LibGuides: Open Educational Resources (OER) Program: Find OER

Open Textbooks Collection

Open textbooks are free, online learning materials with Creative Commons licenses. Many of the collections will have links to the same books, but each will have a particular focus, and items you can't find in other collections.

Open Textbook Library
Collection of openly-licensed textbooks that been reviewed by faculty from a variety of colleges and universities to assess their quality. The Open Textbook Library is supported by the University of Minnesota Center for Open Education and the Open Education Network.
OpenStax
OpenStax is a nonprofit educational initiative based at Rice University that publishes high-quality, peer-reviewed, openly licensed college textbooks that are absolutely free online and low cost in print.
B.C. Open Textbook
Collection of open textbooks for a variety of subjects and specialties from the B.C. Campus OpenEd. The open textbooks have been reviewed by faculty, meet accessibility requirements, and/or include ancillary materials (quizzes, test banks, slides, videos, etc.).
LibreTexts
A non-commercial open textbook organization initiated at the University of California, Davis. Their collection is used across the nation as primary course textbooks and as supplemental learning resources.
Milne Open Textbooks
An open-access textbook publishing initiative established by State University of New York libraries and supported by SUNY Innovative Instruction Technology Grants. They publish high-quality, cost-effective course resources by engaging faculty as authors and peer-reviewers, and libraries as publishing service and infrastructure.
eCampus Ontario Open Library
Provides educators and learners with access to more than 250 free and openly-licensed educational resources. The library was launched in 2017 in partnership with BCCampus.

OER Repositories

OER repositories contain more than just open textbooks. Learning materials in these collections include full courses, syllabi, images, presentations, videos, simulations, and many more.

OER Commons
A digital public library and collaboration platform launched by the Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education (ISKME). OER Commons allows searching by material types, educational or grade levels, and subject disciplines.
MERLOT
The Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching (MERLOT) provides access to curated online learning and support materials and content creation tools, led by an international community of educators, learners and researchers.
Open Course Library
A collection of expertly developed educational materials – including textbooks, syllabi, course activities, readings, and assessments – for 81 high-enrollment college courses. This collection was developed by the Washington State Colleges.

Subject-Specific Repositories

Center for Open Educational Resources and Language Learning
The Center for Open Educational Resources & Language Learning (COERLL) is one of 16 National Foreign Language Resource Centers (LRC's) funded by the U.S. Department of Education. Its mission is to produce and disseminate OER for the public.
NOBA Project
Expertly compiled from Noba modules to fit the scope and sequence of common courses. Use them as-is or customize them to fit your needs. Instructor manual, PowerPoint presentations, and test bank available for many modules.
PhET Interactive Simulations
PhET Interactive Simulations project at the University of Colorado Boulder creates free interactive math and science simulations. PhET sims are based on extensive education research and engage students through an intuitive, game-like environment where students learn through exploration and discovery.

Finding Images and Photos

The sources listed here have images and photos that can be downloaded for free with no or limited restrictions.

Wikimedia Commons
Large searchable collection of images, sound files, and video clips that are either in the public domain or openly licensed. Each record contains information needed for citation.
Pexels
Searchable database of images, free to use, no attribution required, although it is best practice.
Openverse
Formerly called Creative Commons Search is a tool that allows openly licensed and public domain works searches across more than 300 million images from open APIs and the Common Crawl dataset. Aggregates results across multiple public repositories into a single catalog, facilitates reuse through features like machine-generated tags and one-click attribution.
Google Images
Search keywords or even upload an image. Once you have your results, click the tools and use the "usage rights" drop down to limit to "Creative Commons licenses." You may also limit by word, color, image size, image type, etc.
The Gender Spectrum Collection
A stock photo library featuring images of trans and non-binary models that go beyond the clichés.
Nappy
Beautiful, high-resolution photos of black and brown people.
PICNOI
A coop of stock image photography featuring images of people of color.
Indigenous Education Stock Photos
A collection of images featuring indigenous individuals in educational settings. Licensed CC BY-NC-SA
Pixabay
Provides royalty free photos and videos. Pictures are shared as part of the public domain with people all over the world.
Unsplash
Millions of free high-resolution images created by the world’s most generous community of photographers.
WOCinTech
Free photos of women of color working in technology.

MSU Libraries

Guides

Open Educational Resources (OER) Program: Find OER

OER Search Tool

Open Textbooks Collection

OER Repositories

Subject-Specific Repositories

Finding Images and Photos