OER Repositories and Tips for Searching
OER Search Sites
List of OER Repositories
If you wish to do your own searches for OER, there are a variety of repositories available to discover more resources.
Keep these points in mind when searching for OER:
- OER repositories are often multidisciplinary.
- Resources come in a variety of types and formats.
- Not all repositories are created equal or organized the same way. Those that offer mediated deposit usually have more accurate cataloguing details or metadata. Also, some offer filters and reviews to help refine search results.
- The quality of the metadata associated with each resource will vary greatly, which can make it difficult to apply filters or perform a federated search of multiple repositories simultaneously.
- Some repositories include resources that are “free” but not necessarily “open”. Take the time to verify the copyright or licence terms of each item to confirm if it is an OER.
- You may not find an exact replacement for the commercial resource you are currently using. Some adaptations and the use of more than one OER may be required.
Search Tips
- Search by discipline or subject first.
- If searching by keyword, start with broader concepts and then narrow down using discipline-specific terms and/or limiters available on the platform.
- If available, use the “advanced search” function.
- Look for a copyright notice, conditions of use, or a licence to confirm if the resource is not just “free” but also “open”.
See also “Finding Open Content” and “Repositories and Search Tools” by Ariana Santiago in OER Creation Toolkit, edited by Isaac Mulolani (University of Regina), CC BY 4.0.
Here are some repositories and indexes that were used to find OER for this guide (in alphabetical order):
Table 1.0 List of OER Repositories
| ASCCC OERI |
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| B.C. Open Collection (BCcampus) |
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| eCampusOntario Open Library |
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| LibreTexts and LibreCommons |
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| Lumen Learning |
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| Mason OER Metafinder (MOM) |
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| MERLOT |
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| Milne Open Textbooks (formerly OpenSUNY) |
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| OASIS (Openly Available Sources Integrated Search) |
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| OER Commons |
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| Open Michigan |
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| OpenStax |
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| Open Textbook Library |
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| PennState University Libraries ROAM |
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| Pressbooks Directory |
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| MIT OpenCourseWare |
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| University of Minnesota Open Textbooks |
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| Virginia Tech Open Textbooks |
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| The Orange Grove: Florida’s Open Educational Resources |
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| Digital Public Library of America |
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| The Metropolitan Museum of Art |
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| Free Music Archive |
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Not sure how to evaluate an OER you are considering for a course? Consult Evaluating OER in this guide.
Subject-Specific OER Repositories and Publishers
Repositories and publishers of open educational resources that focus on particular subjects.
Table 1.2 Subject-Specific OER Repositories and Publishers
| Repository | Description | Focus | Licences | Access/Sign-in |
| Lyryx | Lyryx products are driven by subject matter experts: instructors with lengthy experience in both educational content and online homework. | OER focused on Mathematics, Business & Economics | This site contains materials created, developed, or commissioned by Lyryx, and is protected by international copyright and trademark laws. | no sign-in needed for download |
| Language Science Press | High-quality peer-reviewed open access books in linguistics. | OA books focused on Linguistic Studies. | CC BY | no sign-in needed for download |
| E-International Relations (E-IR) | open access website for students and scholars of international politics, featuring high quality scholarly content and student-facing resources. | OER focused on International Relations. | Various CC Licenses | no sign-in needed for download |
| American Institute of Mathematics Open Textbooks Initiative | Textbooks approved by the American Institute of Mathematics. | Open Access Textbooks & OER focused on Mathematics | Various CC-BY | no sign-in needed for download |
| Siyavula Open Textbooks | Our mission is to create and enable engaging, integrated, high-quality learning experiences in Mathematics and the Sciences; to have a long-lasting, enriching impact on learners and teachers in South Africa and globally; to constantly seek out and build the most relevant, effective technology whilst remaining rooted in the science of learning and instruction; and to engage and motivate young minds, helping them to master and develop the skills our future needs. | OER for Primary & High School levels. Available in Afrikaans and English in the fields of Mathematics & Sciences. | CC-BY-ND & CC-BY | no sign-in needed for download |
