Research Guides: Workshop: Intro to OER: Using Open Educational Resources @ NJIT: Searching

Where to Search

BC Campus OpenEd * Provides a curated collection of open textbooks. Many of these textbooks have been reviewed and vetted by BC post-secondary faculty.
OpenStax (Rice) * OpenStax is really trying to ensure the quality of the textbook content immediately. * Foundation covered resource * Contributing authors from many diverse institutions * Pre-production, peer-review process much like what is found in scholarly journals.
Open Textbook Library (UMN) * Curated collection of open textbooks from across the Internet. * Unlike OpenStax which produces their own books, Open Textbook Library is actually bringing them in post-production peer reviewed by their professors and it works out really well. I * It’s a nice small collection of Open Textbooks.
Portland State University PDXScholar, a service of Portland State University Library, provides access to a diverse collection of academic, scholarly, scientific and creative content produced by faculty, students and staff. PDXScholar increases the visibility of authors' works, maximizes research impact, facilitates interdisciplinary research, and provides regional and global communities with immediate and permanent access.
STEMWiki Hyperlibrary (UC Davis ) * Developed by a multi-disciplinary team of faculty and students representing Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics, Geology, Statistics, Engineering, Molecular and Cell Biology; and Evolution and Ecology that build and connect individual STEMWikis as “Hubs” in the developing Hyperlibrary network.
SUNY Open Textbooks (SUNY) * Creating by the State University of New York System. * Geared towards those who are interested in writing their own open textbooks. * Have some interesting niche subjects that are coming out of SUNY open textbooks
Washington Open Course Library * Most common courses in the Washington State University System – these are all the materials you would need in a Google drive format. So you just go in and the stuff is in a Google folder. You can edit easily

Galileo Open Learning Materials The virtual library of Georgia. Georgia has a new digital repository that is focused on sharing OERs created by the University system or through their partners such as OpenStax (Galileo is able to share based out of a textbook transformation grant and with University of North Georgia Press)
Merlot This is the California State System. They have been doing this since the 1990s. So when you are searching in Merlot, you will be getting textbooks from 2016 all the way back to the early days of the Web. And because of that, this probably should not be the first place to find OER. Going through a smaller curated collection – you might find what you are looking for and that is great. Going through Merlot, you will be inundated with so many resources some of which might be older, expired links. So Merlot is a place you would need to go after you check out the smaller collections.
OER Commons Just like Merlot, OER Commons is a global thing focused on every grade level but not as much higher-ed as Merlot is but covers K-12 to higher-ed, a good mount of web-based stuff and a good creation tool in OER Commons that allows you to make Wordpress style OER on the spot
OpenStax CNX OpenStax has a system called CNX –it’s the same thing that enables you to get to the Web version of the book – people have been able to publish their open textbooks using OpenStax CNX. It’s a little older system. Link to advances search: https://cnx.org/search
Wikimedia Commons a collection of 41,250,538 freely usable media files to which anyone can contribute

Search Multiple Repositories at Once

at Creative Commons Website (includes images)

at SUNY Geneseo Milne Library's OASIS search tool

at Teaching Commons (showcases high-quality open educational resources from leading colleges and universities and makes them available to educators and students around the world.)

use Google (use Advanced Setting to set usage rights for open licenses)

SEARCH ALL at the Library (check filter box for full-text or books)

Proquest eBook Central (Already licensed ebooks--check w/ librarian for unlimited licenses)

Return to Comprehensive Research Guide to OER

| COMPARISON OF LARGE AND SMALL COLLECTIONS |

EXAMPLE: SMALLER COLLECTIONS
Repository Name	Description	Notes
Open Textbook Library	Includes over 200 open textbooks from accounting to the social sciences. Most open textbooks are reviewed during production, using systems implemented by the authors and publishers.	Maintained by the Open Textbook Network (OTN) - 500+ active network campuses Around 60% of books in the Open Textbook Library have been reviewed. Most authors and publishers keep an archive of past versions and editions. NJIT member institution privileges also includes OTN sponsored workshops to train faculty on advocating OERs.
OpenStax	Includes 25+ open textbooks that meet scope and sequence requirements for most courses. This is a foundation covered resource and has contributing authors from MIT to community colleges. So there is a pre-production, peer-review process similar to what is found in scholarly journals. OpenStax is really trying to ensure the quality of the content immediately.	link to any chapter and add to Moodle. download print version in high or low resolution. has browsable headings Instructor Resources available (need to register)
EXAMPLE: LARGER COLLECTIONS
Repository Name	Description	Notes
Merlot	This resource maintained by the California State System. They have been doing this since the 1990s. So when you are searching in Merlot, you will be getting textbooks from 2016 all the way back to the early days of the Web. And because of that, this probably should not be the first place to find OER. Going through a smaller curated collection – you might find what you are looking for and that is great. Going through Merlot, you will be inundated with so many resources some of which might be older, expired links. So Merlot is a place you would need to go after you check out the smaller collections.	Includes a curated collection of free and open online teaching, learning, and faculty developed resources, including web sources, PDF, videos, images, and much more...
Collection Name	Description	Notes
NJIT Library	The collection comprises over 390,000 volumes with 34 full-text databases, over 55,000 electronic journals, 168,000 ebooks and 222,000 physical holdings.	Ability to search across multiple databases and filter results Ability to search a specific database Contains high-quality resources in various formats Free to NJIT faculty and students Library support via chat, telephone, email and in-person

Workshop: Intro to OER: Using Open Educational Resources @ NJIT

Research & Instruction Librarians

Where to Search

| COMPARISON OF LARGE AND SMALL COLLECTIONS |

Where to Find Open & Affordable Resources