OER, NOLO, and the University Library

Some sites and search engines use very specific language, and definitions may help you target your search for what you need.

• OER (Open Educational Resource): any open educational object, course, or textbook on the web. Can encompass multiple formats.
• Open Learning Object: a typically smaller OER or series of OERs, such as a single tutorial, video, or quiz, that typically focuses on a specific concept.
• Open Textbook: a free textbook, designed for use and adaptation in your course. May contain exercises, may contain brief videos, supporting learning over an entire semester.
• Open Course: a combination of readings, lectures, and quizzes supporting learning over an entire semester. Not just a learning object or just a textbook, but a course laid out with a weekly progression, activities, and grading. May contain smaller parts you wish to adapt, or you may wish to adapt the entire course. 

There are thousands of OERs on the web! You will be able to evaluate the content best, to find what works for your courses.

Here are some additional factors that can help evaluate OERs you find on the web:

• Are there clearly listed authors with a web presence outside of the OER? Often, academic authors will have an additional presence outside of the textbook site. Ideally, you can find evidence that the authors exist, have the right credentials, and are still in an academic or professional context.
• Is the licensing clear? Ideally, OERs have a clear statement describing how they can be used and re-used. If they do not, you can still use it, but best practices are to assign a clear CC license
• Is it hosted on a stable platform? Is it hosted on a large OER website, or a library or university website? Larger institutional or organizational websites are less likely to disappear. OERs hosted on single person's or department's website have more of a chance of being removed.
• Can you need to scaffold with additional content? Even if the content is not quite perfect, you might be able to add other readings (from the web or library subscriptions) to make it work and still be free to your students

An aggregated search is a search engine that looks through multiple other search engines. These are two of the largest OER aggregated or federated searches. Start with these two search engines to look through many major OER sites at once.

➔ The Mason OER Metafinder  launches a simultaneous search across more than 20 different sources of open educational materials. Originally developed at George Mason University Libraries.

➔ Openly Available Sources Integrated Search (OASIS)  launches a simultaneous search across more than 80 different sources of open educational materials. Originally developed at SUNY Geneseo's Milne Library.