Find an Open Educational Resource

Here are three easy steps any instructor can take when looking at integrating OER into their teaching: 

1. Identify keywords related to your course and its learning objectives. We recommend using your course schedule as a base for distinguishing keywords and topics to search for.

2. Begin your search. Review major OER repositories and aggregators for any relevant resources available in your subject area. Below are a few recommended tools:

You may want to consult the University Library's Open Educational Resources Library Guide, which includes a curated list of OER organized by discipline. 

3. Review the resources you found. Many open textbooks have been reviewed by faculty or other subject matter experts. If you want to evaluate the materials yourself, there are some existing rubrics that can guide you. We recommend the Open Textbook Library's rubric.

Support Available for Locating Content

The Open Education support staff for Iowa State University offer consultations to help instructors locate OER that are aligned with their course's needs. 

The consultation process

First, fill out a simple, one-page questionnaire to help our support team understand your specific needs.

Submit an OER Consultation Request Form

After your request form is received, we will review your request and begin identifying open textbooks, library materials, and items in the public domain that might meet your needs. We may reach out to ask for a copy of your syllabus, the titles of texts that have been required or recommended for your course in past semesters, and any OER titles you are familiar with or have already reviewed for your course.

Once preliminary titles have been identified for your course and our team has had a chance to review your request in-depth, we will follow up with you to identify a good time to meet virtually to discuss the options for open, free, and/or affordable educational resources that could be a good fit for your course. In addition to identifying potential resources to adopt, at these consultations, you can get support: 

  • integrating OER into your Canvas course,
  • accessing rubrics and other resources for evaluating OER, or
  • planning a larger OER project for the future.

Instructors are encouraged to consult with our team at any stage in their exploration of OER.

By the end of this process, you and your support team will have identified next steps for evaluating materials, integrating them into your course, and reporting them to the campus bookstore.

Attribution

The image used for the button on the Resources & Support page leading to this page was retrieved from WOCinTech Chat on Flickr, and is available under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.