/	A curated collection of over 150 of the best open textbooks from other sources. Most book pages include comprehensive reviews by Canadian professors.	All resources include an easy to edit format.
Global Text Project http://globaltext.terry.uga.edu/books	Joint project of the University of Georgia and the University of Denver in the areas of Business, Computing, Education, Health, Science and Social Science.	Strong subject support in applied sciences.	Difficult to access formats that are easy to edit.
IMSLP Petrucci Music Library https://imslp.org/wiki/Main_Page	Sharing the world’s public domain music.	This is a collection of music that is free to use under Public Domain. It is not free to adapt or modify.
Libretexts https://chem.libretexts.org/	A multi-institutional collaborative venture of open-access texts at all levels of higher learning. Other categories include biology, mathematics, and engineering. https://bio.libretexts.org/	High quality chemistry textbooks and course material.	Less availability of full textbook type resources.
Lumen https://courses.lumenlearning.com/catalog/lumen	Lumen offers learning management system (LMS) integration, content editing, faculty training, and other services as part of a fee-based course support package for institutions interested in wider-scale adoption of OER courses. For more information, please visit lumenlearning.com.	Resources include full course material such as student directions and assignments and teacher preparation guides.	Content level is basic.
MyOpenMath https://www.myopenmath.com/index.php	MyOpenMath is an online course management and assessment system for mathematics and other quantitative fields. MyOpenMath’s focus is providing rich algorithmically generated assessment to support the use of free, open textbooks like the ones listed on OpenTextBookStore.com.
OER Commons https://www.oercommons.org/	A large repository for Open Educational Resources, including textbooks. Contains material for preschool to university.	Includes a vast collection of resources. Provides hubs and micro sites for users to share collections, administer groups, and share news.	Navigation can be difficult because interface leads users back to original source for resource.
Open Educational Resource 2017 Textbook List http://digitalcommons.sacredheart.edu/library_staff/48/	An updated, discipline specific OER textbook list.
Open Textbook Library open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/	Open textbooks on a variety of subjects created by the University of Minnesota.	This collection lists more books than the eCampus site.	Fewer books are reviewed.
OpenStax CNX cnx.org/	OpenStax CNX began as Connecxions in 1999. It includes tens of thousands of learning objects, called pages, that are organized into thousands of textbook-style books	Small modules that can be organized as courses, books, reports or other academic assignments.
OpenStax College openstaxcollege.org/	OpenStax is a smaller collection of open textbooks only.	Includes more than 20 openly licensed college textbooks. All resources come with teaching material.

For more information about finding OERs, visit the Curating page on the Learning Portal.

Evaluating OERs

The process is similar to evaluating textbooks.

Does this OER cover the content you’d like your students to learn in this course?
Is the level of the content appropriate? Or is it too high-level, low-level, or technical?
How can you use the content? Verify the license that the resource is under. Can you remix or revise the OER as long as it isn’t for commercial purposes? Who do you have to recognize if you use it? Will you be able to do so? For more help with this, please contact the Copyright Team.
Once you determine how you can use the OER, what would you like to do with it? Does only a portion of it apply to your class? Would you possibly want to combine this OER with another OER or resource? Does the library have access to articles that could act as supplemental readings?

Evaluation Rubrics

Unless otherwise specified, all resources on the Seneca Libraries Staff Guide to Open Educational Resources are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.