Open Educational Resources (OER) are:
- Openly-licensed, freely available educational materials that can be used, accessed, adapted, and redistributed with no or limited restrictions.
- Created with open licenses (typically Creative Commons licenses) that allow others to freely reuse, remix, and share the content.
Examples include:
- Textbooks | Slide decks | Test banks | Photos | Videos | Assessment tools
How can I find OER to use in my teaching?
There are many different places used to host OER, from institutional repositories such as YorkSpace, to provincial/state repositories such as eCampusOntario’s Open Library.
York University Libraries has created the following lists of repositories to help locate OER for courses:
- Open Textbooks (repositories cover business, economics, social sciences, sciences, engineering, humanities, and some fine arts)
- Also consult McMaster Libraries' OER By Discipline Guide
- Open Course Materials (learning modules, slide decks, exercises, assignments)
- Open Images / Media (images, videos, icons, slide decks)
Course directors may want to consider using OER as required course materials for their online courses as textbook publishers have historically not made their electronic content available to academic libraries for purchase. OER are freely available to users with an internet connection and OER cover a wide variety of course learning outcomes.
Having trouble finding OER?
Contact your liaison librarian to help with your search for open textbooks and course materials, or contact yul_cda@yorku.ca for assistance in locating online replacements or alternative resources when digital copies are non-existent.
Would you like to share your openly-licensed educational resources?
York University Libraries can advise on:
- Making an OER you’ve created discoverable to the broadest audience possible
- Ensuring you’re properly acknowledged and credited for your work
- Depositing your work into YorkSpace, York’s institutional repository, to help you track usage and uptake of your OER
Email opendeposit@yorku.ca for more information.
Are you looking for a platform to build or remix your own OER?
Book a consultation with Digital Scholarship Infrastructure to evaluate what tools and platforms might work best for your needs. We can assist with several open access platforms, and can recommend other resources and communities such as eCampusOntario.
Email diginit@yorku.ca for more information.