Find an OER

OERs can be small, stand-alone resources or combined and built upon to form large course modules or full courses. OERs can be found through educational institutes, online academic textbooks, simulation sites, and OER databases. Here are links to some OER content you can start using (remember to check licensing on individual OERs to find out how they have been shared for reuse):

University courses

Academic Earth (English)

Curated lists of online courses from Universities and Colleges such as MIT, Berkely, and Princeton. Among the many course topics such as film studies, and accounting is preparation courses for tests like the LSAT, GMAT, and MCAT. U.S. content

MIT OpenCourseWare (English)

Online textbooks, from over 2,000 courses, including engineering, fine art, science, and humanities. U.S. content

OpenLearn (English with some Welsh)

Free learning platform, delivered by The Open University out of the UK. Over 900 free “bite-size” courses including subject areas in history, arts, science, health and law among others. You can also create and publish open content, courses, and resources on the OpenLearn Create platform that is Moodle-based. English with some courses in Welsh.

Peer 2 Peer University (English)

P2PU is a learning circle facilitation platform that maintains software tools, facilitation resources, and a global community forum. Learning circles at P2PU are free study groups for people who want to take online classes together and in-person. Global

University of the People (English)

Accredited U.S. online University offering tuition-free college degrees (processing fee for administration costs) in Computers, Business, Health, and Education.

Interactive mini-lessons and simulations

GeoGebra (English)

Elementary to College level classroom resources that include activities, simulations, exercises, lessons, and games for math & science.

Khan Academy (multiple languages)

Practice exercises, instructional videos, and personalized learning dashboard to support learners to study at their own pace. Topics include math, science, computer programming and art history among others. Some specialized content created in partnership with institutions such as NASA, The Museum of Modern Art in New York and MIT. Global; English, Spanish, French and Brazilian Portuguese; video closed captioning.

Mathispower4u (English, some Spanish)

Over 6,000 math topic mini-lessons and example videos with closed captioning. Content from grade school number sense to trigonometry and calculus. English with a developing Spanish channel

MyOpenMath.com (English)

Free math resources and online learning management system. Resources include textbooks (OpenTextBookStore), interactive questions (print version available), video support with YouTube auto-captioning (presented in quietube which serves up only the video with a choice of white or black background). Supports student self-study and has some content delivery support for educators.

OpenSciEd (English)

Open-source, full-course science instructional materials aimed to align to the US National Research Council “Framework” and NGSS (Next Generation Science Standards). The design of these open-source resources aim to function with low-cost, standard laboratory equipment and materials amenable to large-scale deployment.

PhET Interactive Simulations (English)

Science and Math simulations that encourage exploration and discovery developed out of the University of Colorado Boulder. Resources and activities are uploaded and shared on the site by educators. Several of the hundreds of simulations have been built and are being built with accessibility features that include alternative input (eg. keyboard navigation), sound and sonification, and interactive description for screen readers. U.S.

ProjectOSCAR (English)

Project OSCAR (Open Source Courseware Animations Repository), based out of India is a large repository of web-based, interactive animations and simulations for teaching and learning concepts in science and technology. Simulations mostly run in Flash. Many simulations have downloadable Detailed Instructional Design Documents and source code.

Textbooks

CK-12 (multiple languages)

Textbooks (called Flexbooks) are customizable and some have interaction. Aligned with U.S. curriculum standards; some aligned with Indian and Brazilian curriculum standards. Simulations and some textbooks available in English, Korean, German, Chinese, Greek and Polish.

BCcampusOpenEd Textbooks (English)

Textbooks adapted and created by B.C. campus faculty on many subjects from Art and Design to Earth and Ocean Sciences to Language Learning and Humanities. Guides and Toolkits are also available including Self-publishing an open textbook and How to author in Pressbooks among other topics.

MERLOT’s Open Textbook Initiative (English)

MERLOT (Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching) is an online OER program of the California State University. It is a repository and a tool to house and build OERs online. MERLOT has designed their interaction to be screen-reader and keyboard user-friendly.

OpenTextBookStore (English)

Open license Math textbooks that can also be printed. Shortlists under various math sections are considered to be “really adaptable and ready to use in a college classroom”. Document downloads vary from book to book and range from noneditable PDF to editable DOC and TeX. U.S. based

WikiBooks OpenTextbooks (English)

Collection of open-content textbooks, annotated texts, instructional guides, and manuals that anyone can edit. All content lives on the wiki and is licensed under creative commons.

