University Library at St. Cloud State University

Open Educational Resources (OER)

Open Education Week March 1-5, 2021


Minnesota State is participating in Open Education Week (March 1 - 5, 2021) by offering Minnesota State faculty and staff a series of sessions and a panel that are free to join. 
 
For more information on all the excellent opportunities, visit the official announcement in the ASA Newsletter.  There is no registration for these events, but you can add a calendar appointment (recommended) and access the Zoom room links through the OER Community Team site.
 
Here are the opportunities:
 
  • An OER Journey – Lori-Beth Larsen (Central Lakes College)
  • Where You Can Go with OER – Kate Brau (Hibbing Community College)
  • Course redesign and OER authoring in Modern World History – Dan Allosso (Bemidji State University)
  • Teaching with an OER – Jody Ondich (Lake Superior College)
  • An OER for Multilingual English Learners: Work in Progress – Laura Funke (Inver Hills Community College)
  • How I redesigned my course to OER – and made it better! – Nick Heisserer (Central Lakes College)
  • Z Degrees at 4 Colleges in 12 Months – An Interactive Panel Discussion – Mesabi Range College, Lake Superior College, Anoka-Ramsey Community College, Northland Community and Technical College
Have a happy Open Education Week!

Open Education Week 2021 Flyer pdf
Open Educational Resources Discussion
OER Search Engines
BASE (Bielefield Academic Search Engine) Unrestricted Resource Some full text available Resource contains images Resource contains video Resource contains audiodatabase ebook
BASE indexes open content from academic journals, institutional repositories, digital collections, and other open collections. 

Mason OER Metafinder Unrestricted Resource Some full text availablefindit database ebook
Meta search engine for OERs. Simultaneously search College Open Textbooks, DOAB, Hathi Trust, Merlot, MIT Open Courseware, OER Commons, Open Textbook Library, Project Gutenberg, and more.

The Directory of Open Access Repositories (OpenDOAR) Unrestricted Resource
Authoritative directory of academic open access repositories. Search for a particular repository, or search the entire database of repositories for particular types of resources. Includes texts and media in all disciplines.
Open Textbooks
Mason OER Metafinder Unrestricted Resource Some full text availablefindit database ebook
Meta search engine for OERs. Simultaneously search College Open Textbooks, DOAB, Hathi Trust, Merlot, MIT Open Courseware, OER Commons, Open Textbook Library, Project Gutenberg, and more.

College Open Textbooks Unrestricted Resource ebook
"College Open Textbooks (COT) is a project of the Silicon Valley Education Foundation and the Open Doors Group. The COT Collaborative is collection of colleges, governmental agencies, education non-profits, and other education-related organizations that are focused on the mission of driving awareness, adoptions**, and affordability of open textbooks. Our focus is on community colleges and other 2-year institutions of higher education and the first two years (lower division) of 4-year institutions" (from home page). COT publishes peer reviewed open textbooks used around the country. It also provides links to open textbooks from multiple repositories and content creators' websites.

Flatworld Knowledge Unrestricted Resource ebook
"The #1 Publisher of Open College Textbooks" (from home page). Visit their catalog. All open textbooks are written by experts in the field, peer reviewed, and are professionally edited and developed. Students have the option of transforming these open textbooks into audio files, flash cards, and more.

OpenStax College Unrestricted Resource ebook
An initiative of Rice University, OpenStax College is a non-profit organization committed to improving access to higher education by providing access to free, quality open textbooks. OpenStax open textbooks are developed and peer reviewed by educators to ensure readability, accuracy, and fit with your course.

Open SUNY Textbooks Unrestricted Resource Some full text availableebook
"The mission of Open SUNY Textbooks is to provide an academic-friendly publishing model and infrastructure which supports faculty adoption, remixing, and creation of open educational resources (OER) and courses" (from website). Provides a catalog of current and upcoming open textbooks published by the State University of New York (SUNY) OER Services.

Open Textbook Library (University of Minnesota) Unrestricted Resource

"In an effort to reduce costs for students, the College of Education and Human Development has created this catalog of open textbooks to be reviewed by faculty members. Read full press release

"Open textbooks are complete textbooks released under a Creative Commons, or similar, license.

"Instructors can customize open textbooks to fit their course needs by remixing, editing, and adding their own content. Students can access free digital versions or purchase low-cost print copies of open textbooks" (from home page).


Open Textbooks (Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources) Unrestricted Resource Some full text availableebook
Links to open textbooks in a variety of disciplines. Appropriate for four year or two year institutions
Open Textbook Tools
Open Education Database Unrestricted Resource Resource contains images Resource contains video Resource contains audioebook
A list of 80 OER tools for open textbook publishing and collaborative online course development initiatives. "Includes 80 online resources that you can use to learn how to build or participate in a collaborative educational effort that focuses on publication and development of those materials" (from website).

Minnesota Libraries Publishing Project Unrestricted Resource
"Thanks to your library, you can now create, edit, format and generate print-ready and eBook formats for your book—all for free--using Pressbooks." (from homepage).
Open Educational Resources
Connexions Unrestricted Resource
"A place to view and share educational material made of small knowledge chunks called modules that can be organized as courses, books, reports, etc." (from home page). Create a free account and select from open instructional materials in the Connexions collection (or contribute your own) to develop online course modules. Includes open textbooks in most subjects.

DQP Assignment Library (Degree Qualifications Profile)
Focus on Assignments for Assesment.

Communication TEDx Talks Unrestricted Resource Resource contains video
TEDx talks given by Communication scholars from across the nation and around the world.

