Open Educational Resources (OER)
Open Educational Resources (OER) are learning, teaching and research materials in any format and medium that reside in the public domain or are under copyright that have been released under an open license, that permit no-cost access, re-use, re-purpose, adaptation and redistribution by others. So if you’re looking for top-notch educational resources that will help you reach your learning goals or support your students, we’ve compiled a list of some of the most valuable open educational resources available today.
1. MIT OCW
As the forerunner of the Open Educational Resource movement, MIT’s Open CourseWare is still one of the most valuable OERs for both learners and teachers.
If you’re a student, you can use the course finder tool to browse courses by topics. When you find one you’re interested in, you can examine the course goals, key topics, and sequence to determine whether it will meet your needs. You can even cherry pick specific concepts you’d like to study from different courses rather than following just one course from beginning to end.
If you’re a teacher, you can use the OCW Educator Portal to sift through courses using terms like “Active Learning or “Instructional Design.” You can also access valuable teaching materials such as images, lecture slides, and videos from MITs leading researchers in the OCW resource library.
Although Lumen Learning isn’t entirely free to use, it is a great resource for affordable learning materials and courses. Teachers can use it to access digital content, supplemental materials, and customisable courses for more than 50 subjects. Students can use it to cut down on textbook costs by accessing affordable learning materials such as e-books, videos, and other interactive materials in one place. It can also improve learning outcomes by providing students with opportunities for real-time feedback.
3. Khan Academy
Khan Academy is another open educational resource that’s geared both towards learners and educators. Learners can access educational content on a wide range of topics from science and engineering to computer programming, all from a personalised learning dashboard that enables them to study at their own pace. Teachers can make use of the practice exercises and instructional videos in their lesson planning, and the teacher dashboard makes it easy to check class performance at a glance, while also identifying any students who might be struggling.
4. Merlot
Merlot is the California State University’s collection of online learning and support materials, as well as content creation tools. It consists of more than 40,000 materials that are rated and peer-reviewed by researchers, educators, and learners.
The learning materials are categorised into 22 different material types, including animation, case study, drill and practice, and simulation. Merlot members can also bookmark collections, leave comments and feedback, contribute their own materials, and even build their own courses.
5. OER Commons
OER Commons is a digital library of open educational resources created by the Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education (ISKME). With over 70,000 educational resources from providers like the British Library and Harvard University, it’s a great tool for discovering and organising educational content. Open Educational Resource Commons is particularly useful for educators, as it allows them to build their own resources, lesson plans and courses, while using groups to collaborate with other educators in their network.
6. OpenStax
Based at Rice University, OpenStax is an educational initiative that provides students with free online access to high-quality peer-reviewed textbooks. Students can access textbooks for subjects like math and science, humanities, and business. The OpenStax Tutor, which is based on cognitive science principles and machine learning, also gives them access to online courseware and learning tools that will help them complete their course.
Academic Earth brings together educational content and course materials from some of the best universities in the world, including Stanford, Princeton, U.C. Berkely, MIT, and Yale. Students can browse the library of more than 1,500 lecture videos, which are organised by school, subject, and scholar, and then download the ones they like or even find curated playlists based on their interests.
8. Learningpod
In collaboration with OpenStax, Learningpod created question sets for OpenStax textbooks and is now said to be the largest library of free online practice questions in the world. With Learningpod, teachers can assign practice sets and track student progress, and students can prepare for tests with high quality practice questions and then view reports and graphs showing how they did and which areas may need improvement.
10. Open Culture
Open Culture was voted as the best Open Educational Resource in the Education Resource People’s Choice Awards conducted by Study.com. It’s a great place to find free cultural and educational media related to movies, language, literature, and more. Students and teachers can use it to access everything from MOOCs and certificate courses to audio books, e-books, and textbooks, as well as unmissable movies and lectures.
The Open Learning Initiative (OLI) was developed by representatives from Carnegie Mellon University, and provides academic and independent paid, but also open and free online courses. OLI’s content, instructional design, tools, and delivery platform are evidence-based, and its courses have been proven effective by both independent and internal studies. Teachers can use the courses as supplemental material or textbook replacements, whereas independent learners can use the self-guided courses informally to learn more about a subject they’re interested in.
12. Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)
DOAJ is a unique and extensive index of diverse open access journals from around the world, driven by a growing community, committed to ensuring quality content is freely available online for everyone. DOAJ’s mission is to increase the visibility, accessibility, reputation, usage and impact of quality, peer-reviewed, open access scholarly research journals globally, regardless of discipline, geography or language.
13. Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB)
DOAB is a community-driven discovery service that indexes and provides access to scholarly, peer-reviewed open access books and helps users to find trusted open access book publishers. All DOAB services are free of charge and all data is freely available. The primary aim of DOAB is to increase discoverability of open access books.