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Open Educational Resources

Aside from YouTube, there are a variety of sources that offer Open Educational Resources, which are materials that you can use in your course for free. Those that appeal to different learning styles and meet your learning objectives should fit well in your class.

Keep in mind that when you use someone else’s content, you are responsible to make sure you are not violating copyright laws (read any fine print, such as terms of use), and you need to ensure that the materials are accessible to students with disabilities.

Here is a list of resources to get you started.

LPC Resources

  • LPC Library Databases: Audio, Video, and Images. Our library offers a variety of resources in these formats.
  • Follett Discover: Accessible through Canvas, Follett Discover offers a wide variety of discoverable materials from OER collections, such as Merlot, Lumen Learning, and more. Access Follett Discover by clicking the Student Support Hub and looking for the link in the upper left. Perform a search, then click the OER tab. Contact the LPC Bookstore for help using Follett Discover.
  • OER Textbook Printing and Course Pack Curation: The LPC Bookstore can help print OER textbooks that are licensed under Creative Commons and provide them to students at a low cost. The bookstore can also help obtain licensing for the curation and printing of course packs/readers for another, not-quite OER, but low-cost option. Contact the LPC Bookstore for more  information.

CCC Resources

  • California Community College Hub on OER Commons. The statewide  Academic Senate's OERI discipline collections have been indexed to help you easily find content for your course.
  • OEI's OER course: The OEI created this sample course that uses Open Educational Resources. If you want instructor access to this course, email your Canvas administrator. Please do not post anything in this course.
  • COOL4Ed: All 3 higher ed systems in California are working together to provide free or inexpensive textbooks and other materials for students. Faculty can come to this site to find these books and materials.

CSU Resource

  • MERLOT: Links to online learning materials are collected here for your review and use.

Other Popular Resources

  • Canvas Commons: Just click the Commons icon in the global navigation menu to check out content already created for Canvas.
  • Creative Commons Search: Creative Commons licenses provide a flexible range of protections and freedoms for educators. Its search function aims to display content you can use in your classes.
  • Google Images and Flickr: You can filter your search to include only images in the public domain.
  • LibreText: An easy-to-use online platform with a broad subject range of open educational resources.
  • OpenStax: Supplies openly licensed textbooks. Has partnered with the OEI.
  • Project Gutenberg: A library of over 60,000 free eBooks.
  • Openly Available Sources Integrated Search (OASIS): OASIS is a tool searches open content from over 100 different OER providers, including LibreText, OpenStax, and Project Gutenberg.
  • TEDEd: You can create a lesson or use one of the many lessons already created.
  • Connexions: Connexions is a place to view and share educational material can be organized as courses, books, reports, etc. Anyone can view or contribute.
  • OpenCourseWare: OCW is a free and open digital publication of community college- and university‐level educational materials.
  • Learner.org: Part of the Annenberg Foundation, this site provides free streaming videos that can be linked to for student learning.
  • Open Learning Initiative: This effort, by Carnegie Mellon University, offers free courses with lots of available content.
  • MIT OpenCourseWare: Another free resource for faculty. There are entire courses listed, and you can use any of the materials.
  • Open Course Library: This is a collection of shareable course materials, including syllabi, course activities, readings, assessments, created by the Washington State Colleges.

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