Finding Open Content
Learning Objectives
By the end of this chapter, you will be able to:
- Demonstrate how to conduct a preliminary search for open educational resources.
- Identify resources for locating OER.
This chapter is an adaptation of the chapter, “Finding Open Content” from the OER Starter Kit by Abbey Elder and is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 International license.
There are many different places used to host OER, from institutional repositories to grant-funded websites. Consequently, not all OER are easy to find. In this chapter, we will review some methods you can use to locate OER for your course. Let’s start by looking at three steps to consider when seeking OER.
The Search Process
There are four easy steps to look for open content:
- Identify keywords related to your course and its learning objectives.
- Search OER repositories and aggregators for any relevant resources.
- Review the resources you’ve located for fit, currency, accessibility, and any other rubric you deem necessary when judging teaching materials.
- Reflect on the materials you have located.
We’ll be using a guided document when we complete a hands-on search in Session 2. You can get a sneak peek of the OER Search & Evaluation Tool .
Search Tips
Start Broad
Searching for OER can be difficult when you’re starting from a narrow perspective. For the most results, start with a broad search focused on your discipline. Once you’ve brought together a large collection of resources, then you can begin to limit your results.
Think about how you search for material in a traditional search engine or when seeking research materials. You may need to expand or restrict your search terminology to get the best results.
Walk through the following interaction to develop an initial search. While much of the content you will read in this text references a class or course as a primary focus, please contextualize for your own needs. If you are an instructional designer, you may consider exploring what resources relate to a specific topic you are working on for tutorial development. Librarians may consider individual lesson plans, or ‘point of need’ instruction about information or media literacy.
OER Search Scenario
Let’s suppose an instructor teaches a course on abnormal psychology. She wants to find videos, readings, and case studies related to this topic for her course. Here is an example of a search strategy she can follow by starting broad:
- Search the Open Textbook Library for “Psychology.” Peruse the Tables of Contents of listed textbooks to find chapters or sections focusing on topics covered in the course.
- Search OASIS for “abnormal psychology.” Since OASIS searches content on multiple repositories, limiting your search a little more can be useful. These can then be sorted by format, type, or date.
- Search YouTube for videos on specific topics related to Abnormal Psych. Since YouTube contains different types of content, being specific is more important on this platform.
- As a last-ditch effort, do an Advanced Search in Google for “Abnormal Psychology” (we will discuss this more below).
By the end of these searches, she has compiled the following list: Abnormal Psychology OER List in Google Docs.
Keep an Open Mind
You don’t have to jump into a fully open course right away. Start small by adding OER lesson plans to your coursework. The number and breadth of OER available are changing every day. Although there might not be resources available for your course right now, that may not be the case next year or even next month. Including OER in your regular assessment of materials for use in your course is a great first step for finding resources you can adopt in the future.
For those who don’t teach classes, consider how you might adapt material you share with other stakeholders. Perhaps it is a public-facing document, internal guide, tutorial, or other form of learning material.
Filter by Usage Rights in Google
Google is a familiar resource for many of us, and it is also useful for finding openly licensed content. The Advanced Search feature in Google allows you to filter results by Usage Rights. Filtering by usage rights will limit your results to works with certain licenses listed on the webpage, usually Creative Commons licenses. There are a few options to choose from in the Usage Rights list, but we recommend starting with “free to use or share” to retrieve the broadest set of results.[1]
Remember when using this method that Google trusts what users tell it about an item’s copyright status. Although a resource may be labeled CC BY or even CC 0, you should trust your instincts if you aren’t sure whether the item you are reviewing is actually under copyright. Contact a librarian or a university lawyer if you have questions.
This chapter has provided a short overview of some tools and techniques you can use to find OER. In the next chapter, we’ll provide a more comprehensive list of search tools grouped by topic and type.
Getting Help
Emily and Bethany are happy to assist you as you search for relevant OER. We also encourage you to connect with your subject librarian at UVA. Instructional designers can help, as well. Although it can be difficult to find OER in some disciplines, keep in mind that OER can be adapted to fit your course if necessary; you don’t have to use every resource as-is.
- Adding "OER" to your search terms can help you locate materials created for sharing if your Google search is retrieving too many results. ↵