Open Education
All about open education and how to find open educational resources
Open Educational Resources
- Open Educational Resources: the Basics (pdf)A quick, 2-page primer on OER basics - if you take nothing else, take this.
- 7 Things You Should Know about Open Educational Resources (pdf)From the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative, a brief overview of Open Educational Resources (as opposed to Open Education).
- Finding Education / OER Resources - Creative CommonsSelected list of locations for finding open content and tools, along with recommended strategies, grouped by type of content.
The Mason OER Metafinder searches seventeen targets in real-time, including well-known OER repositories like OpenStax, OER Commons, MERLOT but also sites like HathiTrust, DPLA, Internet Archive and NYPL Digital Collections where valuable but often overlooked open educational materials may be found.
OASIS is a meta search tool developed by SUNY Geneseo that searches across 52 different OER sources and includes a range of materials, including textbooks, courses and corresponding materials, interactive simulations, public domain books, audiobooks, modules, open access books, videos and podcasts on a variety of topics — from anthropology to zoology. OASIS also is the only tool that allows users to limit searches by creative commons licenses or by faculty review
- OERizona Network Hub on OER CommonsThe Hub functions are a shared repository for Arizona educators to share and access resources and is funded by the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education (FIPSE) through the U.S. Department of Education.
Open Textbooks
- OpenStax CollegeOpenStax College offers free, peer-reviewed textbooks in a select number of disciplines. These texts have been designed to meet course standards in scope and sequence.
- Open Textbook LibraryA searchable catalog of free open textbooks developed by the University of Minnesota’s College of Education and Human Development. Textbooks are reviewed by contributing faculty to ensure quality.
- BCCampus OpenEd ResoucesFunded by British Columbia’s Ministry of Advanced Education, BCCampus OpenEd has published over 40 open textbooks designed for use in first and second year undergraduate courses. Digital versions of the texts are freely downloadable.
- OAPEN LibraryOAPEN (Open Access Publishing in European Networks) is a non-profit organization dedicated to the open access of academic books in a wide range of languages. The library is fully searchable and is mainly focused on collecting in the Humanities and Social Sciences.
- Open SUNY TextbooksAn initiative of the State University of New York libraries, Open SUNY Textbooks publishes high-quality, peer-reviewed textbooks for use in higher education.
- eCampusOntario open textbooksFrom eCampusOntario, a one-stop site that includes tips for finding, adopting, and adapting Open Textbooks.
- Find FREE and OPEN eTextbooksA search service of the California State University System and MERLOT
- Open Textbooks for EngineeringThe Scholarly Communications Committee from the Engineering Libraries Division of the American Society for Engineering Education has created this resource, which aggregates information from around 20 different OER websites and organizes it by engineering discipline and, in some cases, by subdiscipline. Currently limited to open textbooks.
- InTechA large open access publisher of books and journals in the fields of Science, Technology, and Medicine. The publisher currently has over 2000 books and 6 journals available for download.
- smarthistoryA free and open, online, not-for-profit art history textbook with complete multimedia content.
OER Repositories
- Merlot IIAn initiative of the California State University system, Merlot is free peer reviewed collection of educational materials meant for use in higher education.
The collection consists of tens of thousands of discipline-specific resources, course assignments, and contributor comments to guide instruction. - OER CommonsOER Commons is a freely accessible online collection of open educational resources. This fully searchable catalog includes hundreds of open textbooks for use in higher education.
- Open Course LibraryThe Open Course Library is a collection of sharable educational materials that have been designed by college faculty, librarians, or other experts. Sponsored by the Washington State Board of Education, these resource have undergone assessment to ensure quality.
- OpenStax CNXOpenStax CNX, an initiative of Rice University, is a repository of free educational materials. The content is modular, allowing users to easily remix and customize the site’s educational resources.
- SkillsCommonsA free and open digital library of Workforce Training Materials developed by TAACCT grantees.
- nanoHUBProvides over 1600 open teaching and learning resources: online presentations; course material; learning modules; podcasts; simulation tools. Created by the NSF-funded Network for Computational Nanotechnology.
- OCW EducatorOCW Educator helps teachers search the vast library of MIT's Open CourseWare resources to find instructional approaches and teaching materials. You can search by subject, then facet by types of course content and specialty.
- Open Case StudiesThe Open Case Studies project at University of British Columbia brings together faculty and students from different disciplines to write, edit, and learn with case studies that are free and open.
- Community of Online Research Assignments (CORA)An open access database containing reliable and reproducible research assignments that do not live as isolated entities, but are enhanced by user feedback in order to build a rich corpus of best practices.
