Locating Open Resources

There are a number of resources to help an instructor replace a traditional publisher's textbook with a digital (or on-demand print) textbook. Some books, including those offered via OpenStax, are peer-reviewed and designed to meet course standards in scope and sequence. Other textbooks, including many offerings in the Open Textbook Library, are the result of institutional incentives and sponsorships.

Open textbooks offer a number of advantages over traditional texts, which can include: 

• Availability as a PDF, so easy to embed in a Canvas course
• Availability (at shipping cost) as print copies, for students who require this accessibility function
• Availability in multiple formats (e.g., iBooks, Kindle, web-viewing), for student ease/preference
• Inclusion of instructor resources (e.g., test banks, slides, sample syllabi language) to simplify the process of incorporating the book into a course 

For more information on the movement to "open the textbook," see the 2016 Babson Report on open educational resources in the United States.

• Digital Public Library of America

  The DPLA is an all-digital library that aggregates metadata for millions of photographs, manuscripts, books, sounds, moving images, and more from libraries, archives, and museums around the United States. Material which is out of copyright or openly-licensed is available in full.
• InTech

  The "largest multidisciplinary open access publisher of books covering the fields of Science, Technology and Medicine." As of this writing, includes 2420 books and 6 journals.
• Mason OER Metafinder

  The Mason OER Metafinder searches sixteen targets in real-time, instantly returning the top several hundred or so relevant hits from each site. Because it is a real-time search, it can take a bit longer than searches of pre-indexed content; however, as compensation the results returned are absolutely up-to-the-minute for each search target. Additional results continue to trickle in as the search continues running and you begin examining your results.

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• MedEdPORTAL

  A free publication service by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) and the American Dental Education Association (ADEA) of peer-reviewed medical education materials. Licensed under Creative Commons open licenses.
• Wikibooks

  "Wikibooks is a Wikimedia project for collaboratively writing open-content textbooks" The project is under  continuous development.

An Open CourseWare (OCW) is a free and open digital publication of high quality college and university‐level educational materials. These materials are organized as courses, and often include course planning materials and evaluation tools as well as thematic content. Open CourseWare are free and openly licensed, accessible to anyone, anytime via the internet. (via the Open Educational Consortium)

• Harvard Extension School Open Learning Initiative

  "Featuring Harvard faculty, the noncredit courses are open to the public. You do not need to register to view the lecture videos."
• JHSPH Open Courseware (Johns Hopkins)

  From Johns Hopkins Bloomburg School of Public Health. "JHSPH sees OCW as an important component of the School’s mission (Protecting Health, Saving Lives - Millions at a Time). OCW is true to JHSPH's values of excellence, innovation and leadership. JHSPH OCW contributes to the 'shared intellectual commons' in academia, which fosters collaboration across JHSPH and among other scholars across disciplines and around the world."
• MIT Open Courseware

  "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 Michigan

  "Open.Michigan encourages researchers, learners, and instructors to maximize the impact and reach of their scholarly work through open sharing. In other words, you create and we help you share."
• Open SUNY

  The State University of New York System. "There are currently seven SUNY MOOCs running on the Coursera platform covering the topics of: non-profits, metaliteracy, elearning, and computational arts."
• Open Yale Courses

  "Open Yale Courses provides free and open access to a selection of introductory courses taught by distinguished teachers and scholars at Yale University. The aim of the project is to expand access to educational materials for all who wish to learn."
• UC Irvine Open Courseware

  "The University launched its OpenCourseWare initiative in November 2006. Since then, it has rapidly grown to become one of the premiere sites in the United States. Today, its YouTube channel, is viewed more than a million minutes per month. Its OpenChem project comprises video lectures and more equivalent to the lectures in an undergraduate chemistry degree."
• Harvard Extension School Open Learning Initiative

  "Featuring Harvard faculty, the noncredit courses are open to the public. You do not need to register to view the lecture videos."
• JHSPH Open Courseware (Johns Hopkins)

  From Johns Hopkins Bloomburg School of Public Health. "JHSPH sees OCW as an important component of the School’s mission (Protecting Health, Saving Lives - Millions at a Time). OCW is true to JHSPH's values of excellence, innovation and leadership. JHSPH OCW contributes to the 'shared intellectual commons' in academia, which fosters collaboration across JHSPH and among other scholars across disciplines and around the world."
• MIT Open Courseware

  "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 Michigan

  "Open.Michigan encourages researchers, learners, and instructors to maximize the impact and reach of their scholarly work through open sharing. In other words, you create and we help you share."
• Open SUNY

  The State University of New York System. "There are currently seven SUNY MOOCs running on the Coursera platform covering the topics of: non-profits, metaliteracy, elearning, and computational arts."
• Open Yale Courses

  "Open Yale Courses provides free and open access to a selection of introductory courses taught by distinguished teachers and scholars at Yale University. The aim of the project is to expand access to educational materials for all who wish to learn."
• UC Irvine Open Courseware

  "The University launched its OpenCourseWare initiative in November 2006. Since then, it has rapidly grown to become one of the premiere sites in the United States. Today, its YouTube channel, is viewed more than a million minutes per month. Its OpenChem project comprises video lectures and more equivalent to the lectures in an undergraduate chemistry degree."

