Subject Guides: Open Educational Resources: OER by Discipline

Evaluating OER

As with all education resources, OER need to be evaluated before use. Those new to OER may have concerns about quality because OER are available for free and may have been remixed by other educators. The process of using and evaluating OER is not that different from evaluating traditional all-rights-reserved copyright resources.

Whether education materials are openly licensed or closed, you are the best judge of quality because you know what your learners need and what your curriculum demands.

OER by College

OpenStax
Offers open, peer-reviewed, free e-texts with support materials for instructors. It also offers an option to purchase print copies at cost. OpenStax CNX is designed to encourage the sharing and reuse of educational content. The knowledge in OpenStax CNX can be shared and built upon by all because it is reusable.
Open Textbook Library
These books have been reviewed by faculty from a variety of colleges and universities to assess their quality. These books can be downloaded for no cost, or printed at low cost. All textbooks are either used at multiple higher education institutions; or affiliated with an institution, scholarly society, or professional organization.
Milne Open Textbooks
Milne Open Textbooks (formerly SUNY Open Textbooks) is a service that provides mentoring, technical support, and access to a broad catalog of open textbooks to help incorporate OER into the classroom, lower the cost of higher education, and empower faculty.
BC Campus OpenEd
Open textbooks for the 40 courses with the highest enrollment in first- and second-year subject areas in British Columbia's public, post-secondary system.
OER Commons
Provides tens of thousands of open educational resources, including full university courses and college-level open textbooks from higher education institutions around the world.
Oasis
The SUNY Geneseo Openly Available Sources Integrated Search (OASIS) is a search tool that aims to make the discovery of open content easier. OASIS currently searches a curated database drawn from 115 different sources and contains over 440,000 records.
Cool4Ed - Course Showcase
The California Open Education Resources Council facilitates the peer review of open textbooks which are showcased in the California Open Online Library for Education (COOL4Ed). Choose a discipline, course, and then look in the "Faculty Generated Resources" column.
Directory of Open Access Books
Search for open access books by discipline/subject.
LibreTexts: Humanities
This search is for open books for the humanities (art, composition, gender studies, history, humanities, languages, literature, music, philosophy, religious studies, research & information studies, theater/film)
LibreTexts: Social Sciences
Includes books in the area of social sciences (anthropology, communication, counseling, economics, early childhood education, education & professional development, geography, human development, political science, psychology, social work, sociology, bio psychology)
Merlot
MERLOT is a curated collection of free and open online teaching, learning, and faculty development services contributed and used by an international education community. Use the Advanced Search to limit by subject, educational level, type of resource, and more. The Content-Builder facilitates creation of new OERs.
MIT OpenCourseWare
Open courses, materials & teaching resources provided by MIT.
InTech Open Books
Read, share and download more than 3,800 peer-reviewed Open Access books.
The Orange Grove: Florida
Florida's open educational resource repository.
Shakespeare CoLab
The Shakespeare CoLab is an interdisciplinary digital humanities project working to create a repository of fully-annotated Shakespeare texts on a digitized platform. Utilizing the Folger Shakespeare Library’s digital texts for content, we aim to expand the accessibility of Shakespeare online by providing a resource of digital texts that include explanatory notes generated entirely from original student scholarship. Our mission is to bring Digital Shakespeare and the Digital Renaissance into scholarship, pedagogy, and the public sphere.

OpenStax
Offers open, peer-reviewed, free e-texts with support materials for instructors. It also offers an option to purchase print copies at cost. OpenStax CNX is designed to encourage the sharing and reuse of educational content. The knowledge in OpenStax CNX can be shared and built upon by all because it is reusable.
Merlot
MERLOT is a curated collection of free and open online teaching, learning, and faculty development services contributed and used by an international education community. Use the Advanced Search to limit by subject, educational level, type of resource, and more. The Content-Builder facilitates creation of new OERs.
Open Textbook Library
These books have been reviewed by faculty from a variety of colleges and universities to assess their quality. These books can be downloaded for no cost, or printed at low cost. All textbooks are either used at multiple higher education institutions; or affiliated with an institution, scholarly society, or professional organization.
LibreText: Business
Include books in the area of business (accounting, business, finance, management, marketing, law)
Directory of Open Access Books
Search for open access books by discipline/subject.
Oasis
The SUNY Geneseo Openly Available Sources Integrated Search (OASIS) is a search tool that aims to make the discovery of open content easier. OASIS currently searches a curated database drawn from 115 different sources and contains over 440,000 records.
BC Campus OpenEd
Open textbooks for the 40 courses with the highest enrollment in first- and second-year subject areas in British Columbia's public, post-secondary system.
Milne Open Textbooks: By Subject
Milne Open Textbooks (formerly SUNY Open Textbooks) is a service that provides mentoring, technical support, and access to a broad catalog of open textbooks to help incorporate OER into the classroom, lower the cost of higher education, and empower faculty.
InTech Open Books
Read, share and download more than 3,800 peer-reviewed Open Access books.
OER Commons
Provides tens of thousands of open educational resources, including full university courses and college-level open textbooks from higher education institutions around the world.
Cool4Ed - Course Showcase
The California Open Education Resources Council facilitates the peer review of open textbooks which are showcased in the California Open Online Library for Education (COOL4Ed). Choose a discipline, course, and then look in the "Faculty Generated Resources" column.