- LibreTexts LibraryA collection of textbooks, exercises, worksheets, and other OERs created by the LibreTexts Project.
- Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) Primary Source SetsDrawing from online materials from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States, the sets use letters, photographs, posters, oral histories, video clips, sheet music, and more. Each set includes a topic overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide.
Open Courses
- EdXExcept for professional education courses, edX courses are free for everyone. Some courses have a fee for verified certificates but are free to audit.
- CourseraOffers more than 1,000 free online courses.
- MIT OpenCourseWareMIT OpenCourseWare (OCW) is a web-based publication of virtually all MIT course content. OCW is open and available to the world; materials have an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike Creative Commons license. OCW does not offer certificates of completion.
- Open Yale CoursesProvides free and open access to a selection of introductory courses taught by Yale instructors. No course credit, degree, or certificate is available through the Open Yale Courses website.
- Class CentralThis site aggregates Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) from more than 470 different universities, including Stanford, Harvard, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). It also offers a notification/reminder service called MOOC Tracker.
- Lumen Learning Course CatalogA selection of open courses on a variety of subjects.
- Saylor AcademyOffers more than 300 free, self-paced courses. All required course resources—including textbooks, videos, webpages, and activities—are accessible at no charge. Saylor courses also contain a free final exam with the opportunity to earn a free course completion certificate.
- UdacityAll Udacity courses offer free access to course materials, but some courses charge for the full course experience (including access to projects, code-review and feedback, a personal Coach, and verified certificates). The price varies depending on the course.
- Khan AcademyOpen educational courses (Primarily K-12) covering math, science, computer programming, history, art history, economics, and more
- nanoHUB-UShort courses accessible to students in any branch of science or engineering.
- Open Learning InitiativeThe Open Learning Initiative (OLI) is a grant-funded group at Carnegie Mellon University, offering innovative online courses to anyone who wants to learn or teach.
- UCI OpenUCI Open is an open education project launched by the University of California, Irvine, that supports the needs of learners and educators everywhere.
- Open Chemistry (OpenChem)Provides a full curriculum of recorded lectures covering undergraduate chemistry plus selected graduate topics. From UCI Open
Open Educational Resource Community Websites
- WikiEducatorWikiEducator is an evolving community intended for the collaborative: planning of education projects linked with the development of free content; development of free content on Wikieducator for e-learning; work on building open education resources (OERs) on how to create OERs; networking on funding proposals developed as free content.
- Open Educational Resources ToolkitA toolkit from JISC Explaining open educational resources (OERs) and surrounding issues for senior managers, learning technologists, technical staff and educators interested in releasing OERs to the education community. (archived in 2016)
- Open Professionals Education Network (OPEN)A community designed to help TAACCCT grantees meet OER, accessibility, and quality requirements for grant deliverables in the U.S. Department of Labor’s Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College & Career Training (TAACCCT) program. Funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Support areas include: - Open Educational Resources (OER) practices & policies; - Creative Commons (CC) licensing; - Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and Accessibility; - evidence-based online technology use; - Effective course and learning design; - Help finding existing OER
- Virginia Tech's Librarian OER ToolboxThe Librarian OER Toolbox is a collection of links to (mostly) open resources. It is designed for librarians, expert searchers, and people who "enjoy the hunt" through overwhelming volumes of information. This site represents the most comprehensive lists we have found of the places to look for open educational resources written in English.
Finding Open Content
- UnpaywallA browser extension that searches across thousands of open access repositories and journals to find open access versions of articles.
- Open Access ButtonA search interface and browser extension that searches thousands of sources with millions of articles to link you to free, legal, full text scholarly articles instantly. It also provides an option to request a version from the author if an article is not available.
- OpenverseSearch portal to help locate CC-licensed content from a variety of sources - useful for images, video, and music.
- Open Access Resources Library GuideA collection of open access resources, sorted by discipline
- Science.govScience.gov searches over 60 databases and over 2,200 scientific websites to provide users with access to more than 200 million pages of authoritative federal science information including research and development results.
- Find Public Domain and Openly Licensed MaterialsFrom OSU Libraries' Copyright Services - provides several suggestions for locating different types of content.
- Free to Use and Reuse SetsItems from the Library of Congress's digital collections that are free to use and reuse. The Library believes that this content is either in the public domain, has no known copyright, or has been cleared by the copyright owner for public use.
- Wikimedia CommonsDatabase of freely usable media files.
