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Open Educational Resources

According to Open NYS, "Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits repurposing by others." The Scholarly Communication Librarian is available to assist you as you explore and incorporate OERs into current and new courses. Don’t hesitate to schedule an appointment today.

Ready to start searching for OERs? Check out OASIS. Openly Available Sources Integrated Search (OASIS) is a search tool that aims to make the discovery of open content easier. OASIS currently searches open content from 52 different sources and contains 155,375 records. OASIS is being developed at SUNY Geneseo's Milne Library in consultation with Alexis Clifton, SUNY OER Services Executive Director.

Why Use Open Educational Resources?
Open Educational Resources (OERs) offer a number of benefits to both students and instructors. For students, OERs provide a crucial reduction in course-related expenses and first-day access to materials. For students who prefer physical copies, OERs are easily reproduced at minimal cost. For instructors, OERs offer the ultimate flexibility. Because OERs are openly licensed, instructors are free to distribute physical and electronic copies of the materials without the hassle of clearing permissions. Additionally, many can be adapted and remixed to suit the needs of the course, and the modified OERs can be redistributed without the need to seek permission. With OERs, you never have to worry about your course text going out of print; you can retain and distribute original (and, in some cases, modified) copies indefinitely.
Find Open Textbooks & Monographs
  • BC Open Textbooks: Textbooks at BC Open Textbooks are created (or, where possible, re-created from existing open educational resources) by BC post-secondary faculty, reviewed by B.C. faculty and made available under a Creative Commons license.
  • Directory of Open Access Books: The primary aim of DOAB is to increase discoverability of Open Access books. The directory is open to all publishers who publish academic, peer reviewed books in Open Access.
  • OAPEN Library: The OAPEN Library contains freely accessible academic books, mainly in the area of humanities and social sciences. OAPEN works with publishers to build a quality controlled collection of open access books, and provides services for publishers, libraries and research funders in the areas of deposit, quality assurance, dissemination, and digital preservation.
  • OER Commons Textbook Hub: ISKME's digital librarians have curated collections of Open Textbooks and supplementary resources to help leverage OER in your classroom. Whether you are looking for more affordable options for your students, or dynamic content to inspire your own teaching and learning practice, this hub, organized by discipline and provider will help you discover the resources you need at your fingertips.
  • OpenStax Textbooks: OpenStax is a nonprofit educational initiative based at Rice University. OpenStax publishes publish high-quality, peer-reviewed, openly licensed college textbooks that are absolutely free online and low cost in print. OpenStax has also developed low-cost, research-based courseware that gives students the tools they need to complete their course the first time around.
  • Open Textbook Library: The Open Textbook Library provides a growing catalog of free, peer-reviewed, and openly-licensed textbooks.
  • SUNY Open Textbooks: Open SUNY Textbooks is an open access textbook publishing initiative established by State University of New York libraries and supported by SUNY Innovative Instruction Technology Grants. This pilot initiative published high-quality, cost-effective course resources by engaging faculty as authors and peer-reviewers, and libraries as publishing service and infrastructure.
Find Open Courses
  • Ready-to-Adopt OER Courses from SUNY OER Services: SUNY OER services offers campuses user-friendly technology to adopt, adapt, and tailor existing OER for individual needs, as well as providing guidance for creating and distributing new materials.
  • MIT Open Courseware: Open SUNY MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW) is a web-based publication of virtually all MIT course content. OCW is open and available to the world and is a permanent MIT activity.
  • Open Course Library: A collection of high quality, free-to-use courses that you can download and use for teaching. All content is stored in Google docs making it easy to access, browse and download.
  • Saylor Academy Saylor Academy is a nonprofit initiative working since 2008 to offer free and open online courses to all who want to learn.
Find Open Learning Objects
  • MASON OER Metafinder: The Mason OER Metafinder searches seventeen targets in real-time, instantly returning the top several hundred or so relevant hits from each site.
  • MERLOT: The MERLOT collection consists of tens of thousands of discipline-specific learning materials, learning exercises, and Content Builder webpages, together with associated comments, and bookmark collections, all intended to enhance the teaching experience of using a learning material. All of these items have been contributed by the MERLOT member community, who have either authored the materials themselves, or who have discovered the materials, found them useful, and wished to share their enthusiasm for the materials with others in the teaching and learning community. All the materials in MERLOT are reviewed for suitability for retention in the collection. Many undergo the more extensive "peer review" for which MERLOT is famous.
  • OASIS: Openly Available Sources Integrated Search (OASIS) is a search tool that aims to make the discovery of open content easier. OASIS currently searches open content from 51 different sources and contains 152,779 records.
  • 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.
Find Open Scholarship
  • CUNY Academic Commons: The Academic Commons of The City University of New York is designed to support faculty initiatives and build community through the use(s) of technology in teaching and learning. The free exchange of knowledge among colleagues across the university is central to better educating the student body and expanding professional development opportunities for faculty research and teaching. Creating networks and support systems that are enabled by easy access to quality digital resources will nurture faculty development through sharing replicable materials and best practices.
  • Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ is a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals. DOAJ is independent. All funding is via donations, 40% of which comes from sponsors and 60% from members and publisher members. All DOAJ services are free of charge including being indexed in DOAJ. All data is freely available.
  • Directory of Open Access Repositories: OpenDOAR is the quality-assured global directory of academic open access repositories. It enables the identification, browsing and search for repositories, based on a range of features, such as location, software or type of material held.
  • SUNY Digital Repository: In 2005, the SUNY Office of Library and Information Services (OLIS) established a prototype institutional repository using the Dspace software. Institutional repositories are digital archives used to collect, manage, maintain and disseminate the intellectual output associated with institutions such as SUNY. The repository contains article pre-prints, article post-prints, other working papers, electronic journals, visual resources, theses, dissertations, resources in other data formats, etc.
Adopting, Modifying, Creating, & Disseminating OERs
Have you replaced your traditional textbook with one or more OERs? Let us know! If you’re having difficulty making an existing OER work for your course or you think you might need to create materials from scratch, schedule a consultation with the Scholarly Communication Librarian for assistance. If you’ve created an OER and want to share it with the world, consider depositing it in the FSC Digital Repository. For more information, please contact Danielle Apfelbaum, Scholarly Communication Librarian by email at Danielle Apfelbaum or by phone at 934-420-5586.
Funding Your OER Activities
For information about opportunities to fund your OER activities, contact Danielle Apfelbaum, Scholarly Communication Librarian by email at Danielle Apfelbaum or by phone at 934-420-5586.
Join the Open Education & Open Scholarship Advisory Committee
Faculty and staff are welcome and encouraged to join the Open Education and Open Scholarship Advisory Committee (OEOSAC). The Advisory Committee functions in an advisory capacity to the Office of the Provost. The Advisory Committee makes recommendations regarding the adoption and promotion of open access knowledge, open access technologies, open educational resources, and open pedagogies in support faculty research and teaching. It has no legislative, administrative, or programmatic authority and is advisory only. For more information, contact Danielle Apfelbaum, Scholarly Communication Librarian, at Danielle Apfelbaum or 934-420-5586. 

OER HELP | Have a question? Our Scholarly Communication Librarian is available to assist you.

Thomas D. Greenley Library

Greenley Library

Circulation: 934-420-2183
Reference: 934-420-2184
reference@farmingdale.edu

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Last Modified 4/19/24