Research Guides: Open Education: Find OER (by discipline)

Examples of OER by Discipline

On the indented pages on the left you will find textbook and non-textbook open educational resources.

Discipline-specific pages are not intended to be exhaustive, but to showcase content that may be of interest to faculty considering adopting open educational resources for use in their classes.

For up-to-date information, see: OER by Discipline Guide (BCCampus)

Search Strategies

TWO Strategies for identifying open course material

1) Look for it yourself

2) Ask for help. If you are spending more than 15 minutes looking for something (and are a member of the Virginia Tech community) please email: openeducation@vt.edu to request assistance. We can save you precious time and effort.

Where to look for Open Educational Resources and Open Textbooks: THE BIG SEVEN

Pressbooks Directory
A directory of 6,000+ publicly-available books in Pressbooks. Licenses vary. Many are more-easily customizable through Virginia Tech's Pressbooks software. See additional resources on authoring and customizing at: https://guides.lib.vt.edu/oer/authors Learn more about VT's Pressbooks instance at: https://pressbooks.lib.vt.edu
Course Materials for Educators (BCcampus)
Find free, open, and customizable materials by course or subject organized by BCcampus. Includes coursepacks and textbooks.
LibreTexts
Zero cost open textbook access and remix system with content in biology, business, chemistry, geosciences, humanities, math, physics, Spanish, statistics, and workforce development. Features: embedded media, dynamic figures, Jupyter integration, Hypothes.is annotation, print on demand, LMS imports, and forthcoming WeBWork integration.
Open Textbook Library (Univ of MN)
The Open Textbook Library is a collection of over 1,500 freely available electronic textbooks licensed under one of six Creative Commons licenses. Some books include faculty peer reviews. All can be read online and are downloadable for offline reading. If you're interested in reviewing, check https://guides.lib.vt.edu/oer/opentextbooksintro to express interest in upcoming workshops -- and a $200 stipend for completing a written review.
OER Commons
Contains more than books! OER Commons indexes a wide variety of openly licensed educational materials. Licenses vary by item.
Search instructions: (Under "material type" select "textbook" or for a curated collection go to: https://www.oercommons.org/hubs/open-textbooks )
MERLOT
MERLOT contains links to freely available online textbooks from a variety of sources. MERLOT II is a project of the California State University System.
- Search instructions: (Filter "material type" by "open textbook").
OER by Discipline Guide
Contains links to a wide range of open educational resources organized by discipline. Provided by BCcampus.

Meta searches

1) OER Metafinder
From George Mason University. About the MetaFinder https://publishing.gmu.edu/whos-using-the-mason-oer-metafinder
2) OASIS (Openly Available Sources Integrated Search)
Indexes 50+ different sources. From SUNY Geneseo. About: https://oasis.geneseo.edu/about.php

Additional Resources

Mapping 2-year transfer course content (Virginia)
The goal of the VIVA Course Mapping Project is to support the discovery of Open Educational Resources (OER) aligned to Virginia courses. Recognizing that competing demands and time constraints present barriers to OER adoption for many instructors, the Course Mapping Project works to consolidate and align OER for high enrollment courses at Virginia higher education institutions. https://vivalib.org/va/open/course-mapping-project
Subject Index of CCCOER Listserv
A subject index of open educational resources of various formats. Created by Dr Larry Green, Lake Tahoe Community College. For an introduction to this tool, see the blogpost: https://www.cccoer.org/2017/07/28/index-of-oer-shared-via-cccoer-community-email-group/
TeachOER
A subject and source browsable collection of OER content across the web. Development of the site was funded by a grant provided by Baruch College.
Who is using what? (CCC-OER)
Open Textbooks Collections
A collection of hundreds if not thousands of openly licensed textbooks in various formats.
Librarian Tool Box
For those who "love the hunt" for information.
Free (not necessarily openly licensed) Online Courseware
Lectures, syllabi, assessment tools for nearly any discipline under the sun! Link is courtesy of Affordable Learning Systems, California.
Workforce Training Materials (via SkillsCommons)
Skillscommons is a free and open digital library of Workforce Training Materials.
OER by Discipline (Canadian)
Cool4Ed (California Open Online Library for Education) Showcase
DPLA - Digital Public Library of America
Contains links to a wide range of multimedia objects form libraries, archives and museums around the United States. See copyright/license information in the "rights" field for each item.
2017 Open Textbook List (by discipline)
Claybaugh, Z. & Stone, C. (2017). Open Educational Resource 2017 Textbook List. Fairfield, CT: Sacred Heart University.
Open Course Library
From Washington State
Teaching Commons
Teaching Commons includes open-access textbooks, course materials, lesson plans, multimedia, lectures, k-12 materials, and more.