- Directory of Open Access BooksOver 3000 academic peer-reviewed books from 107 publishers
- Standard EbooksStandard Ebooks takes ebooks from sources like Project Gutenberg, formats and typesets them using a carefully designed and professional-grade style manual, fully proofreads and corrects them, and then builds them to create a new edition that takes advantage of state-of-the-art ereader and browser technology.
- Internet Archive: eBooks and TextsOver 8,000,000 fully accessible public domain eBooks.
- New York Public Library Public Domain CollectionsMaterials from the New York Public Library that are in the public domain, available for use and reuse.
- Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) Primary Source SetsDrawing from online materials from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States, the sets use letters, photographs, posters, oral histories, video clips, sheet music, and more. Each set includes a topic overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide.
- Hathi Trust Digital LibraryHathiTrust is a collaborative partnership of major research institutions and libraries worldwide. It is a shared digital repository of library books and journals converted from print owned by research institutions.
- Project GutenbergOver 54,000 free ebooks, most in the public domain (in general, published before 1923). Available in epub, kindle, PDF or to be read online. Over 50 languages. Great source for classics and historical works.
- International Music Score Library ProjectA collection of public domain music works - includes scores and some recordings.
- Mutopia ProjectSheet music editions of public domain classical music, with some contemporary works contributed by the copyright holders.
- CCMixterA community music remixing site featuring remixes and samples licensed under Creative Commons licenses. Over 38,000 (and growing) pieces of music are available.
- Legal Music For Videos - Creative CommonsA roundup of sites that collect Creative Commons-licensed music.
- Internet Archive: AudioA massive collection of freely available audio material that ranges from the Grateful Dead to old time radio shows, news programming, poetry and more.
- The Free Music ArchiveThe FMA is a collection of high-quality, legal audio material curated by WFMU. All material on the site contains a Creative Commons license so is available to use for free.
- MusopenA non-profit organization that provides recordings, sheet music, and textbooks for free, without copyright restrictions.
- Public Domain Project: AudioThousands of audio, image, and video files in the public domain from the collection of the Pond5 stock footage company.
- YouTube Audio LibraryA collection of free downloadable music for use in video or audio projects. Must sign into YouTube to use.
- BandcampMusic uploaded to Bandcamp with a Creative Commons license.
- FreesoundA collaborative database of audio snippets, samples, recordings, bleeps, and more.
- World Hip Hop BeatsA collection of Creative Commons licensed hip hop beats.
- Best Practices for image useFrom the University of Arizona Libraries, a list of best practices included finding, citing, and image use.
- ImgOpsA meta tool for finding out information about images.
- TinEyeSearch for information about images you've already found. Upload file or paste URL to find image source, license info, higher resolutions, and modified versions.
- OpenverseOpenverse searches across more than 300 million images. It collects results across multiple public repositories into a single catalog, and facilitates reuse through features like machine-generated tags and one-click attribution.
- Finding Public Domain & Creative Commons MediaThis guide will help you find and correctly attribute public domain and Creative Commons media.
- Flickr: Creative CommonsA collection of images published on Flickr using a Creative Commons license.
- Wikimedia CommonsDatabase of freely usable media files.
- Openly Licensed Image SourcesFrom the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges Open Educational Resources Initiative - a collection of other image sources
- PixabayAll images and videos on Pixabay are released free of copyrights under Creative Commons CC0.
- UnsplashFreely licensed photography site.
- Free media resources/PhotographyA giant list of image sources providing freely licensed or public domain images.
Diverse Image Sources
- BC Campus: Stock photos focused around diversity, equity and inclusionGreat list of diverse image sources. The licenses vary per site so please be sure to check their agreements directly.
- What are good resources for finding diverse images of people?A list created by OEGlobal Connect of EDI-focused image sites (some of which are listed below)
- NappyCC0 licensed stock photos featuring people of color
- Diversity In Tech CollectionNoun Project partnered with All Raise, AnitaB.org, Blavity, Grid110, and Latinas in Tech to champion more diverse representation in tech.
- Queer in Tech stock photosThis photo set was created to promote the visibility of queer and gender non-conforming people working in technology. These photos are licensed CC-BY 3.0.
- Black IllustrationsIllustrations of black people released freely available for use, reuse, and modification for personal and commercial use.
- Jopwell CollectionThese images can be copied, distributed and displayed freely as long as visible attribution to Jopwell is provided.
