Find OER
Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching and learning materials that come in a variety of formats and can reside in many different locations. Consequently, finding OER can prove to be difficult. Below you will find methods and resources you can use to locate the learning materials that can best fit the needs of your course and students.
Finding OER Toolkit
Follow these 6 steps to begin your search for Open Educational Resources.
- Set aside time. Searching for OER takes time and persistence, just like research.
- Identify keywords. Use keywords from your content area and learning objectives to perform relevant searches.
- Locate an OER text. Browse through OER repositories to see if a full open textbook already exists for your course.
- Supplement. Continue browsing to find other content related to your search like course shells and syllabi. Remember Open Educational Resources can be combined and modified to fit the specific needs of a course.
- Review the resources. As the content expert, use any rubric you deem necessary when searching for new teaching and learning materials to use in your course.
- Ask for help! Request a consultation with, or email openscholarship@utrgv.edu, for support at any time throughout this process.
Adopted OER at UTRGV
OER Searching Tools
There are many places one can search for OER. It often takes searching through multiple repositories and aggregators to find something that fits your course needs. The links provided below are a good place to begin your search but are by no means the only places to find open educational resources. If you would like a librarian to assist you during this process, you can fill out the OER Request Form. A librarian will curate resources based on the information you provide.
OER Searching Guide
This linked guide can be downloaded and saved to help you search open repositories for OER. The guide ranks each repository by its ease of use but these repositories can be searched in any order.
Openly Licensed Image Searching Guide
This linked guide can be downloaded and saved to help you search open image repositories for Openly Licensed and Diverse images.
Every platform has its own unique search benefits and strategies. To help guide your searches, we have provided short videos on how to search the most popular OER searching platforms.
Searching OER Repository Tutorials
Search for OER Content
OpenStax
OpenStax, operated by Rice University, improves access to high-quality open education for students everywhere.
Open Textbook Library
The Open Textbook Library provides a growing catalog of free, peer-reviewed, and openly-licensed textbooks.
Pressbooks Directory
This directory provides an index of 3,025 books published across 109 Pressbooks networks.
LibreTexts
LibreTexts wants to unite students, faculty, and scholars to develop an easy-to-use online platform for Open Educational Resources.
OER Commons
OER Commons is a public digital library of open educational resources where educators come to collaborate and improve curriculum.
OERTX Repository
Search for OER used by institutions of higher education in Texas and across the country, including materials aligned to Texas Core Curriculum requirements.
OAISIS
Openly Available Sources Integrated Search (OASIS) is a tool that searches open content from 97 different sources.
BC Campus Open Textbooks
BCcampus uses open technology to facilitate, evaluate, and create open educational resources to share around the world.
Open ALG
OpenALG Affordable Learning Georgia is Georgia's New Home for Open and Interactive Educational Resources.
Open Michigan
Open Michigan encourages scholars and students to maximize the impact of their work through open sharing.
EdTech Books
EdTech Books provides high-quality textbooks free of cost on an open textbook publishing platform.
Mason OER Metafinder
The Mason OER Metafinder launches a real time search for OER across 22 different sources of open educational materials.
MERLOT
The MERLOT system provides access to curated online learning and support materials let by a community of educators, learners, and researches.
COERLL
The Center for Open Educational Resources and Language Learning produces and disseminates language OER for the internet public.
