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OER

1. General Search

1.1 Google

Many people start out looking for OER using Google. A general search with Google returns vast amounts of resources, most of which are not openly licensed for reuse. If you want to use Google to search for openly licensed resources we recommend you use Google Advanced Search. Scroll down in advanced search and set “usage rights” parameters to be “Free to use, share, or modify”. If you want content for commercial use be sure to select the appropriate option. Google search returns a vast array of openly licensed resources that may require extensive sifting to yield useful nuggets. The other search recommendations on this page are likely to yield more targeted results.

2. Photo/Image Search

Searching for photos or images?

2.1 Openverse

Openverse, orginally incubated at CC and now stewarded by the WordPress community, is an extensive library of free stock photos, images, and audio available for free use. All Openverse content is under a CC license or is in the public domain.

2.2 Wikimedia Commons

2.3 Flickr

2.4 Google Images

Be sure to scroll down in advanced search and set “usage rights” parameters to be “Free to use, share, or modify”. If you want content for commercial use be sure to select the appropriate option.

2.5 Pixabay

Note that Pixabay images are public domain images you can freely use for personal and commercial use without attribution to the original author. While Pixabay can be a good way to find public domain images your search will also return proprietary professional images Pixabay offers for sale.

2.6 ClipSafari

Note that ClipSafari images are public domain images you can freely use for personal and commercial use without attribution to the original author.

2.7 The Noun Project

The Noun Project is a platform empowering the community to build a global visual language of icons and symbols that everyone can understand. Symbols and icons on The Noun Project are licensed using CC.

The sources above are online image databases. In addition to these sources there are many openly licensed electronic publications and journals with images embedded throughout that you are also free to use. Here are just a few of many examples:

2.8 Encyclopedia of Life

The Encyclopedia of Life is an online collaborative encyclopedia providing global access to knowledge about biological life on earth. Entries are composed as written content with one or more pictures usually in the form of color photographs. Content is provided by a wide variety of contributors but is reviewed for accuracy. All content on EOL is licensed under CC licenses, but each contributor defines what level of CC licensing is applicable to their content. Specific licensing information can be found adjacent to media or by clicking on desired media. If no reuse information is included then it is understood that there are no reuse restrictions other than providing credit when reusing the image.

2.9 Public Library of Science (PLOS)

PLOS is a non-profit publisher and advocacy organization focused on science and medicine. Every article they publish is open access. All written content and images are licensed using a CC Attribution license. Searching through PLOS journals and collections can yield many highly useful images including figures, tables, and graphs.

In addition to electronic publications and journals some galleries, museums and archives publish historical images online. For a great example see:

2.10 Europeana

Europeana provides access to the digital resources of Europe’s museums, libraries, archives and audio-visual collections including paintings, drawings, maps, photos and pictures of museum objects. Not all the works are openly licensed so be sure to check for usage rights.

3. Video Search

Searching for video? Try:

3.1 YouTube

The best way to find a video that is licensed under the CC license on YouTube is to use the CC Search tool described above in the General Search and Photo/Image Search sections. Unfortunately YouTube does not provide a filter or advanced search capability on their home page for finding all CC-licensed videos on YouTube. However, YouTube has a view that enables you to see the most viewed and most reused CC-licensed videos. In addition if you are the YouTube home page and type in your search term followed by a comma and then “creativecommons” the videos returned are CC licensed. You can mark your videos with a CC license when uploading them to YouTube. You can also incorporate the millions of CC-licensed videos on YouTube when creating your own videos using the YouTube Video Editor. Within the YouTube Video Editor you can click on the CC tab to find content available under a CC license.

3.2 Vimeo

Vimeo lets you easily post and find CC licensed videos.

3.3 Internet Archive

The Internet Archive has a great collection of old video and movie footage. Looking for old cartoons, sports videos, ephemeral films, news footage? Check out the Internet Archive.

3.4 TED

TED is a nonprofit devoted to “Ideas Worth Spreading.” It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. On TED.com, the best talks and performances from TED and partners are made available to the world, for free. More than 900 TEDTalks are now available, with more added each week. All of the talks are subtitled in English, and many are subtitled in various languages. These videos are released under a CC BY-NC-ND license, so they can be freely shared and reposted.

