OER resources are bountiful. Finding the right OER which is of the quality you require, however often proves a challenge. These pages aim to provide you with some route markers to find the resources that suit your needs. Our database is dynamic, so please give us feedback if a link is no longer working or you have found another resource that we should add.
Several specialised OER search engines exist to support finding OER. Some of these are indicated below.
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Find and share learning objects |
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Academic search engine |
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DiscoverEd is a search prototype developed by Creative Commons to explore metadata enhanced search, specifically for OER. |
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Open Educational Resources from Commonwealth universities and educational institutions |
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digital teaching and learning resources created and maintained by the federal government and public and private organizations. |
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Customised search |
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“free learning and teaching resources, created and contributed by teaching staff from UK Further and Higher Education Institutions" |
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“Find Free-to-Use Teaching and Learning Content from around the World. Organize K-12 Lessons, College Courses, and more." |
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Search many sites from one place |
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An excellent search engine which brings open licensed educational resources from all over the Web. |
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Find articles, key websites, books, the latest industry news, job announcements, ejournals, eprints, technical reports, the latest research, thesis & dissertations and more! In Engineering, Mathematics, and Computing |
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Learners and educators can use XPERT to search a growing database of open learning resources suitable for students at all levels of study in a wide range of different subjects. |
Please note that this section offers convenient access to search services provided by other organisations. Unisa has no control over the results that are returned. Do not assume that the results displayed in this search portal are under a CC license. You should always verify that the work is actually under a CC license by following the link. If you are in doubt you should contact the copyright holder directly, or try to contact the site where you found the content.
Open Educational Resources (OER) come in many shapes and sizes. The body of OER available globally is dynamic. The number of OER available globally is also staggering, making it impossible to create a single definitive database. The lists of sources in this section therefore serve to introduce the scope of OER globally and provide and introduction to some of the major OER. The following structure will be used to present the Global OER (please note that the groupings are not necessarily mutually exclusive):
| Learning Objects: | Raw materials to create comprehensive learning materials. |
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Open access library material. |
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Edited by volunteers or invited experts. |
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Digitised traditional texts of collaboratively created texts. |
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Open courses, not usually for certification. |
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Consortia providing OpenCourseWare. |
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Instructional materials used for courses. |
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Commercial enterprises extending content to include stand alone and supplemental OER content. |
| Site | Description |
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abstrusegoose |
Comics,CC BY NC |
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compfight |
A great search interface for the flickr CC image collection |
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clker |
The online royalty free public domain clip art |
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useful for finding patterns and backgrounds |
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dryicons |
110 icons available with the Free, Commercial or Extended License |
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everystockphoto |
Everystockphoto.com is a license-specific photo search engine. Currently we index and search millions of freely licensed photos, from many sources, and present them in an integrated search. |
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flickrcc bluemountains |
another front-end for finding CC-licensed content on flickr |
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flickr commons |
To share hidden treasures from the world's public photography archives |
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flickr.com photos |
Great set with character graphics for teambuilding and other corporate activities. Many, but not all, are CC licensed. |
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fortawesome |
The iconic font designed for Bootstrap |
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images google |
use the "Usage Rights" pull down list to search for open content on Google Images |
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morgueFile |
The morguefile contains photographs freely contributed by many artists to be used in creative projects by visitors to the site. To acknowledge the artist's accomplishments, we ask that you credit the photographer when possible. |
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Free public domain icons. |
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openclipart |
high quality, easy to use, free support |
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opengraphicdesign |
CC BY |
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Pic4Learning |
Pics4Learning is an open project where anyone ( particularly photographers ) can join in and add their photos. The library counts thousands of free images which are all approved for classroom use. These images are also indexed and stored into different categories making it easy for teachers and students to browse and search through them. Have a look and share with us if you know of other similar copyright friendly image resources. |
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pixabay |
Find and share outstanding free images. |
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Unsplash |
Free (do whatever you want) hi-resolution photos. |
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wellcome images |
creative commons licensed images, mainly science-related |
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Wikimedia |
Images and video from Wikipedia. |
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Xkcd |
Comics, CC BY NC |
Collections of digital materials, including movies, text, audio and websites.
| Archives | Description |
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BBC Creative Archive |
The Creative Archive Licence Group (CALG) was set up in 2005 by the BBC, bfi (British Film Institute), Channel 4 and the Open University to make certain archive content available for the public to use under the terms of the Creative Archive Licence (CAL). Includes movies, audio and stills. |
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INSAP |
INASP works with partners to support global research communication through innovation, networking and capacity strengthening, focusing on the needs of developing and emerging countries. The priorities addressed are: access to national and international scholarly information and knowledge; use, creation, management and uptake of scholarly information and knowledge via appropriate ICTs; national, regional and international cooperation, networking and knowledge exchange. |
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Internet archive |
The Internet Archive is building a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artefacts in digital form. Like a paper library. The archive provides free access to researchers, historians, scholars, and the general public. |
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Multimedia Training Videos |
The multimedia courses at the University of Westminster are some of the oldest degree level multimedia courses in the UK and started back in 1995. The courses are built around three key areas: design, scripting and solid knowledge of the key packages. |
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OpenDOAR |
OpenDOAR is an authoritative directory of academic open access repositories. It not only provides a simple repository list, OpenDOAR also lets you search for repositories or search repository contents. |
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Open Content Alliance |
A collaborative effort to build an archive of multilingual digitised text and multimedia material. |
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OER Knowledge Cloud |
The UNESCO/COL OER Knowledge Cloud has been established to identify, collect, preserve and disseminate available documents of enduring value to researchers, industry, government, scholars, writers, historians, journalists and informal learners. |
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The Alexandria Archive Institute |
The Alexandria Archive Institute has created Open Context a free, open access resource for the electronic publication of primary field research from archaeology and related disciplines. |
Last modified: 2023/07/30