MIT Open Case Studies

Open Textbook Library
These books have been reviewed by faculty from a variety of colleges and universities to assess their quality. These books can be downloaded for no cost, or printed at low cost. All textbooks are either used at multiple higher education institutions; or affiliated with an institution, scholarly society, or professional organization.
BC Campus OpenEd
Open textbooks for the 40 courses with the highest enrollment in first- and second-year subject areas in British Columbia's public, post-secondary system.
Milne Open Textbooks: By Subject
Milne Open Textbooks (formerly SUNY Open Textbooks) is a service that provides mentoring, technical support, and access to a broad catalog of open textbooks to help incorporate OER into the classroom, lower the cost of higher education, and empower faculty.
InTech Open Books
Read, share and download more than 3,800 peer-reviewed Open Access books.
Directory of Open Access Books
Search for open access books by discipline/subject.
OER Commons
Provides tens of thousands of open educational resources, including full university courses and college-level open textbooks from higher education institutions around the world.
Cool4Ed - Course Showcase
The California Open Education Resources Council facilitates the peer review of open textbooks which are showcased in the California Open Online Library for Education (COOL4Ed). Choose a discipline, course, and then look in the "Faculty Generated Resources" column.
Oasis
The SUNY Geneseo Openly Available Sources Integrated Search (OASIS) is a search tool that aims to make the discovery of open content easier. OASIS currently searches a curated database drawn from 115 different sources and contains over 440,000 records.

MIT OpenCourseWare
Open courses, materials & teaching resources provided by MIT.
OpenStax
Offers open, peer-reviewed, free e-texts with support materials for instructors. It also offers an option to purchase print copies at cost. OpenStax CNX is designed to encourage the sharing and reuse of educational content. The knowledge in OpenStax CNX can be shared and built upon by all because it is reusable.
BC Campus OpenEd
Open textbooks for the 40 courses with the highest enrollment in first- and second-year subject areas in British Columbia's public, post-secondary system.
Cool4Ed - Course Showcase
The California Open Education Resources Council facilitates the peer review of open textbooks which are showcased in the California Open Online Library for Education (COOL4Ed). Choose a discipline, course, and then look in the "Faculty Generated Resources" column.
LibreTexts: Social Sciences
Includes books in the area of social sciences (anthropology, communication, counseling, economics, early childhood education, education & professional development, geography, human development, political science, psychology, social work, sociology, bio psychology)
Merlot
MERLOT is a curated collection of free and open online teaching, learning, and faculty development services contributed and used by an international education community. Use the Advanced Search to limit by subject, educational level, type of resource, and more. The Content-Builder facilitates creation of new OERs.
Oasis
The SUNY Geneseo Openly Available Sources Integrated Search (OASIS) is a search tool that aims to make the discovery of open content easier. OASIS currently searches a curated database drawn from 115 different sources and contains over 440,000 records.

OER Commons
Provides tens of thousands of open educational resources, including college-level open textbooks from higher education institutions around the world.
Open Textbook Library
These books have been reviewed by faculty from a variety of colleges and universities to assess their quality. These books can be downloaded for no cost, or printed at low cost. All textbooks are either used at multiple higher education institutions; or affiliated with an institution, scholarly society, or professional organization.
Milne Open Textbooks
Milne Open Textbooks (formerly SUNY Open Textbooks) is a service that provides mentoring, technical support, and access to a broad catalog of open textbooks to help incorporate OER into the classroom, lower the cost of higher education, and empower faculty.
LibreText: Business
Include books in the area of business (accounting, business, finance, management, marketing, law)