LibGuides: Open Educational Resources: Finding OER

What is an Open Textbook?

An open textbook is an openly-licensed textbook offered online by its author(s). The open license sets open textbooks apart from traditional textbooks by allowing users to read online, download, or print the book at no additional cost.

For a textbook to be considered open, it must be licensed in a way that grants a baseline set of rights to users that are less restrictive than its standard copyright. A license or list of permissions must be clearly stated by the author.

Generally, the minimum baseline rights allow users at least the following:

to use the textbook without compensating the author
to copy the textbook, with appropriate credit to the author
to distribute the textbook non-commercially
to shift the textbook into another format (such as digital or print)

Many authors also grant rights such as:

to add, remove or alter content in the textbook, often on the condition that derivative works must have the same license
to copy and distribute the textbook without giving credit to the author
to use the textbook commercially

Source: Varied Characterizations of Open Textbooks

Open Textbooks

OERTX Search for OER used by institutions of higher education in Texas and across the country, including materials aligned to Texas Core Curriculum requirements.
OpenStax from Rice University OpenStax is a nonprofit educational initiative based at Rice University, and it's our mission to give every student the tools they need to be successful in the classroom. We publish high-quality, peer-reviewed, openly licensed college textbooks that are absolutely free online and low cost in print.
Open Textbook Library Open textbooks are textbooks that have been funded, published, and licensed to be freely used, adapted, and distributed. 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. The library currently includes 608 textbooks, with more being added all the time.
Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources The Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources (CCCOER) promotes the awareness and adoption of open educational policies, practices, and resources. We believe that these practices will expand student access to education while supporting academic freedom and faculty choice of openly licensed curriculum materials. Our membership includes hundreds of colleges in 27 US states and 2 Canadian provinces. CCCOER is part of the global Open Education Consortium.
OER Commons OER Commons offers a comprehensive infrastructure for curriculum experts and instructors at all levels to identify high-quality OER and collaborate around their adaptation, evaluation, and use to address the needs of teachers and learners. From a single point of access in OER Commons, you can search, browse, and evaluate resources in OER Commons' growing collection of over 50,000 high-quality OER.
BCcampus OpenED
Merlot Open Textbook
Bookboon
Open Textbook Store
Saylor Academy Open Textbooks
Writing Commons A free, comprehensive, peer-reviewed, award-winning Open Text for students and faculty in college-level courses that require writing and research.
Open RN

OER Content/Courses

Open Course Library
MyOpenMath
MIT Open Courseware
OASIS
Hippo Campus HippoCampus.org is a free, core academic web site that delivers rich multimedia content--videos, animations, and simulations--on general education subjects to middle-school and high-school teachers and college professors, and their students, free of charge. Teachers project HippoCampus content during classroom learning and assign it for computer labs and homework.