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This work by http://library.raritanval.edu is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
OER Defined
Open Educational Resources are freely available educational materials that can be downloaded, edited, and shared to better serve all students. Fully OER materials are free of cost and free of copyright restrictions, providing a valuable alternative to costly commercial textbooks. RVCC Z-courses use OER and other free-for-student course materials in lieu of commercial textbooks.
Search open content from more than 90 different sources:
Find Open Textbooks
The links below will take you to online repositories and libraries of open textbooks. Open textbooks are free to use and distribute and can be adapted or changed (usually with proper attribution to the creator). Open textbooks can be used in whole or in part; how you use it is entirely up to you.
- Open Textbook LibrarySearch for open textbooks published by a variety of institutional and non-profit organizations. Peer reviews are available for many textbooks as well as various format options.
- OpenStaxSupplemental instructor resources are available for most texts. Print copies can be purchased from Amazon.
- BCCampus OpenEdIncludes faculty reviews of texts.
- Milne Open TextbooksOpen textbooks created through SUNY's state-funded grant program.
- LibreText CommonsOpen textbooks in a wide range of subject areas. Search across all LibreTexts libraries from one search box. The LibreTexts platform includes interactive visualizations, homework exercises, and ancillary materials in some subject areas. Open textbooks can be downloaded as Canvas Cartridges for easy integration into Canvas.
- Online Textbooks from MITOpenCoursewareTextbooks used in MIT Open courses. Includes texts for topics like civil, electrical, environmental and mechanical engineering; material and nuclear sciences; and aeronautics and astronautics, among other subjects.
- Skills CommonsOpen educational resources in Workforce Development
- IntechOpen access book publisher in science, technology and medicine.
Find eBooks from the Library
Library eBooks are another option for developing a course based on materials that are free to students. Library eBooks are nearly always under copyright, so you must abide by Fair Use guidelines for using them in your course and posting the content in Canvas. You can easily link to the eBook within the library collection and students will access the eBook by logging in with their G# and password. A librarian can help you identify the best link to provide to students.
Applying Fair Use with Library eBooks
The following are considerations for more directly including library eBook content in your course in accordance with Fair Use:
- If you can download chapters as PDFs, you may upload the files to your Canvas course and include full citation information for the text on the Canvas page.
- If copy/paste is permitted from the eBook, you may copy a limited quantity of the text to paste directly into a Canvas page. Include a full citation to the source on the Canvas page, clearly indicate which text is copied from the source, and include the statement "content from [the source] is included under Fair Use Guidelines."
- Do not post PDFs or copy/pasted text from a copyrighted material on a freely accessible webpage outside of Canvas.
- Do not mass-email your class a PDF download from a copyrighted material. Post PDFs in Canvas as described above or email students the link to the material (this is permissible under Fair Use, but emailing to full document would be considered distribution, which is a copyright violation).
Other Open Resources and Supplemental Materials
Besides using full textbooks, OER can be implemented by curating a variety of open access, digital resources. Below are places where you can find such resources. Also consider things like TED talks and other video content, websites, learning objects, and more. Anything that supports your students' learning, is cost-free and copyright-free (ex. Creative Commons licensed) can be part of your OER collection.
- OER CommonsA collection of various open resources, including textbooks, lesson plans, assessments, simulations, diagrams, and more. Use the advanced search for targeted results for your needs.
- CUNY Open Educational Resource RepositoryThe Open Educational Resources series collects instructional materials -- from textbooks to syllabi -- created by the CUNY community.
- Lumen LearningOER provider that offers both OER and copyright material as well as courseware platforms. Some content requires subscription but OER material is also available.
- MIT Open CoursewareMIT 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.
- Open Yale Courses (OYC)Open Yale Courses (OYC) provides lectures and other materials from selected Yale College courses to the public free of charge via the Internet. The courses span the full range of liberal arts disciplines, including humanities, social sciences, and physical and biological sciences.
- TED ED: Lessons Worth SharingBuild an interactive, web-based lesson around a TEDTalk or YouTube video.
- Chronicling AmericaIncludes digitized U.S. newspapers.
- National Archives CatalogSearch for unrestricted and public use electronic materials from the National Archives.
- Hippocampus.orgDelivers rich multimedia content--videos, animations, and simulations--on general education subjects.
- UCL PressFrom University College London, a full open access university publisher. Focuses on scholarly monographs, scholarly editions, textbooks, edited collections and journals, many with a global perspective.
- Saylor Academy Open CoursesSaylor Academy offers free and open online courses. Much of the course content are open resources or free-to-use resources that can be adopted in other OER courses.
- QUBESRepository of a wide variety of OER, including learning objects, interactive simulations, etc, particularly in the STEM fields.