Finding OER
OER Repositories
OER repositories contain more than just open textbooks. All content featured here is free but usage rights vary. Some materials in these repositories are released under a Creative Commons license while others are in the public domain. You’ll find a variety of resources located in the portals below, including activities, assessments, games, lesson plans, and more.
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Lumen Learning
Supports faculty in identifying and selecting high quality OER, aligning these to learning outcomes, and assembling them to create OER-based courses. -
MERLOT II
Free, peer reviewed collection of online teaching and learning materials maintained by the California State University System. -
MIT OpenCourseWare
A web-based publication of materials from thousands of MIT courses. OCW is open and available to the world and is a permanent MIT activity. -
OER Commons
Funded by ISKME, OER Commons is a library of OER materials containing over 50,000 high-quality OER. -
Open Course Library
Collection of shareable course materials, including syllabi, course activities, readings, and assessments. -
Open Courseware Consortium
Free and open collection of high-quality learning materials presented in the form of courses. -
Open Michigan
A hub that helps people find, use, and create openly licensed content and provides a space to share their educational content. through partnerships with community of schools & colleges, campuses, faculty, students and alumni. -
Openstax CNX (formerly Connexions)
Contains textbooks, articles, supplements, and other learning resources that can be read online or downloaded for free.
Open Access Ebooks, Journals, & Articles
- Cornell Open
Cornell Open offers open access to key titles in the fields of anthropology, classics, political science, literary criticism and theory, German studies, and Slavic studies. - Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)
DOAJ is a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals. - The Digital Commons Network
This resource brings together free, full-text scholarly articles from hundreds of universities and colleges worldwide. The collection currently contains over 3 million articles from over 590 different institutions. - Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB)
A collection of over 15,000 academic, peer-reviewed books and chapters. Each item has a creative commons license to guide your usage of it. - Penn State University (PSU) Press Unlocked
Since 1956, PSU Press has contributed to scholarly discourse by publishing learned, relevant, first-class works for academics and the general public. The open access humanities and social sciences titles found here continue that tradition and reaffirm our commitment to disseminating vital scholarship as widely as possible.
Openly Licensed Images
- Getty Open Content Images
The Getty makes available, without charge, all available digital images to which the Getty holds the rights or that are in the public domain to be used for any purpose. No permission is required. -
Morguefile
Free high-res stock images. - NegativeSpace
Free, high-resolution images published under a CC0 license. - Open Clipart
Uses the CC0 1.0 license every time an artist uploads a piece of clipart to to make it clear the artist is releasing the creative work for anyone to use for any reason, even commercially. -
Wikimedia
A collection of 39,172,759 freely usable media files. - WorldImages
This database provides access to the California State University IMAGE Project. Images are free to use for non-profit educational purposes. These works are licensed under a CC BY-NC 2.5 license.
Openly Licensed Audiovisual Resources
- Sounds from Space
From the European Space Agency, find a multitude of sounds from space. Most (not all) audio content here is licensed under CC BY-SA IGO 3.0. Be sure to check individual credits to make a solid determination of its status. - Natural Sounds
A collection of natural and cultural sounds, from the National Parks Service, that are unique to each national park. Please note that - Librivox
A library of free public domain audiobooks. - Internet Moving Image Archive
This library contains digital movies uploaded by users, which range from classic full-length films, to daily alternative news broadcasts, to cartoons and concerts. Users are encouraged to add Creative Commons licenses to their movies, so please check individual movies to ensure it is openly licensed for your use. - TED Talks and TED Ed
TED is a nonprofit devoted to spreading ideas, usually in the form of short, powerful talks (18 minutes or less). Most TED Talks have a creative commons license. Read more about TED’s usage policy here.