- Recognizing Different Types of OER
- Where do you look for OER?
- Evaluating OER
- Knowledge Check
- Learn More
- Attributions
Learning Objectives
By the end of this module, you should be able to:
- Recognize the different types of OER
- Apply effective search strategies when looking for OER
- Identify several online repositories for OER
- Utilize other OER search tools available
- Investigate the available reuse options for OER – adopt, adapt, combine and create
- Identify perspectives on evaluating and defining ‘quality’ as it relates to course materials
- Use relevant rubrics for evaluating OER
Recognizing Different Types of OER
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 OER. An example of this would be library resources available through libraries, such as ebooks, online articles, and streaming media. You can use these materials only within fair use provisions or copyright exceptions.
What are you looking for?
Perhaps the most important first step when searching for OER is knowing what you are looking for. Are you seeking OER video lectures on microeconomics? Are you looking for a full OER course in 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 to 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.
Prepare to Search for OER
- What sparked your interest in OER?
- What type of OER are you looking for? A textbook? A video? A set of lesson plans?
- Identify course objectives, topics, and outcomes that the OER will need to cover
- List what you like (or love) about your current course materials
- List what you don’t like about your current course material
- Think about the effectiveness of the textbooks and course materials. Are your students learning what you want them to learn?
- Have you used any OER before? If yes, make a list of resources and authors you’ve used in the past
Once you’ve answered the above questions, you’ll have a better sense of where to start your search for OER.
Where do you look for OER?
There are millions 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 some of the more common search repositories and tools for finding OER.
Searching OER Repositories
OER are not easily found with a simple Google search. Sources found in OER repositories have been curated and organized into various categories including discipline, format, and open license. Many repositories include either peer reviews or ratings where users have shared their perception or experience with the resource. Start by trying the well-known and user-friendly repositories listed below.
(Please note that a consolidated list of repositories is also available in the appendix.)
| 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, there are 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. |
| SkillsCommons | A comprehensive collection of workforce-related OER created by over 700 community colleges across the US. Created by the Department of Labor’s Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) program, SkillsCommons contains free and open learning materials and program support materials for job-driven workforce development. |
| MERLOT | Another comprehensive OER repository that includes both supplemental materials and open textbooks. MERLOT comes from the Cal State system and was one of the first OER collections. |
| Teaching Commons | An aggregated database for finding OER. You can browse by the creator’s institution, material type and subject. |
Searching for Open Textbooks
If you are looking for an open textbook to replace your current, commercial textbook, start by searching the resources listed below.
| Open Textbook Library | Supported by the Open Education Network at the University of Minnesota, available resources 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 courses. Student and instructor resources are available along with multiple digital formats for download. Students also can purchase print copies typically for less than $65 if they prefer a print version – work with the ACC Bookstore to arrange for print copies for purchase. OpenStax books will also appear in search results from the Open Textbook Library. |
| OpenMichigan | This site collects OER created by University of Michigan authors. Browse by subject. |
| OpenSUNY | Browse by subject or author of OER created by authors with the SUNY system. |
Using Metasearch Tools
Be aware that these search tools rely on license metadata being detected on the source webpage(s), but it is wise to confirm the CC license on the content you want to reuse before doing so.
| Google Advanced Search | Many of us use Google every day, but you may not be aware of its advanced search features. The Google Advanced Search allows you to filter results by usage rights, but it does not offer a list of licenses to search by. Instead, Google gives its own descriptions of the licenses: not filtered by license (default) -free to use or share (CC BY-NC-ND) -free to use or share, even commercially (CC BY-ND) -free to use, share, or modify (CC BY-NC or CC BY-NC-SA) -free to use, share, or modify, even commercially (CC BY or CC BY-SA) To find content that you can modify, select one of the two last options in the drop-down menu. |
| Mason OER Metafinder (MOM) | This metasearch tool from George Mason University Libraries, searches 22 OER repositories at once. You can add or remove sources to modify your search targets. |
| OASIS Search | Openly Available Sources Integrated Search (OASIS) is a search tool developed at SUNY Geneseo that aims to make the discovery of open content easier. This tool will simultaneously search 115 different open content sources. |
Finding Multimedia
| 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. |
| USA.gov | Do a simple search or browse through videos and images from the federal government. |
| The Public Domain Project | Hosted by the stock footage company Pond5, this website curates almost 100,000 image, video, audio and 3D model files in the public domain. |
| Smarthistory | Focused on art and art history, this website includes images and videos based on geography, time periods and styles and themes. |
| Library of Congress | About a dozen collections that include free to use and reuse material. |
Finding Images
| Google Images Advanced Search | Scroll down to the “usage rights” menu and select “free to use and share.” Images in the results list should be openly licensed. |
| Flickr | Flickr hosts millions of Creative Commons-licensed images. Click the “Any license” filter to narrow down to images with different kinds of open licenses. |
| Getty Images | Getty Images has more than 100,000 images that are considered open. This search page is set up to include only those images. |
| Wellcome Images | These images from the Wellcome Trust have a focus on current and historical medical topics. |
