Course Materials

What is OER?

According to OER Commons : “Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching and learning materials that you may freely use and reuse at no cost.” Examples of OERs available on the OER Commons site include full university courses, interactive mini-lessons and simulations, adaptations of existing open work, and electronic textbooks.

Creative Commons  is a “nonprofit organization that enables the sharing and use of creativity and knowledge through free legal tools.” Most OER will have Creative Commons licensing, which allows for different levels of distribution and changing.

Educause’s 7 Things You Should Know About OER  (.pdf) is a brief overview covering usage rights, MIT’s OpenCourseWare project (which began in 2002!), downsides, the future, and implications.

Myth

• All free, open textbooks are junk.

Fact

• Peer-Reviewed open textbooks are available.
  • Hundreds of universities and colleges are using the high-quality open textbooks from
  • OpenStax  to lower student costs. More information on peer-reviewed OER available below.

Where to Find OER

Educause  has a list of OER sites as well as articles about OER.

Wikipedia  has a list of OER sites.

Although Open Educational Resources are more than just “textbooks” there are many complete textbooks already available:

• BC Campus OpenEd Resources 
• OER Commons 
• OpenStax College – Peer-reviewed! 
• Milne Open Textbooks  – Formerly Open SUNY Textbooks
• Saylor Academy Bookshelf 

Some OER sites have not only textbooks but also videos, labs, simulations, podcasts, and apps in numerous subject areas:

• Humboldt State University 
• San Jose State University 

Peer-Reviewed OER Textbooks

OpenStax , a free textbook initiative of Rice University, offers free peer-reviewed textbooks in a variety of subjects, including:

• Anatomy 
• Astronomy 
• Biology 
• Business
• Chemistry 
• College Success
• History (U.S.) 
• Mathematics 
• Physics 
• Psychology 
• Sociology 

Check out their FAQ page  for more information.

*New: How OpenStax Books are Made 

Isn’t it worth an hour or two to look at what they have and see if you could offer your students a $0 textbook course?

These Faculty and OER resources were compiled by Tracy Thornett for the Student Success and Admissions Committee at the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo, 2017.