Elementary and high school (K-12) lesson plans, worksheets, activities

Learning for Justice (English)

Working in partnership with communities to dismantle white supremacy, strengthen intersectional movements and advance the human rights of all people. Learning for Justice provides free resources to educators—teachers, administrators, counselors and other practitioners—who work with children from kindergarten through high school. Educators use materials to supplement the curriculum, to inform their practices, and to create inclusive school communities where children and youth are respected, valued and welcome participants.

Classroom-aid (English and Chinese)

A consulting company with several resources for educators to learn more about OERs.

Curriki (English)

Community-created K-12 content in the form of lessons organized by subject area (from arts to engineering to math to world languages) and education level (from kindergarten to college). Licencing clearly noted on the information page of each resource. Resources linked to other sites may have different licensing.

OER repository

Centralized locations to search OER materials:

Connexions (English)

Library of thousands of articles, books, documents, and periodicals: current materials as well as historical documents. Information about the world as it is now – and the visions, struggles, and movements of people working to change it. Global, English with French and Dutch home pages, and articles in over 20 languages.

Creative Commons (English)

The source for CC license information. The site has a search function for CC images and information and tools for how to share resources, create resources and search for and remix resources. Global

Gooru (multiple languages)

Learning management system with a catalogue of k-12, post-secondary and lifelong learning OERs from publishers like Openstax, NASA and EngageNY amongst others.

Hewlett Foundation (English)

Data and stories from grantees working to make a better world in the following areas: education, environment, global development and population, performing arts and cyberspace. Global partners

OER Africa (English)

Learning resources developed in Africa that include Agricultural, Household food security, Health, and Teacher education.

OER commons (English)

A robust platform with an open textbook library, indexed resources by subject area, grade level and material type with terms of use clearly marked. Upload an OER into a shared repository or create one from scratch with an online tool. A wide array of groups focused on specific topics and global curriculum standards are available to join (or create a group). For example, Writing for Designers, Media Literacy Education and Youth Media or the Rwanda ICT Essentials for Teachers Course. U.S., global, English with language search offering cross-curricular resources (eg. Washington, U.S. school district shares Chinese musical instruments: Cross-Curricular Collaboration between Chinese Language Class and Music Class) and resources written in different languages.

OER Knowledge Cloud (English)

Over 2,500 documents with free access to research initiatives, data and other information on all aspects of open educational resources. Developed and supported by Athabasca University.

OER World Map (English)

Anyone involved in Open Education can share information, experiences, and ideas related to their work. Anyone can contribute to information and access information on the map. The goal being the exchange of data, experiences, and ideas between different people and Open Education communities. Find OERs, repositories, projects, and events available around the world.

The Mason OER Metafinder (English interface)

OER discovery site that works in real-time with a simultaneous search across 21 different sources of open educational materials.

Trousse du prof (French)

Directory of over 6000 free educational resources to teach French. Répertoire de plus de 6000 ressources pédagogiques gratuites pour enseigner le français.

UNESCO OER (Multiple languages)

History of OERs, latest global news, publications and documents including OER competency framework available in English, French and Spanish, and an OER trainer’s guide available in English and French.

Wikieducator (English and Spanish)

a collaborative community developing free content that includes free university-level online courses. Subjects include Managing money to Introduction to ecosystems to Contemporary realities for indigenous Australians.

OER repository by specific content type

In your browser you may need to set your search for certain criteria (e.g. “labeled for reuse;” “creative commons license,” etc.):

Images

Flickr

Wikimedia Commons

Plus-Size Stock Photos: The Home Collection from Allgo

The Gender Spectrum Collection: Beyond the Binary

Disabled And Here from Affect the Verb

“A disability-led effort to provide free and inclusive stock photos shot from our own perspective, featuring disabled BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) across the Pacific Northwest.”

Disability Inclusive Stock Photography

Picnoi

Co-op stock photography organization offering diverse multi-racial stock images for free.

Nappy

high-res photos of black and brown people licensed with Creative Commons Zero (CC0).

UKBlackTech

Collection of tech photography resulting from a BAME (black, Asian and minority ethnic) stock photography project from Britain by a British audience. Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 License

WOCinTech

Over 500 photos of women of colour in tech. On flickr, creative commons CC BY 4.0 License

Icons and fonts

FontAwesome

Over 1,500 out of the almost 8,000 icons are free and licensed under creative commons CC BY 4.0 License. Download the SVGs directly from the SVG directory in the GitHub repo.