3.5 Al Jazeera

The Al Jazeera CC Repository hosts select broadcast quality footage that Al Jazeera has released under various CC licenses. Select Al Jazeera video footage is available for free to be downloaded, shared, remixed, subtitled and eventually rebroadcasted by users and TV stations across the world with acknowledgement to Al Jazeera. This is the first time that video footage produced by a news broadcaster is released under the CC 3.0 Attribution license which allows for commercial and non-commercial use.

4. Audio/Music Search

Searching for openly licensed audio sounds or music? Try:

4.1 Jamendo

Jamendo offers more than 350,000 free music tracks licensed under CC, all available for streaming and unlimited download without ads. It allows the public to discover thousands of artists of all genres who have chosen to distribute their music independently outside the traditional system of collecting societies. Jamendo artists can choose to join the Jamendo PRO service that allows them to sell commercial licenses of their music for professional uses, such as music synchronization for audio-visual productions or broadcasting in public spaces. You can search for music on Jamendo using the CC Search tool or directly on the Jamendo.

4.2 ccMixter

ccMixter is a community music site featuring remixes licensed under CC where you can listen to, sample, mash-up, or interact with music in whatever way you want. Looking for music for a video, school project, game you’re developing, or podcast? Find music liberally licensed using the dig.ccMixter music discovery tool.

4.3 Internet Archive

In addition to video mentioned above, the Internet Archive has a great collection of audio. If you are searching for animal sounds, old time radio shows, sound effects and even music, the Internet Archive may have what you’re looking for.

4.4 Free Music Archive

The Free Music Archive offers free downloads under CC and other licenses. Please visit the track page to discover what you can and cannot do with each track.

4.5 SoundCloud

SoundCloud is a social sound platform for people to create and share music and sounds. Recording and uploading sounds to SoundCloud lets people easily share them privately with their friends or publicly to blogs, sites and social networks. Many SoundCloud songs and sounds are licensed with CC. Visit soundcloud.com/creativecommons to see SoundCloud sounds and songs licensed with CC.

The search tools profiled above are for educators who are simply looking for individual media elements to use within their courses. However, an even higher value can be gained by finding Open Educational Resources (OER) that other educators have already vetted and assembled into education content such as full courses, workshops, textbooks, tests and assessments. This search section is focused on helping you find this kind of OER.

5. General Education Search

Looking to search across multiple OER initiatives? Try:

5.1 OER Commons


OER Commons has forged alliances with over 120 major content partners to provide a single point of access through which educators and learners can search across collections to access over 30,000 items, find and provide descriptive information about each resource, and retrieve the ones they need. These resources are publicly available for all to use principally through CC licensing.

5.2 The Orange Grove Digital Repository

OrangeGrove
The Orange Grove digital repository provides an environment for educators to search for, use, remix, share, and contribute educational resources. A wide range of K-12 and post-secondary resources are available. The repository can also be integrated with a Learning Management Systems (e.g., Blackboard, Desire 2 Learn, Canvas) . Resources are free for educational use but may be protected through various copyright statements associated with each resource.

6. Recorded Lectures & Video Tutorials Search

Many institutions have recorded on-campus lectures and published them as OER licensed with CC. Short video tutorials on a particular subject are also available.
Searching for recorded lectures or video tutorials? Try:

6.1 Open Yale Courses


Open Yale Courses (OYC) provide lectures and other materials from selected Yale College courses licensed using CC. The courses span the full range of liberal arts disciplines, including humanities, social sciences, and physical and biological sciences. Each course includes a full set of class lectures produced in high-quality video accompanied by such other course materials as syllabi, suggested readings, and problem sets. The lectures are available as downloadable videos, and an audio-only version is also offered. In addition, searchable transcripts of each lecture are provided.

6.2 MIT


MIT has their own MIT YouTube channel where recorded lectures are uploaded. MIT is also well known for the MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW) initiative, a CC-licensed, web-based publication of virtually all MIT on campus course content online including lecture notes, exams, and videos. Courses with substantial video and/or audio components are listed here.

