Open educational resources (OER)
Open educational resources online usually mean digital resources that can be freely used, remixed and reused in various educational and teaching contexts.
Open educational resources can include anything from study guides, presentation materials and movie clips to podcasts and entire educational packages. The author gives his or her explicit permission that the material can be used by others. If you plan to use open educational resources, you should always consider how these can be connected to your own material and whether they will work in the current context.
Open educational resources online
There are many websites where teachers can search for digital resources for use in teaching. Before you start using and reworking (remixing) the material to make it work in your own teaching, you must carefully check how you are allowed to use the material.
Below are some of the more well-known sites. (Several of them use the Creative Commons licensing system, which you can read more about here: Creative Commons website.)
OER Commons
OER Commons is a digital library where teachers and others can search and find open educational resources (OER). The material can be used free of charge. Mainly, the Creative Commons licensing system is used.
Canvas Commons
Canvas Commons is a feature in the Canvas learning management system. Here you can find material shared by others, and you can also share your own material.
Because Canvas Commons is fully integrated with Canvas, it is very easy to share and use material; the downside is that the material cannot be used easily outside of Canvas. At the same time, you need to be aware that the Creative Commons license still opens for distribution outside the platform, as the license allows.
You can find Canvas Commons in the left menu when you log in to Canvas.
OpenLearn Create
The Open University publishes educational materials that can be used freely by teachers and students.
TED
TED is a non-profit organization dedicated to sharing interesting lectures and performances. More than 2900 TEDTalks are now available, with more coming weekly. The film footage is released under a Creative Commons license so that it can be freely shared and posted on the web.
Merlot
Merlot is a database with resources for higher education (primarily). Most of the resources have a Creative Commons license.
MITOpenCourseware
A platform where the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) publishes almost all their course material, marked with Creative Commons licenses.
Khan Academy
Khan Academy is a library of videos in mathematics, physics, biology and chemistry, and to some extent also the humanities, economics and history.