Open Access / Open Educational Resources: Research Guide

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Open access refers to content made publicly and legally accessible and freely usable and shareable. This designation takes many forms: research publications- like books, articles, and texts- software, data sets, and even media like video, music, lectures, or art. All of this has great value to education, professors and students alike! 

Open education then refers to those teaching, learning, and research resources created within the philosophy of open access. These materials, usually called open educational resources (OER), are aimed at reducing barriers to educational content and tools, and creating a wider and more robust pool of information available for all. 

To learn about open access more deeply, take a look at these sources:
 

Through the library, students and professors have access to numerous academic sources - books and periodicals in print and online through our research databases. But large numbers of these sources exist beyond the traditional publishing models and are freely available online through open source tools. 

One such tool is called OASIS, which searches over 150,000 different OER titles from 52 unique sources. You can search for materials using the search box below.

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Articles

The majority of open access journal publishers are reputable organizations, often administered by universities and field experts, but be wary - there is a growing number of predatory publishers in this realm. The list below recommends legitimate sources of academic articles. 

• Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) - A searchable collection of over 9,000 open source journals, containing nearly 2.5 million academic articles.
• PubMed Central - Full-text access to biomedical and life sciences journals published by the National Library of Medicine
• Open Science Directory - Global archive of nearly 13,000 journals, including many from the previously mentioned article collections
• Public Library of Science (PLoS) - A suite of seven different open access journals in the biological sciences

For a more complete list of open access article sources, please visit this page. 

Books

Most open access books are categorized as such because they've fallen into the public domain, but many publishers also make their content accessible online. 

• Directory of Open Access Books - Nearly 200 publishers have offered 7,600+ peer-reviewed books for research purposes
• epubBooks - Large collection of public domain books from the last 400 years of literature, all in epub format
• Hathi Trust Digital Library - Partnering with over 120 research institutions and libraries, Hathi Trust provides a robust library of public domain (and legally available copyrighted) texts 
• Internet Archive: ebooks and Texts - Collection of over 11 million ebooks, including contents of the Open Library project, that are able to be downloaded or read online
• Project Gutenburg - Over 53,000 free ebooks in a variety of formats that are all copyright-free in the United States

For a more complete list of open access image sources, please visit this page.

Media

Students and professors frequently need images to use in presentations, speeches, handouts, and other projects. While it is easy to find accessible media online, most images, audio, and video are subject to copyright rules and should not be used without permission from the content creator. There are, instead, numerous sources of copyright-free media items available! Many are published using Creative Commons licensing that allows for materials to be shared with appropriate attribution. 

• Creative Commons search - Search across a dozen different hosting platforms for Creative Commons media
• Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Online - Large collection of historical images provided by the Library of Congress
• Internet Archive - Provides millions of open access film, audio, image, and even software files
• Open Culture - Collection of "high-quality cultural and educational media" in a variety of formats
• ​Wikimedia Commons - Over 39 million freely usable images provide by site users 

For a more complete list of open access book/textbook sources, please visit this page. 

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Open Educational Resources exist in many different formats, but primarily they fall into two main categories: media (video, images, sound recordings, slides, etc) and learning objects (handouts, lectures, assessments, etc). 

Textbooks

The publishers listed below provide open access, academic-quality textbooks designed to provide no-cost options to students and professors. 

For a more complete list of open access book/textbook sources, please visit this page. 

Teaching Materials

Many educators have made materials like slides, tutorials, graphics, handouts, presentations, assessments, and many other tools available for others to use in their campus or virtual classrooms, and to help students master specific contents frequently found in your courses. 

The open education community continues to grow larger due to the collective efforts of educators sharing resources and collaborating to create new works. If you'd like to share lessons, modules, or learning objects that you've developed the following sites will help you to publish your open educational resources:

• "Authoring Open Textbooks" - An open access ebook that guides faculty authors in the creation of open access textbooks
• Canvas Commons - Share your modules, assessments, or other learning objects via Canvas Commons
• CAST UDL Book Builder - Open educational platform that allows user-created book publishing
• "Licensing OER using Creative Commons" by OpenProf - This module explains the different forms of Creative Commons licensing and how to apply them to your OER content
• MERLOT II - Add a Material- Submit your materials for sharing through MERLOT or use their Content Builder tool to create OERs
• OER Commons - Open Author - Create modules or teaching materials for the OER Commons library
• The Orange Grove - How To Contribute - Brief handout that walks you through the steps needed to add and distribute your OERs through The Orange Grove repository

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