Finding the Open Educational Resources (OER) you need for the courses you teach can be as simple as conducting a single search -- or it can be a real adventure in sleuthing. If you experience any trouble or frustration searching for OER on your own, please contact a librarian.
Here are some steps for finding OER to incorporate into your classes. You may not need to go through every step and you may want to tackle them in a different order. Before proceeding, be sure you are familiar with the definition of OER and Creative Commons (CC) licenses on the Is it OER? page of this guide.
Are you hoping to move away from students needing to purchase a textbook to be successful your course? Or do you just want to find materials to supplement your current textbook or readings? Your strategy for searching may vary accordingly.
Because you may end up needing to search several places for OER, it's a good idea to keep a record of where you look, which terms you use (and what categories you browse through), and what you find. You may want to use this OER Treasure Hunt Worksheet, created by Abbey Elder and Stacey Katz as part of their OER Starter Kit Workbook, as an example.1
You may think of other terms as you search, but having a good list going before you start may prevent the need to go back and search sources again.
Brainstorm and jot down terms that might be used to describe your course as a whole. Pull from the course title but go further. Does your course go by a different name at other colleges and universities? Are there other ways to express your subject? Do any of the terms you identified have spelling variations (example: behavior and behaviour - you may need to search for both)?
You may need to search for smaller blocks of content than an entire textbook or course that matches yours. Take a close look at your learning outcomes and your course content to come up with additional keywords you can use as you search. Include common synonyms (other words people in your field use to discuss the concept) and spelling variations as before.
Searching by keyword is just one option. Also use the browsing function within each repository to locate resources your keyword searches may have missed.
You can use (and modify!) an entire course, a portion of a course, or just the reading list -- whatever is relevant to your needs. See the Complete Courses section on the "Dig Deeper" page of this guide for places to look. If you don't find your exact course, look for something similar.
Think big: Look for OER Textbooks.
If you are hoping to replace your current textbook with one that is open and free for your students, you may be able to find complete OER textbooks to review and use. See the Open Textbooks section on the "Dig Deeper" page. If you don't find one for your exact course, look for something similar that you can pull from.
Instead of focusing on the textbook that you would like to replace, focus on your course outcomes: What you would like students to know or be able to do. You may need to use several materials that address different components of your course, especially if yours isn't a high enrollment course nationwide. See the Dig Deeper page of this guide for places to look for various content types.
You've found some great OER. Now what? Meet with an instructional designer at the ITRC for help determining the accessibility of the OER you locate, incorporating OER into your course, and/or editing or remixing OER to work for your course.
References
1. The OER Starter Kit Workbook by Abbey K. Elder & Stacy Katz is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.
Though the ISU Libraries' online resources are typically not OER, ISU students can access them for free. If your goal is to ensure your students access to materials and you can't find what you need in an open format, you may wish to link to a resource available through the library.
Would you like help searching for library materials that fulfill your need? Ask a Librarian.
Found what you need but need some assistance linking it correctly in your course? Contact the ISU ITRC.
This work is adapted from a LibGuide by D'Arcy Hutchings which is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
The format of this page of the guide is based on an OER guide created by Jen Klaudinyi of Portland Community College (CC BY-NC US 3.0 license).