PSCC Libraries: Open Educational Resources (OER): OER Collections

Take an OER Class

Introduction to Open Education Resources
An OER course explaining OER. From Connexion
OER Tutorial
How to use OER material. From Algonquin College

Subject Librarian

Mary Ellen Spencer

Email Me

Contact:

ER125

(865) 694-6517

OER Collections

OER collections provide many different types of Open Education Resources, including from course materials, learning modules, and textbooks.

Archive.org
Internet Archive is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more.
Center for Open Educational Resources and Language Learning (COERLL)
Funded by the U.S. Department of Education, COERLL's mission is to improve the teaching and learning of foreign languages by producing resources such as online language courses, assessment tools, and more.
LibreTexts
The LibreTexts mission is to unite students, faculty and scholars in a cooperative effort to develop an easy-to-use online platform for the construction, customization, and dissemination of OER to reduce the burdens of unreasonable textbook costs to our students and society.
MERLOT
Collection of online learning materials. Users can modify and create content. Also a large community of educators.
OER Commons
Open Educational Resource Commons collections.
Open Course Library
Open courses that educators can download and use in their own classrooms. Maintained by Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges
Open Culture
Open culture compiles many different resources from around the web, including online courses, certification courses, movies, textbooks, and more.
SkillsCommons
The US Department of Labor’s Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) program created a free and open online library called SkillsCommons containing free and open learning materials and program support materials for job-driven workforce development. The $1.9 billion investment by the US Department of Labor produced a comprehensive collection of workforce-related Open Educational Resources (OER) created by over 700 community colleges across the nation. The OER can be found, reused, revised, retained, redistributed and remixed by an individual, institution, and industry for free with the proper attribution to the original author of the resources.

These sites offer entire courses for free, including lectures and course materials. These courses can be utilized by self-learners or other students.

SkillsCommons Open Courseware
Focused on workforce development, these are free and open course curriculum for over 100 courses in different industry sectors and subject areas.
Stanford Online
Open classes offered by Stanford faculty
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
A selection of MIT courses on a wide range of topics.
Yale Open Courses
Open introductory coursework available from Yale
Harvard Open Courses
10 courses available at a time
edX
Hub site leading to free courses from a variety of institutions. Requires registration, but is still free.
Open Learning Initiative
Carnegie Mellon University. Variety of open courses for self-directed learners.
Khan Academy
Free classes and coursework. Includes feature to allow teachers access to their students' quizzes, etc
Academic Earth
Searchable by subject, includes material from many universities
Reclaiming our Past: The Truth about Tennessee
OER from Northeast State Community College

Age Positive Image Library
Developed in the United Kingdom by the Centre for Better Aging, this image collection features thousands of photos of older individuals working, exercising, using digital tools, and more. All images are published under a CC0 1.0 license, so you can copy, modify, and distribute the works, even for commercial purposes, without asking permission.
Disabled and Here Image Collection
This stock library is a disability-led effort to provide free and inclusive images from our own perspective, with photos and illustrations celebrating disabled, Black, Indigenous, and people of color. The collection is published under Creative Commons attribution licensing, which means you can use, share, and adapt the images for free with appropriate credit.
Google Advanced Image Search
Use the "Usage Rights" filter to find images with Creative Commons licenses.
Images of Empowerment
The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation worked with Getty Images in 2015 and 2017 to create a library of powerful, positive and high-quality images showing women’s work and family life around the world. Images are free for non-commercial use under Creative Commons licensing.
Library of Congress Digital Collections
The Library of Congress is the largest library in the world, with millions of books, recordings, photographs, newspapers, maps and manuscripts in its collections. Whenever possible, each collection has its own rights statement which should be consulted for guidance on use.
Library of Congress Free to Use and Reuse Collections
This page features items from the Library's digital collections that are free to use and reuse. The Library believes that this content is either in the public domain, has no known copyright, or has been cleared by the copyright owner for public use. Each set of content is based on a theme and is first featured on the Library's home page. These sets are just a small sample of the Library's digital collections that are free to use and reuse. Whenever possible, each collection has its own rights statement which should be consulted for guidance on use.
Library of Congress on Flickr
Includes 73 image albums that cover a wide range of topics. Formats include photographs, posters, bookplates, prints, newspapers, and more.
New York Public Library Digital Collections
Openverse
Browse through over 600 million items to reuse. All Openverse content is under a Creative Commons license or is in the public domain.
Pixabay
Offers free downloads of photos, illustrations, vectors, music, and sound effects. Licensed images are for-fee only.
Smithsonian Open Access
Includes digital assets that are created, stored, or maintained by the Smithsonian. This might include text, still images, sound recordings, research datasets, 3D models, collections data, and more.
Unsplash
Over 2 million free high-resolution images brought to you by the world’s most generous community of photographers. Unsplash grants you an irrevocable, nonexclusive, worldwide copyright license to download, copy, modify, distribute, perform, and use photos from Unsplash for free, including for commercial purposes, without permission from or attributing the photographer or Unsplash. This license does not include the right to compile photos from Unsplash to replicate a similar or competing service.
Vecteezy
Provides access to photos, vectors, and videos that can be used for free with the appropriate attribution. Use the "Free License" filter to limit your search to these materials. For-fee downloads are clearly marked.
Wikimedia Commons
A collection of over 80 million image, sound, and video files. If you decide to reuse files from Commons, you should verify the copyright status of each image just as you would when obtaining images from other sources.

Internet Archive
A non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more.
Khan Academy
Created by experts, Khan Academy’s library of trusted, standards-aligned practice and lessons covers math K-12 through early college, grammar, science, history, AP®, SAT®, and more. It’s all free for learners and teachers.
The Open Video Project
The Open Video repository provides video clips from a variety of sources, especially various video programs obtained from U.S. government agencies such as the U.S. Records and Archives Administration and NASA. Although the government agency videos were produced with public funds and are freely available from the Archives, no copyright clearance has been obtained for audio or video elements in these productions. We encourage researchers to use the data under fair use for research purposes.
Smithsonian Open Access
Includes digital assets that are created, stored, or maintained by the Smithsonian. This might include text, still images, sound recordings, research datasets, 3D models, collections data, and more.
TED-Ed
This tool allows you to build a lesson around any TED talk. You can adapt and even create your own material around any YouTube video.
Wikimedia Commons
A collection of over 80 million image, sound, and video files. If you decide to reuse files from Commons, you should verify the copyright status of each image just as you would when obtaining images from other sources.

Code of Best Practices in Fair use for Open Educational Resources
This document is intended to support authors, teachers, professors, librarians, and all open educators in evaluating when and how they can incorporate third party copyright materials into Open Educational Resources to meet their pedagogical goals.