| The WAC Clearinghouse Writing Resources | The WAC Clearinghouse provides a range of resources for writers. Many of these are adapted from the Writing@CSU website, which supported writers and teachers from its initial establishment in 1993 at Colorado State University. | OER focused on Writing including Open Access Textbooks | Various CC Licenses | no sign-in needed for download |
| Humanities Commons | A nonprofit, interdisciplinary, broad-ranging alternative to commercial networks | OER focused on the Humanities. | Not applicable | no sign-in needed for download |
| RePEC (Economics) | RePEc (Research Papers in Economics) is a collaborative effort of hundreds of volunteers in 102 countries to enhance the dissemination of research in Economics and related sciences. The heart of the project is a decentralized bibliographic database of working papers, journal articles, books, books chapters and software components, all maintained by volunteers. The collected data are then used in various services that serve the collected metadata to users or enhance it. | OER focused on Economics | Not applicable | no sign-in needed for download |
| SSOAR (Social Sciences) | Here on our website you will find steadily growing holdings of freely available, full-text social science documents. | OER focused on the Social Sciences. | Not applicable | no sign-in needed for download |
| PhilPapers (Philosophy) | PhilPapers is a comprehensive index and bibliography of philosophy maintained by the community of philosophers. | OER focused on Philosophy | Not applicable | no sign-in needed for download |
| Lardbucket 2012 Textbooks | Textbooks focused on Economics which were licensed under Creative Commons cc-by-nc-sa. | OER in Economics | CC-BY-NC-SA | no sign-in needed for download |
| Center for Open Educational Resources and Language Learning (COERLL): Languages | COERLL’s mission is to produce and disseminate Open Educational Resources (OER) for the students at the University of Texas at Austin. However, thanks to the adoption of open licenses, we are able to share our materials (e.g., online language courses, reference grammars, assessment tools, corpora, etc.) with the general public. The term OER refers to any educational material offered freely for anyone to use, typically involving some permission to re-mix, improve, and redistribute. Thus, while COERLL exists to serve the needs of UT-Austin foreign language students, it also aims to promote a culture of sharing that lies at the heart of the Open Education movement. At COERLL, we are happy to share our materials with language learners and teachers around the world. We only ask that you respect our OERs’ terms of use as indicated by their open licenses. | OER in Languages | open licences | no sign-in needed for download |
| Noba Project Psychology Modules | Noba is a free online platform that provides high-quality, flexibly structured textbooks and educational materials. These textbooks and materials are licensed under the Creative Commons CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 International License. Users may reuse, redistribute, and remix the content to suit their needs. | Psychology | CC BY-NC-SA | no sign-in needed for download |
| Open Geography Education | This website is dedicated to providing free, open curriculum and resources to anybody who is interested in our geographic world. Using the world as our contributors and content experts, we will strive to make the most engaging, dynamic, and relevant information possible. | Geography | Creative Commons licences | no sign-in needed for download |
| PhET Simulations | Founded in 2002 by Nobel Laureate Carl Wieman, the PhET Interactive Simulations project at the University of Colorado Boulder creates free interactive math and science simulations. PhET sims are based on extensive education research and engage students through an intuitive, game-like environment where students learn through exploration and discovery. | Physics, Physical science, Geology, Chemistry | Creative Commons licences | no sign-in needed for download |
| SkillsCommons | SkillsCommons’ mission is to accelerate the democratization of education for all through open educational services and resources enabling individuals, communities, educational institutions, organizations, and businesses to prepare people for successful employment in the 21st Century. | Career & Technical Education | Creative Commons Licences | no sign-in needed for download |
| Green Tea Press Textbooks | Welcome to Green Tea Press, publisher of Think Python, Think Bayes, and other books by Allen Downey. Our books are available under free licenses that allow you to copy and distribute the text — you are also free to modify it, so you can adapt the books to different needs and help develop new material. | Computer Science, Programming(Bayes, Python, MATLAB, Java, DSP) | Creative Commons Licences | no sign-in needed for download |
| Chem Collective | The ChemCollective contains a collection of virtual labs, scenario-based learning activities, tutorials, and concept tests. Teachers can use our content for pre-labs, for alternatives to textbook homework, and for in-class activities for individuals or teams. Students can review and learn chemistry concepts using our virtual labs, simulations, and tutorials. | Chemistry | Creative Commons Licences | no sign-in needed |
definition
An application used to search multiple databases or repositories at the same time, displaying results from these different locations on one search interface.