6.3 UC Berkeley


UC Berkeley’s webcast.berkeley is a central service for online video and audio lectures. From the home page you can search for a particular course or simply choose to view all courses. Video and audio lectures are licensed as CC Attribution Non-Commercial No-Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) and made available through YouTube and/or iTunes.

6.4 Khan Academy


The Khan Academy has a large library of videos covering math, biology, chemistry, physics and even the humanities, finance and history. Khan videos aren’t so much recorded lectures as short 10 minute long tutorials with an instructor narrating explanations and working things out on a board by hand on your computer screen. Check out Khan’s library of videos.

7. Open Textbook Search

Searching for open textbooks? Try:

7.1 Open Textbook Library

The costs of college is going up every year, and it’s not just tuition that weighs on student’s minds and bank accounts. According to the College Board, undergraduates spend an average of $1200 on textbooks annually. Faced with these costs, the academic impact is seen in classrooms across the country–many students choose to not buy a required text, take fewer courses, and some even drop or fail a course completely. Open textbooks are a solution. The Open Textbook Library provides a growing catalog of free, peer-reviewed, and openly-licensed textbooks. As part of their service they provide a listing of Open Textbooks by Subject.

7.2 BCcampus OpenEd

The goal of the project is to make higher education more accessible by reducing student cost through the use of openly licensed textbooks. BCcampus was tasked with co-ordination of the project because of our 10-year experience funding OER in British Columbia, Canada. Specifically, the project was asked to create a collection of open textbooks aligned with the top 40 highest-enrolled subject areas in the province. A second phase was announced in the spring of 2014 in which an additional 20 textbooks targeting trades, technology, and skills training would be developed. As part of their service they provide a listing of Open Textbooks by Subject.

7.3 College Open Textbooks


The Community College Open Textbooks Collaborative, funded by The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation is focused on driving awareness and adoptions of open textbooks. This includes providing training for instructors adopting open resources, peer reviews of open textbooks, and mentoring online professional networks that support for authors opening their resources, and other services. As part of their service they provide a listing of Open Textbooks by Subject.

7.4 Open Stax College


OpenStax College is a nonprofit organization committed to improving student access to quality learning materials. OpenStax free textbooks are developed and peer-reviewed by educators to ensure they are readable, accurate, and meet the scope and sequence requirements of courses. See the free, CC BY licensed, high quality textbooks they provide here.

7.5 Siyavula


Siyavula supports and encourages communities of teachers to work together, openly share their teaching resources and benefit from the use of technology. Siyavula has created a series of open textbooks for math and science Grades 10-12. They have also developed an online practice service, modelled on exam questions, which allows learners to practise math andscience questions they may find in their tests and exams. This practice service is well integrated with the Siyavula textbooks and these resources work together to ensure learners excel in Mathematics and Physical Sciences. Learners are able to practise using their mobile phones or computers.

7.6 CK-12


CK-12 offers free high-quality, standards-aligned, open content in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) subjects. By providing these free resources, CK-12 is working toward educational equity for all. CK-12 provides an integrated set of tools for learning including digital textbooks, concept-based learning, SAT prep, and interactive Algebra curriculum (with additional math and science subjects in progress). CK-12 resources are openly licensed using CC.

7.7 Boundless


Boundless is offering services that use OER to create a free replacement to a student’s assigned textbook that covers the same key concepts more efficiently. Boundless is currently focused on AP High School and Introductory level College courses in the following 8 subjects: American History, Anatomy and Physiology, Biology, Business, Economics, Psychology, Sociology, and Writing. They are planning to expand into more subjects.

8. Simulation and Animation Search

8.1 PhET


PhET provides fun, interactive, research-based simulations of physical phenomena for free. PhET simulations enable students to make connections between real-life phenomena and the underlying science, deepening their understanding and appreciation of the physical world. All PhET simulations are freely available from the PhET website and are easy to use and incorporate into the classroom. They are written in Java and Flash, and can be run using a standard web browser as long as Flash and Java are installed. The PhET Interactive Simulations are distributed under the CC Attribution 3.0 license and the GNU General Public License. Here’s a list of PhET simulations.