| Google Images | 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. |
| Visual Hunt | Millions of images that have been licensed with a Creative Commons license. |
| Smithsonian | Includes 2.8 million images from the Smithsonian’s collection that have been released in the public domain. |
| Pexels | Stock photos that have been placed in the public domain. |
| Pixabay | Another site of stock photos, vectors and illustrations placed in the public domain. |
Finding Audio
| ccMixter – Community Music Remixing Site | Get access to remixes and samples licensed under Creative Commons licenses. |
| Public Domain and Royalty Free Music | Massive lists of public domain music and songs, as well as royalty free music. From the Public Domain Information Project site. |
| Internet Archive – Music | 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. |
| Free Music Archives | Music that’s been cleared of copyright issues. Browse by genre or most popular. |
| University of Oxford Podcasts | Open podcasts made for University of Oxford classes. Browse through by topic or do a simple search. |
| BandCamp | These music files uploaded to BandCamp include a Creative Commons license. |
| Freesound | 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. |
Finding Videos
| The Open Video Project | 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. |
| Internet Archive – Movies | This collection features almost 3 million videos archived by the Internet Archive. Check individual collections and movies for copyright status. |
| YouTube | 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. |
Evaluating OER
The first part of evaluating an OER is asking yourself what you want to do with the OER. Do you want to adopt and use it as is? Or, do you want to adapt and modify the content to meet your needs? If you found an OER that matched your learning outcomes perfectly, but some modification was required, does the license on that resource allow you to modify? Or, is it licensed in a way that does not allow for modifications or derivatives? If modifications are not allowed, you may want to consider another resource. So first, before diving into rubrics, consider the license for the OER and what the permissions allow.
The following questions can help guide you when selecting and evaluating OER. The list below is also available in PDF format from Affordable Learning Georgia
- Clarity, Comprehensibility, and Readability
- Is the content, including any instructions, exercises, or supplemental material, clear and comprehensible to students?
- Is the content well-categorized in terms of logic, sequencing, and flow?
- Is the content consistent with its language and key terms?
- Content Accuracy and Technical Accuracy
- Is the content accurate based on both your expert knowledge and through external sources?
- Are there any factual, grammatical, or typographical errors?
- Is the interface easy to navigate? Are there broken links or obsolete formats?
- Adaptability and Modularity
- Is the resource in a file format which allows for adaptations, modifications, rearrangements, and updates?
- Is the resource easily divided into modules, or sections, which can then be used or rearranged out of their original order?
- Is the content licensed in a way which allows for adaptations and modifications?
- Appropriateness
- Is the content presented at a reading level appropriate for higher education students?
- How is the content useful for instructors or students?
- Is the content itself appropriate for higher education?
- Does the content reflect a variety of perspectives?
- Accessibility
- Is the content accessible to students with disabilities?
- If you are using Web resources, does each image have alternate text that can be read?
- Do videos have accurate closed-captioning?
- Are students able to access the materials in a quick, non-restrictive manner?
- Supplementary Resources
- Does the OER contain any supplementary materials, such as homework resources, study guides, tutorials, or assessments?
- Have you reviewed these supplementary resources in the same manner as the original OER?
Evaluation Rubrics
There are plenty of rubrics and evaluation tools available. Your department already may use one for evaluating other course material or textbooks for adoption. If they do, use that! Outside of considering if you want to exercise the 5Rs and whether the licensing on the resources allows for it, evaluating OER should not be any different than evaluating other course material under consideration for adoption.
Suggestions for easy-to-use and widely-adopted rubrics for evaluation include:
Getting Organized with Curriculum Mapping
Another successful approach to evaluate an OER is to use a course map template to track course outcomes, activities, and teaching resources. A course map, also known as a curriculum map, is a record of teaching and learning that can provide faculty an opportunity to align OER with course learning outcomes. An added advantage to course mapping is unearthing unintentional gaps or redundancies in your learning outcomes. Additionally, you can use a course map to document the license for the resource, keep track of where the resource lives online, and organize comments as you compile more resources.
To learn more about curriculum mapping, click here.
Iowa State University’s Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching uses Quality Matters (QM), a faculty-centered course mapping framework that assists faculty in creating a course map for their online course; list each course outcome and identify the learning resources, activities, and assessments for each. If you are redesigning an online or hybrid course, we recommend faculty contact their campus instructional designer to help set up the course map before you begin. It will save time by organizing your map as you begin to compile OER.
To see a blank course map template as well as an example used by Austin Community College, use these links:
Knowledge Check
Often, in conversations surrounding the evaluation of OER, questions emerge relating to quality, such as, “is the quality of the OER as good as commercially produced copyrighted course material?” As you find and evaluate OER, challenge yourself to consider HOW you define and measure quality. Consider instead, the effectiveness of the OER meeting your teaching and learning goals.
Take a minute to read this 2013 blog post from David Wiley, On Quality and OER. After reading and reflecting, do you agree or disagree with this statement:
“For educational materials, the degree to which they support learning is the only meaning of quality we should care about.”
Learn More
Attributions
ACC Learn OER by Carrie Gits is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License