- PicnoiDiverse photos of people of color, released under a CC-BY license
- Images of EmpowermentA free library of images celebrating women’s lives and their work in 11 countries around the world
- The Gender Spectrum CollectionThe Gender Spectrum Collection is a stock photo library featuring images of trans and non-binary models that go beyond the clichés. This collection aims to help media better represent members of these communities as people not necessarily defined by their gender identities. While the collection is released under a CC-BY-NC-ND license, please also read the guidelines for recommended usage: https://broadlygenderphotos.vice.com/guidelines
- Disabled And Here CollectionThis stock collection is a disability-led effort to provide free and inclusive images from our own perspective, with photos and illustrations celebrating disabled Black, Indigenous, people of color (BIPOC).
- Disability:INDisability Inclusion Stock Photography by Disability:IN is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License
- Rudd Center Media Gallery Combating Weight BiasAims to "challenge harmful weight-based stereotypes." Can freely use for non-commercial, educational purposes with credit to UConn Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity.
- Age-positive image libraryCreated by the Centre for Aging Better, this library contains over 2,000 images and shows positive and realistic images of over 50s in a bid to challenge negative and stereotypical views of older age. All images are released under a CC0 license
Public Domain & Museum Collections
- Public Domain Project: Images63,881 public domain images files from the collection of the Pond5 stock footage company.
- Bioart SourceThis collection of high-quality, scientifically accurate vectors, icons, and brushes for science and medical art visuals is freely available within the public domain, provided by the National Institutes of Health.
- NASA Image and Video LibraryNASA content - images, audio, video, and computer files used in the rendition of 3-dimensional models, such as texture maps and polygon data in any format - generally are not copyrighted. You may use this material for educational or informational purposes, including photo collections, textbooks, public exhibits, computer graphical simulations and Internet Web pages.
- Smithsonian Open Access CollectionWelcome to Smithsonian Open Access, where you can download, share, and reuse millions of the Smithsonian’s images—right now, without asking. With new platforms and tools, you have easier access to nearly 3 million 2D and 3D digital items from our collections—with many more to come. This includes images and data from across the Smithsonian’s 19 museums, nine research centers, libraries, archives, and the National Zoo.
- Internet Archive's Guggenheim CollectionOver 200 openly available art books and exhibition catalogs released by the Guggenheim Museum.
- Getty Open Content ImagesSearch over 10,000 images from Getty Museum and Research Institute collections made available for download.
- Wellcome ImagesOne of the world's richest and most unique collections, with themes ranging from medical and social history to contemporary healthcare and biomedical science.
- Free to Use or Reuse Sets: The Library of CongressThis page features items from the Library's digital collections that are free to use and reuse. The Library believes that this content is either in the public domain, has no known copyright, or has been cleared by the copyright owner for public use.
- Old Book IllustrationsPublic domain collections of illustrations and engravings from books, particularly Victorian and French Romantic illustrations—we understand French Romanticism in its broadest sense and draw its final line, at least in the realm of book illustration, at the death of Gustave Doré.
The many links organizing content by artist, language, publisher, date of birth, and more are designed to make searching easier and indecision rewarding.
Clipart, Icons, and other types of images
- The GreatsThe Greats is a free vault with carefully curated socially engaged visual content open to anyone to use or adapt non-commercially. All artworks published on The Greats can be used for free under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license.
- Open ClipartEach artist at Openclipart releases all rights under the Creative Commons Zero Public Domain License for the images they share at Openclipart.
- Noun ProjectCreative Commons licensed icons. Requires free registration to download.
- Icon ArchiveA professional tag based icon search engine with more than 600,000 icons, many of which have open licenses.
- Dimensions.GuideDimensions.Guide is a comprehensive reference database of dimensioned drawings documenting the standard measurements and sizes of the everyday objects and spaces that make up our world. Created as a universal resource to better communicate the basic properties, systems, and logics of our built environment, Dimensions.Guide is a free platform for increasing public and professional knowledge of life and design.
- PhyloPicFree silhouette images of animals, plants, and other life forms, available for reuse under Creative Commons licenses.
- unDrawA constantly updated collection of beautiful svg images that you can use completely free and without attribution.
- Open PeepsA hand-drawn illustration library, released under a CC0 license.
- Internet Archive - Moving Image ArchiveOver 1.5 million digitized videos and clips, including cartoons, commercials and classic films, many public domain or available via Creative Commons license.
- The Open Video ProjectA repository of open access digitized videos for education and learning purposes.
- Selections from the National Film Registry Collection: Library of CongressThe National Film Registry is a list of movies deemed "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant" that are earmarked for preservation by the Library of Congress. The majority of movies in Selections from the National Film Registry are freely available as both 5 mb MP4 and ProRes 422 MOV downloads.
- Prelinger ArchivesNew York’s Prelinger Archives hold more than 60,000 advertising, educational, industrial, and amateur films.
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