1. Open Education
  2. Resources
  3. Where to Find Open Educational Resources

Where to Find Open Educational Resources

Open Educational Resources can be found in aggregators and repositories. These OER collections go beyond an internet search. They have easy-to-use filters and advanced search capabilities, including filters to narrow your search on type, copyright, education level, etc. The OER in these repositories are often created by university educators and evaluated by other educators. They range from articles and textbooks to multimedia to entire courses.

Begin by reviewing the Free, Open, and Affordable Resources NIU LibGuide for suggestions on finding low or no-cost materials.

Aggregator Search Engines

  • Mason OER Metafinder (MOM) - This metafinder from George Mason University searches across 19 different OER repositories and sites including OpenStax, OER Commons, MERLOT, HathiTrust and NYPL Digital Collections.
  • OASIS - This integrated search engine developed at SUNY Geneseo's Milne Library searches 76 different sources and contains over 177,000 records.

General OER Repositories

Performing and Visual Arts

  • Art Images for College Teaching - University of Michigan compilation of images for teaching or assignment purposes.
  • Artstor Shared Shelf Commons - A free, open-access library of images. Search and browse collections with tools to zoom, print, export, and share images. Institutions that subscribe to Shared Shelf, a Web-based service for cataloging and managing digital collections, can share their images with the world via the Commons.
  • Bandcamp - Music uploaded to Bandcamp with a Creative Commons license.
  • CCmixter - A community music remixing site featuring remixes and samples licensed under Creative Commons licenses. Search the archive archives for music for your video, podcast or project.
  • Flickr Creative Commons - Many Flickr users have chosen to offer their work under a Creative Commons license, and you can browse or search through content under each type of license.
  • Free Music Archive - The Free Music Archive is an interactive library of high-quality, legal audio downloads directed by WFMU (https://wfmu.org/). The FMA provides a legal and technological framework for curators, artists, and listeners to harness the potential of music sharing. While the Free Music Archive is free and open to anyone regardless of registration or other requirements, written and audio content is curated, and permission to upload/edit content is granted on an invitation basis.
  • Freesound - A collaborative database of Creative Commons- licensed sounds. Browse, download and share.
  • Internet Archive: Audio - This library contains recordings ranging from alternative news programming, to Grateful Dead concerts, to Old Time Radio shows, to book and poetry readings, to original music uploaded by our users. Many of these audios and MP3s are available for free download.
  • Open University on iTunes U. - free educational content that users can download from Apple's iTunes Store straight to their computer or mobile devices. The Open University joined iTunes U in 2008, making available a range of high quality audio-visual assets used in their courses. Featuring over 280 albums with content from more than 136 courses, the OU on iTunes U reflects the diversity and strength of the University's curriculum and academic brand.
  • Public Domain Project - Thousands of historic media files. Completely free & made available by Pond5.
  • Vimeo - Hosts millions of Creative Commons-licensed videos. Filter to isolate them for browsing.

Humanities

Language Learning

Math

Nursing and Allied Health

  • Health Education Assets Library (HEAL) - Images, video clips, animations, presentations, and audio files that support healthcare education

Sciences

  • LibreTexts - based out of UC Davis, LibreText was recently given a $5 million grant from the Department of Education to further develop their STEM open textbook project. They provide access to hundreds of textbooks and courses, mostly in the sciences and social sciences.
  • National Science Digital Library - Provides a robust search to limit by activity type, media format, and age level.
  • PLOS One - More advanced, specific science resources that are open and could be used in a classroom setting.
  • Applied Math and Science Educational Repository (AMSER) - Funded by the NSF and organized by large LC headings.
  • The Chem Collective - Created by a group of faculty and staff at Carnegie Mellon to help those teaching/ learning Chemistry.
  • Scitable by Nature Education - A free science library and personal learning tool. Currently concentrates on genetics and cell biology.

Social Sciences

  • Open Access Publishing in European Networks - Contains freely accessible academic books, mainly in the area of Humanities and Social Sciences.
  • LibreTexts - based out of UC Davis, LibreText was recently given a $5 million grant from the Department of Education to further develop their STEM open textbook project. They provide access to hundreds of textbooks and courses, mostly in the sciences and social sciences.

Tips for Searching OER

  1. Contact your Subject Specialist librarian
  2. Use the advanced searching feature if there is one. This will save you some time and limit your search.
  3. Start with broad terms (ex. disease instead of cancer) and then narrow.
  4. As you narrow, think about disciplinary language. Is there something else this topic might be referred to as?
  5. If you still aren't getting good results, try to start with the browsing feature (even if it's very broad). Sometimes the term your searching isn't used but you still know it would be under a broad subject like "humanities" or "writing".

Contact Us

Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning

Phone: 815-753-0595
Email: citl@niu.edu

University Libraries

Phone: 815-753-1995
Email: lib-admin@niu.edu

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