3 Where Can I Find OER for My Course?
You May Be Surprised by What Already Exists
Once you know what your course needs, it is time to see what other educators have already created and shared.
The OER community is large. Faculty, colleges, universities, libraries, nonprofit organizations, and open education projects have been developing and sharing textbooks, chapters, activities, assignments, videos, simulations, assessments, and other learning materials for years.
You do not need to create everything yourself. Someone may have already created exactly what you need, something close to it, or a resource you can build upon.
In This Chapter
You’ll learn how to:
- search major OER repositories and collections;
- find resources created by California Community College and Palomar faculty;
- search beyond the major OER repositories;
- connect with other educators who are creating and using OER;
- use your course map and AI to compare promising resources with what your course needs; and
- keep track of resources you may want to use, adapt, or combine.
Use Your COR and/or Course Map to Guide Your Search
Keep your COR, and if you created a course map, nearby as you explore. Instead of opening a repository and browsing without a clear destination, search for the needs you have already identified.
For each part of the course, consider:
- What content do students need?
- What concepts might benefit from another explanation or example?
- Where do students typically struggle?
- What opportunities for practice or application do they need?
- What do I already have?
- What is still missing?
Your search can move back and forth between the course map and the resources you discover. You may find one resource that covers most of what you need and then search more specifically for the remaining gaps.
What Already Exists? Start With Searching OER Repositories and Collections
There is no single place where every OER lives. Different repositories and organizations collect different types of materials, so it is worth searching more than one.
You do not need to search every repository below. Start with the ones that seem most relevant to what you need.
California Community College OER
ASCCC OERI: Open Educational Resources by Discipline
This is an excellent place for California Community College faculty to begin. The ASCCC Open Educational Resources Initiative (OERI) provides discipline-specific collections curated by faculty discipline leads. Depending on the discipline, you may find textbooks, ancillary materials, resources organized by C-ID, and information about OER currently being developed.
You can also explore the broader ASCCC OERI California Community Colleges OER collections, including resources organized by discipline, C-ID, Transfer Model Curriculum, and other categories.
Open Textbooks and Learning Materials
Pressbooks Directory
Search openly available books created in Pressbooks. This is an especially useful place to look if you think you may want to adapt or remix a book because many openly licensed Pressbooks can be copied and adapted in another Pressbooks network.
LibreTexts
Explore extensive collections of open textbooks and other learning materials across many disciplines. LibreTexts also supports customization and remixing, making it useful when you want to build a resource from existing content.
OpenStax
Browse openly licensed textbooks developed for many commonly taught college courses. Many OpenStax books also have supporting instructor resources.
Open Textbook Library
Search a collection of open textbooks from many disciplines. Many books include reviews written by faculty, which can be helpful as you begin evaluating a resource.
Broader OER Collections
OER Commons
Search for textbooks as well as individual lessons, activities, modules, media, and other openly shared educational materials.
MERLOT
Explore a large collection of teaching and learning materials across disciplines. MERLOT can be particularly useful when you are searching for something more specific than a complete textbook.
Look at What Palomar Faculty Have Already Created
OER sharing is happening here at Palomar too.
Explore the Palomar Pressbooks Catalog to see books that Palomar faculty and programs have already created or adapted.
You may find something for your discipline, content that could support part of your course, or examples that help you imagine what your own OER could become.
A resource developed by one faculty member can become the starting point for another faculty member, a department, or an entirely new resource.
Don’t Forget a Regular Web Search
OER repositories are useful starting points, but they do not contain everything. A regular web search can uncover OER housed on college websites, individual Pressbooks networks, faculty websites, and other places you may not find in a central directory.
Try combining OER, open textbook, or Pressbooks with the name of your discipline, course, or topic.
For example:
- “OER textbook” psychology;
- “open textbook” geology;
- “OER” interpersonal communication;
- “Pressbooks” child development; or
- “Pressbooks” statistics textbook.
You can also search for the specific needs you identified in your course map:
- “OER” operant conditioning activities;
- “open educational resource” cellular respiration;
- “Pressbooks” rhetorical analysis; or
- “OER” accounting practice problems.
The more clearly you know what your course needs, the more specific your search can become.
Ask the OER Community
Searching for OER does not have to mean searching websites by yourself. The OER community is made up of educators who share resources, ideas, experiences, and solutions with one another.
If you cannot find what you need, ask.
CCCOER Community Google Group
Connect with educators involved in open education, ask questions, share resources, and see what other people are developing and using.
SPARC Open Education Forum
Connect with a broader community of people working in open education and follow conversations about OER projects, practices, resources, and emerging issues.
You might ask:
- “Has anyone found or developed OER for this course?”
- “I’m looking for an openly licensed resource that addresses this topic. Does anyone have something they recommend?”
- “Has anyone adapted this particular book? What did you add or change?”
- “Does anyone have ancillary materials for this OER?”
You can also search previous conversations in these communities. Someone may have already asked the same question.
The OER Community Works Because Educators Share
One of the strengths of Open Education is that educators do not have to solve the same problems independently.
Someone creates a resource and shares it. Another educator improves it. Someone else develops an activity to accompany it. Another adapts it for a different group of students. Those improvements can then be shared again.
When you use OER, you are not simply choosing a different textbook. You are joining a community of educators who build upon one another’s work.