MERLOT (Multimedia Education Resource for Learning and Online Teaching) Unrestricted Resource Some full text available Resource contains video Resource contains audioebook
MERLOT is an open educational resource repository and international consortium of higher education institutions, industry partners, and professional organizations. MERLOT identifies, peer reviews, organizes, and promotes existing open educational resources in all academic disciplines for faculty and students.

MIT Open Courseware
"MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW) is a web-based publication of virtually all MIT course content. OCW is open and available to the world and is a permanent MIT activity."

OER Commons Unrestricted Resource
"Curating best in class learning materials from around the world since 2007" (from home page). Search for a wide variety of instructional materials, from open textbooks to lectures to instructional videos and homework assignments.

Open Culture Unrestricted Resource
"Open culture brings together high-quality cultural &educational media for the worldwide lifelong learning community. Web 2.0 has given us great amounts of intelligent audio and video. It's all free."

Open Study Unrestricted Resource Resource contains images Resource contains video Resource contains audioebook
Make the world your study group! Take a course (or create a study group) for any subject, meet students from around the world, and earn credentials.

P2PU (Peer to Peer University) Unrestricted Resource Resource contains video Resource contains audioebook
"Learn anything with your peers. It's online and totally free. At P2PU, people work together to learn a particular topic by completing tasks, assessing individual and group work, and providing constructive feedback" (from home page). Find an open course that interests you, or learn how to create an open course.

Shmoop Unrestricted Resource Resource contains video Resource contains audioebook
"An up-and-coming collection of freely shared, expert-written content (most Shmoop authors are Ph.D.s and high school or college-level educators) with the goal of inspiring students and providing tons of free resources to teachers that include writing guides, analyses, and discussions."

Skills Commons Unrestricted Resource
"Your free and open digital library of workforce materials."

TED: Ideas Worth Spreading Unrestricted Resource
Annual lecture series on a variety of themes, including Techonology, Entertainment, Design, Business, Science, Culture, Arts, and Global Issues. English subtitles available, as well as subtitles for many other languages.

UCI Open
University of California, Irvine open courseware initiative
Open Educational Resources (OER)
open access locks"Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching, learning and research materials in any medium – digital or otherwise – that reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license that permits no-cost access, use, adaptation and redistribution by others with no or limited restrictions." 
Open Education Conference
Open Education Conference

In honor of international Open Education Week, the Open Education Conference has released to the public the recordings from #OpenEd20. More than 100 hours of amazing content is now available for everyone to view, share, and learn from.

Visit the #OpenEd20 program to view 250+ videos including powerful keynotes, action-packed lightning talks, and timely presentations spanning topics on OER, open pedagogy, social justice applications, and more
The 5Rs of OER

By definition, Open Educational Resources are licensed such that users of the content can:
  1. Retain – permission to make, own, and control copies of the content (e.g., download, duplicate, store, and manage)
  2. Reuse – permission to use the content in a wide range of ways (e.g., in a class, in a study group, on a website, in a video)
  3. Revise – permission to adapt, adjust, modify, or alter the content itself (e.g., translate the content into another language)
  4. Remix – permission to combine the original or revised content with other material to create something new (e.g., incorporate the content into a mashup)
  5. Redistribute – permission to share copies of the original content, your revisions, or your remixes with others (e.g., give a copy of to a friend)
Open Educational Resources (OER) encourages remixing and redistibution of Open Access (OA) content and covers a much wider range of materials.
Open Source Learning Objects
Classroom Aid Unrestricted Resource Resource contains images Resource contains video Resource contains audio
Directory of open source image sharing sites, museum repositories, music and sound repositories, and multimedia repositories.

freelearningobjects
"
This wiki is intended to be a place that educators and students can find free, public domain, and Creative Commons licensed materials that can be used both in the traditional face-to-face classroom and the ever-growing online classroom. Although there are many other free resources available, this wiki focuses primarily on rich media, including photos, videos, animations, and music files."

Public Domain Review
"
The Public Domain Review is an online journal and not-for-profit project dedicated to the exploration of curious and compelling works from the history of art, literature, and ideas. "

WISC-Online: Learning Objects
"
Wisc-Online's 2,784 published learning objects" 
Open Sources - Discipline Examples
American Memory
"American Memory provides free and open access through the Internet to written and spoken words, sound recordings, still and moving images, prints, maps, and sheet music that document the American experience." 

Carnegie Science Image Database 
Images from a variety of science disciplines

Journeys in Film 
Educating for Global Understanding

National Science Digital Library
Resources for science, engineering, and mathematics

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Photo Library 
"
A collection of photographs representing observations, and studies that are carried on by the scientists, engineers, commissioned officers, and administrative personnel..."

OER - Education University of Cambridge
Resources for education (K12)

Sociological Cinema
A " resource for using video and pop culture to teach and learn sociology.".

Structurae
" ... 
a database for works of structural and civil engineering, but also contains many other works of importance or interest of the fields of architecture and public works."

World Digital Library  
"
Content on the WDL includes books, manuscripts, maps, newspapers, journals, prints and photographs, sound recordings, and films."
Open Courseware

Open courseware varies by institution but can contain syllabi, recorded lectures, assignments, and tests

edX Open Learning at Harvard
JHSPH Open Courseware
MIT Open Courseware
Open Michigan
"Open Michigan enables the University of Michigan community to make the products of its research, teaching, and creative work available to the world beyond campus."
Open SUNY
Open Yale Courses
Serendipity - Open Courseware Search Engine
 
Related Guides
Subject Specialist
Picture: Jennifer Quinlan

Jennifer Quinlan
Associate Professor, Student Success Librarian
MC 140G
(320) 308-5626
jmquinlan@stcloudstate.edu


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