There are many databases that can be used to find open educational resources. As you become more familiar with them you will develop your favourites. There are a variety of options depending on the type of resources that you are looking for.
Where do I find Open Educational Resources?
Finding OER
These databases are a good starting point to find a wide variety of open educational resources.
- eCampusOntario Open Library
The Ontario OER Collection provides educators and learners with access to free and openly-licensed educational resources. Explore the collection to find your next OER to adopt or adapt for your teaching needs. Use the filters to narrow your search results.
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This database, overseen by the Open Textbook Network, includes books authored by faculty at more universities across the country, and many include peer reviews. You can browse by subject or do a simple search.
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A new database to search hundreds of sources of OERs hosted by SUNY Geneseo.
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Similar to OASIS, it allows you to search other OER databases at once. Run by George Mason University
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This database of OERs lets you search by education level, learning material type, and accessibility. Supported by the not-for-profit group Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education.
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Browse this collection of 159 textbooks by topics or use a simple search. About half include peer reviews. BCCampus, supported by the government of British Columbia, curates the OERs created by British Columbia academic institutions.
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Browse for OERs in this aggregated database by the creator’s institution, material type, and subject.
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Use this database to search a variety of material formats that are in the public domain or were made open by universities across the country. Make sure to use the Full-Text search to ensure access to the material.
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Run by the California State University System, MERLOT curates OERs that have been licensed for reuse and materials that are online for free. Search includes audience, language, material type, Creative Commons licenses, and accessibility.
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Open Educational Resource 2017 Textbook List
Although not a database, this in-depth list breaks down OERs by discipline.
- OpenStax
Although small, this collection of 34 textbooks covers some of the basic introductory classes in the maths, sciences and social sciences. The books have all been peer reviewed.
Open educational resources don’t have to be just textbooks; any material you use in the classroom can be open. These sites focus on other materials – images, videos, and audio – that are free to use and, in some cases, licensed for adaptation.
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Digital Public Library of America
The Digital Public Library of America aggregates more than 14 million items from libraries, archives and museums. Items include text, videos, images and audio. -
New York Public Library Digital Collections
The New York Public Library has made almost 700,000 items – mostly images, although text, maps, audio and movie files are included – in their digital collections free to the public. Check individual items for any other copyright restrictions. -
Do a simple search or browse through videos and images from the federal government.
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Hosted by the stock footage company Pond5, this website curates almost 100,000 image, video, audio and 3D model files in the public domain.
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Focused on art and art history, this website includes images and videos based on geography, time periods and styles and themes.
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About a dozen collections that include free to use and reuse material.
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Getty Images has more than 100,000 images that are considered open. This search page is set up to include only those images.
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These images from the Wellcome Trust have a focus on current and historical medical topics.
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This advanced search page for Google Images allows users to search for images that include a Creative Commons license. Use the last filter on the page, Usage Rights, to set your terms.
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Like Google images, Flickr also allows you to search for images that come with a Creative Commons license. This page is set up for that already, but you can also filter any search by click on “any license” in the upper left corner of the page to choose what license you want.
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Millions of images that have been licensed with a Creative Commons license.
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Includes 2.8 million images from the Smithsonian’s collection that have been released in the public domain.
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Stock photos that have been placed in the public domain.
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Another site of stock photos, vectors and illustrations placed in the public domain.
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Thousands of audio files curated in the Internet Archive. Includes all types of audio files. Check to see if specific ones are licensed to be adapted.
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Music that’s been cleared of copyright issues. Browse by genre or most popular.
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Open podcasts made for University of Oxford classes. Browse through by topic or do a simple search.
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These music files uploaded to BandCamp include a Creative Commons license.
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These audio files focus more on snippets, sounds, bleeps, etc. Includes searching by a “sounds like” feature and a help forum to make specific requests. Files should include a Creative Commons license.
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These free videos are curated by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill but have not been cleared of copyright issues. Many of them come from the federal government.
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This collection features almost 3 million videos archived by the Internet Archive. Check individual collections and movies for copyright status.
You can specifically search for videos uploaded to YouTube with a Creative Commons license. After you run a search, click the Filter box at the top of your results list. From there, in the Features column, select Creative Commons.
Attributions
University of Nevada, Reno Scholarly Communication and Open Access Guide by Teresa Auch Schultz is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.