The wonder of OER is in the materials that lie beyond the traditional textbook. Check out any of these open resource repositories to discover some of what is available in your discipline:

Many university communities, including those in the University of Missouri system, contribute to the OER Commons. If you are unable to find what you are looking for, you may broaden your search to include the entire Commons.

MERLOT is a curated collection of free and open online teaching, learning, and faculty development services contributed and used by an international education community. It is a product of the California State University System partnering with education institutions, professional societies, and industry.

The Open Education Consortium is a worldwide community of hundreds of higher education institutions and associated organizations committed to advancing open education and its impact on global education [who] envision a world where everyone, everywhere has access to the education they need to build their futures.

• "Find OER" - Open Professionals Education Network
  Includes many formats, including video, audio, image, and text resources.
• Academic Earth

  Portal to open course materials and video lectures from many prominent colleges and universities.
• American Memory Collection at the Library of Congress

  American Memory provides free and open access to written and spoken words, sound recordings, still and moving images, prints, maps, and sheet music that document the American experience. This digital record of American history and creativity, from the collections of the Library of Congress and other institutions, chronicle historical events, people, places, and ideas that continue to shape America.
• BioInteractive (Howard Hughes Medical Institute)

  Contains award-winning multimedia resources, including apps, animations, videos, interactives, and virtual labs, focused on bringing the excitement of scientific discovery into the classroom. They can be used in a flipped, blended, or traditional classroom.
• Center for Open Educational Resources and Language Learning (the University of Texas at Austin)

  COERLL's mission is to produce and disseminate OER such as online language courses, reference grammars, assessment tools, corpora, etc. Site currently has OER for 17 languages including Arabic, English, Chinese, French, German, and Spanish.
• Chem Collective (Carnegie Mellon University)

  The ChemCollective is a collection of virtual labs, scenario-based learning activities, tutorials, and concept tests. Teachers can use our content for pre-labs, for alternatives to textbook homework, and for in-class activities for individuals or teams. Students can review and learn chemistry concepts using our virtual labs, simulations, and tutorials.
• Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources

  Primarily first- and second-year college/university resources.
• Concord Consortium - Higher Education OER

  The Concord Consortium focuses on discovering, developing and disseminating innovative technology for a new generation of STEM-literate learners, workers, and citizens. The site includes interactive simulations, cutting-edge sensors, innovative assessments, and technology-based curricula.
• Discipline-Specific Sources, Introduction to OER - openstax cnx

  Page identifying different OERs, mostly instructional units or objects, within Rice University's openstax course on OER.
• Encyclopedia of Life (EOL)

  The Encyclopedia of Life brings together information about all life on Earth—one web page for each species (>1.9 million species pages). Included are text, images, video, sounds, maps, classifications, etc., all freely available online.
• Go Cognitive (Cognitive Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience)

  Provides a video archive of interviews with over 20 leading researchers in the field, along with a set of demonstrations. All videos and demonstrations are freely accessible. By signing up (no cost, just provide e-mail) a user can get access to members-only materials that may be helpful as well.
• National Science Digital Library (NSDL)

  The National Science Digital Library provides high quality online educational resources for teaching and learning, with current emphasis on the sciences, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines—both formal and informal, institutional and individual, in local, state, national, and international educational settings.
• Open Educational Resources: Resource Roundup, from Edutopia
  Updated posting, a great guide to resources for getting started, organized with many links!
• Open Syllabus Explorer
  The Open Syllabus Project (OSP) collects and analyzes millions of syllabi to support educational research and novel teaching and learning applications. The OSP helps instructors develop classes, libraries manage collections, and presses develop books. It supports students and lifelong learners in their exploration of topics and fields. It creates incentives for faculty to improve teaching materials and to use open licenses.
• TED-Ed
  TED-Ed is TED’s youth and education initiative. TED-Ed’s mission is to spark and celebrate the ideas of teachers and students around the world. TED-Ed Originals are short animated videos about ideas that spark the curiosity of learners. These original animated videos, paired with questions and resources, make up what are called TED-Ed Lessons.
• WebWork (Mathematical Association of America and the National Science Foundation)

  WebWorK is an open-source online homework system for math and science courses. WeBWorK is supported by the MAA and the NSF and comes with a National Problem Library (NPL) of over 20,000 homework problems. Problems in the NPL target most lower division undergraduate math courses and some advanced courses. Supported courses include college algebra, discrete mathematics, probability and statistics, single and multivariable calculus, differential equations, linear algebra and complex analysis. WebWork is open source and able to be set up for free on an institution's server, or can be hosted by MAA for a small fee.