Lindell Library: Open Access and Open Education Resources: Finding and Evaluating OER

Finding OER

Some of the most well-known and easy-to-use OER platforms are listed below. You may need to search through a few of them to find something you like. You can always reach out to a librarian in your subject area for support finding OER.

OER Commons
OER Commons is another repository that collects materials from many different OER publishers. Check out the advanced filtering options here, which let you select whether this is for a lower-division, upper-division, or graduate course. Ancillary materials such as homework assignments, assessments, and syllabi are also available.
OpenStax
Based out of Rice University, OpenStax publishes peer-reviewed and openly licensed college-level textbooks in math, science, social science, the humanities, and business. OpenStax books come with ancillary materials such as PowerPoint slides and suggested syllabus language. Most books would be best-suited to an introductory level course.
LibreTexts
LibreTexts offers 'libraries' in the subjects of biology, business, chemistry, engineering, geosciences, humanities, math, medicine, physics, social sciences, Spanish, statistics, and workforce. In addition to textbooks, LibreTexts offers a 'course shell' option where instructors and students can remix content to best suit the needs of the class.
MERLOT
The MERLOT system provides access to curated online learning and support materials and content creation tools led by an international community of educators, learners and researchers.
Open Textbook Library
The Open Textbook Library is not a publisher, but a repository that contains open textbooks from many different publishers, including OpenStax and OpenSuny. According to their website, "all textbooks are either used at multiple higher education institutions or affiliated with an institution, scholarly society, or professional organization."
OASIS
Openly 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 132 different sources and contains 447,775 records.
Mason OER Metafinder
This platform performs one search simultaneously across 22 different sources of OER, making it very good for finding OER for a niche area of study. You can restrict your search to OER-specific sites, or you can search other openly-licensed materials from places like the Library of Congress, the New York Public Library, and Project Gutenberg.
DOAB
DOAB is a community-driven discovery service that indexes and provides access to scholarly, peer-reviewed open access books and helps users to find trusted open access book publishers. All DOAB services are free of charge and all data is freely available.

Evaluating OER

Finding OERs is only half the battle. It is also important to determine the credibility of the material before incorporating it into your class. These resources below can help guide you through the process of evaluating OERs.

UC Davis Library - Evaluating OER
UC Davis Library has put together a list of tips for evaluating OER, along with some additional resources.
Checklist for Evaluating Open Educational Resources (OER)
A checklist covering perspectives & accuracy, alignment, production quality, ADA compliance, student access, student engagement, cultural relevance & sensitivity, and licensing of OERs
Checklist for Accessibility
From the Accessibility Toolkit - 2nd Edition, a checklist to help keep your OERs accessible.
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion in OER Rubric & Guide
Guiding principles that can be utilized by individuals or institutions to determine course materials around what students' information needs are in context with the resources diversity, equity, and inclusiveness.