8 Finding Open Educational Resources

There are millions of educational resources — photos, illustrations, videos and film, audio clips, courses, articles, and research — released with an open copyright licence or are in the public domain and available to open text authors and publishers. Below are online libraries, projects, directories, repositories, and websites where you will find both individual objects and full resources. If you have difficulty finding what you need, be creative and look for the desired item – photo, graphic, video — in an article from one of the many open academic journals or an open text. Another trick is to use several synonyms when searching for a hard-to-find resource.

Many sources contain items that range in user permissions from no copyright (for example, in the public domain), to CC licences, to all rights reserved. Make it your practice to check every resource’s licence or permissions before adding it to your open text.

At the end of this guide, there is a list of more subject-specific OER that you can use.

Need help finding OER? Contact your Liaison Librarian for assistance.

Chapter Attribution

This chapter is adapted in parts from:

• Self-Publishing Guide by BCcampus, licensed under a CC BY 4.0 licence.