Found Something in Pressbooks? That’s a Great Place to Start
Palomar has its own Pressbooks network, and Pressbooks is a particularly useful platform when you want to adapt an existing OER.
If you eventually decide to use Pressbooks, How Do I Build My OER in Palomar Pressbooks? will walk you through ways to bring existing content into Palomar Pressbooks.
If you find an openly licensed book created in Pressbooks and its license allows adaptation, you may be able to bring a copy into Palomar Pressbooks and begin modifying it rather than rebuilding the resource from scratch.
This can make it much easier to:
- remove chapters or sections you do not need;
- reorganize the content around your course;
- revise explanations and examples;
- add your own content;
- combine it with other openly licensed materials; and
- continue updating the resource over time.
The Pressbooks Directory Does Not Include Every Pressbooks Book
Authors choose whether to list their books in the Pressbooks Directory. That means a publicly available Pressbooks book may exist even if it does not appear in the directory.
Don’t stop searching just because you did not find what you need in the Pressbooks Directory. A regular web search can uncover additional Pressbooks books.
You Don’t Need to Find One Perfect Book
Finding a complete OER textbook that aligns beautifully with your course is wonderful. But that is not the only successful outcome of your search.
Your course map may lead you to resources from several different places. You might find:
- a textbook that provides the foundation for most of the course;
- a chapter from another OER that explains one topic particularly well;
- an openly licensed diagram or image that helps explain a difficult concept;
- a case study that makes a topic more relevant;
- an activity or simulation that gives students an opportunity to practice;
- an assessment or question bank you can adapt; or
- content created by another faculty member that fills a gap.
Later, you can decide whether it makes sense to adopt one resource, adapt it, combine several resources, add materials you have already created, or create something new to fill the remaining gaps.
For now, find what is useful.
AI Assistant: How Well Does This OER Match My Course?
Once you find a promising OER textbook, AI can help you conduct an initial comparison between the resource and your Course Outline of Record.
You can provide the AI assistant with your COR and the OER, its table of contents, or other available content and ask it to:
- identify where the topics required by your COR appear in the OER;
- map COR topics to specific chapters or sections;
- identify required topics that do not appear to be addressed;
- identify topics that may only be partially addressed; and
- organize the comparison into a table you can review.
For example, you might ask:
Compare the required course content in this Course Outline of Record with this OER textbook. Create a table listing each required COR topic, where it appears in the OER, and any topics you cannot locate. Do not assume that a topic is covered based only on a chapter title. Tell me when I need to review the content more closely.
This can turn an initial review of a long textbook into a much more manageable task.
You are the expert. AI is your assistant. Verify the comparison against the actual COR and OER. AI can miss content, misunderstand disciplinary terminology, or make incorrect connections. Use the comparison to focus your review, not to replace it.
Take a Quick Look Before You Save a Resource
You do not need to conduct a complete review of every resource you find. At this stage, decide whether something looks promising enough to investigate further.
Take a quick look at:
- Alignment: Does it address something your course actually needs?
- Accuracy and currency: Does the content appear credible and appropriate for your discipline?
- Clarity: Is the content written and organized in a way that could work for your students?
- Accessibility: Does the resource appear designed so that students with disabilities can use it?
- Adaptability: Can you access the content in a format that would be practical to use or modify?
- License: Is there an open license, and does it appear to allow what you might want to do?
You do not need to answer every question completely yet. The goal is to decide whether the resource deserves a closer look.
Pay Attention to Format and Adaptability
When two resources are similarly strong, the format may affect how much work it takes to adapt them.
For example, a resource that can be cloned or imported into an editing platform may be much easier to modify than one available only as a PDF. An existing Pressbooks book may be particularly convenient if you plan to work in Palomar Pressbooks.
Don’t Let the Platform Make the Decision for You
Do not reject an excellent OER simply because it is not in your preferred format.
Format and adaptability are factors to consider, but the most important question is still whether the resource supports what your students need to learn.
Keep Track of What You Find
As you search, save promising resources even if you are not yet sure whether you will use them.
For each resource, record:
- title;
- author or creator;
- link to the original source;
- Creative Commons or other license, if identified;
- the part of your course it might support; and
- a few notes about what you like or might want to change.
Keeping this information now will make it much easier to return to resources, compare your options, and provide proper attribution if you eventually use them.
Always save the link to the original source and the license information. These will become important when you begin adapting and combining materials.
You Found Something. Now What?
Finding a promising OER is only the beginning. You do not need to immediately decide whether to use the whole resource, change it, or combine it with something else.
Your next question is:
Am I allowed to use and change this resource?
Once you understand that, you can decide whether you should adopt it as it is, adapt it, remix it with other resources, or create something to fill the gaps.
Where Would You Like to Go Next?
Use the guide based on what you are ready to do next.
Choose Your Next Step
I found an OER and need to understand what its license allows me to do.
Go to: How Do I Know If I Can Use and Change an OER?
I found several resources and want to decide whether to use, change, or combine them.
Go to: Should I Adopt, Adapt, Remix, or Create OER?
I’m having trouble finding what I need.
Return to your course map and try searching for individual topics or learning needs rather than a complete textbook. Ask colleagues or the OER community what they have found or created. You can also meet with an Instructional Designer to explore additional possibilities.
I’m not yet sure what my course actually needs.
Go to: What Should I Do Before I Look for an OER Textbook?