9. Modular Course Components

Searching for modular course components? Try:

9.1 Connexions


Connexions is a place to view and share educational material made of small knowledge chunks called modules that can be organized as courses, books, reports, etc. Anyone may view or contribute. Content is licensed with CC.

9.2 Curriki


Curriki is a leading K-12 global community for teachers, students, and parents to create, share, and find open learning resources that improve teacher effectiveness and student outcomes. Curriki has OER for Arts, Career & Technical Education, Education, Educational Technology, Health, Information & Media Literacy, Language Arts, Mathematics, Science, Social Studies, World Languages all licensed using CC.

9.3 Merlot


MERLOT is a free and open online community of resources designed primarily for faculty, staff and students of higher education from around the world to share their learning materials and pedagogy. MERLOT provides collections of peer reviewed online learning materials, catalogued by registered members and a set of faculty development support services. Most, but not all, Merlot resources are CC-licensed.

9.4 WikiEducator


WikiEducator is a community project working collaboratively with the Free Culture Movement towards a free version of the education curriculum. Driven by the learning for development agenda WikiEducator focuses on:

The OERu initiative taking place in WikiEducator is a virtual collaboration of like-minded institutions committed to creating flexible pathways for OER learners to gain formal academic credit.

9.5 Wikiversity


Wikiversity is a Wikimedia Foundation project devoted to learning resources, learning projects, and research for use in all levels, types, and styles of education from pre-school to university, including professional training and informal learning. Wikiversity has thousands of learning resources licensed with CC.

9.6 Jorum


Jorum is a JISC-funded Service in Development in UK Further and Higher Education, to collect and share learning and teaching materials, allowing their reuse and repurposing. This free online repository service forms a key part of the JISC Information Environment, and is intended to become part of the wider landscape of repositories being developed institutionally, locally, regionally or across subject areas. Jorum contains learning and teaching resources, shared on a worldwide basis under the terms of a CC Attribution Non-Commercial licence. The creators and owners of this content are willing and are able to share their content on this basis

10. Complete Courses

Searching for complete courses?
Have a look through these OER initiatives from around the world:

10.1 Carnegie Mellon University Open Learning Initiative


The Carnegie Mellon University Open Learning Initiative (OLI) is a grant-funded group at Carnegie Mellon University, offering innovative, CC-licensed, online courses to anyone who wants to learn or teach. OLI’s courses are delivered on their unique platform which uses student data to generate targeted feedback. Courses range from French language to biology, statistics, programming and more. OLI is one of the OPEN partners providing a range of services to TAACCCT grantees. See http://open4us.org/services/ for a description of OLI services you can tap in to.

10.2 Open Course Library

The Open Course Library is a collection of expertly developed educational materials – including textbooks, syllabi, course activities, readings, and assessments – in 81 high-enrollment college courses, providing faculty with a high-quality, affordable option that will cost students no more than $30 for textbooks. All materials are shared under a CC BY license unless otherwise noted. Open Course Library is an initiative of the Washington State Board of Community and Technical Colleges.

10.3 MIT OpenCourseWare


MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW) is a web-based publication of virtually all MIT campus based course content. OCW is open and available to the world and is a permanent MIT activity. Courses are CC licensed.

10.4 OpenCourseWare Consortium Search

Several universities publish their course materials for free online, under the OpenCourseWare (OCW) initiative, as described on the OpenCourseWare Consortium website. OCW Search is an independent search engine that indexes all these courses so you can find these courses faster. Currently, the following universities’ OCW are included in OCW Search:

10.5 UK Open University Learning Space


The UK Open University Learning Space has 600 free online courses available from introductory to postgraduate level. All courses are licensed with CC.

10.6 Saylor


Saylor.org is a free and open collection of college level courses developed by a team of experienced college professors to fulfill the same learning objectives as traditional college courses. Courses are licensed using CC.

This is a partial listing of OER sources which we hope you find useful. We welcome additions or revisions to this listing. Send your feedback and suggestions to [email protected]. Special thanks to Jennifer Freeman and Deborah Zulick of the Massachusetts Community College/Workforce Development Transformation Agenda for sharing their list of OER sources.