Open Educational Resources for Faculty

Finding OER Textbooks

There are several resources to help faculty find evaluated OER textbooks to use in their classes:

• Course Books Available at the Sac State University Library
• Cool4Ed: Easy access to quality FREE and OPEN eTextbooks.
• Internet Archive: Open Educational Resources: Free courses, video lectures, and supplemental materials from universities in the United States and China.
• MERLOT: MERLOT's Open Textbook Initiative (CSU).
• OER by Subject: Humbolt State Research Guide: OER organized by department. 
• OER Commons: A dynamic digital library of open education resources and a network of educators dedicated to curriculum improvement.
• Open Education Consortium: A global network of educational institutions, individuals and organizations that support OER.
• Openstax: A nonprofit organization committed to improving student access to quality learning materials.
• Pressbooks: a free, searchable catalog that includes 8,047 open access books published by 198 organizations and networks using Pressbooks. It's easy to copy, revise, remix, and redistribute any openly licensed content found here using Pressbooks' publishing platform. Nearly all books are highly accessible, and many include interactive H5P learning activities to engage learners.

Resources for OER Authors

Would you like to create your own OER, customized for your classes? Here are a few resources to get you started.

Author Guides and Toolkits

• CalState-Pressbooks Network

  • Wondering how to get started with a publishing project? Pressbooks training webinars cover everything you need to know to create beautiful educational content, including creating your first book, importing content, uploading media, applying a theme, and producing export files.

• Authoring Open Textbooks
  • This guide from the Open Education Network is for faculty authors, librarians, project managers and others involved in the production of open textbooks in higher education and K-12. Content includes a checklist for getting started, publishing program case studies, textbook organization and elements, writing resources and an overview of useful tools.
• BCcampus Open Education Self Publishing Guide
  • A reference for individuals or groups interested in writing and self-publishing an open textbook. This guide provides details on the preparation, planning, writing, publication, and maintenance of an open textbook. It is provided by BCCampus, a consortia of British Columbia colleges and universities.
• BCCampus Accessibility Toolkit
  • The goal of this toolkit is to provide resources for each content creator, instructional designer, educational technologist, librarian, administrator, and teaching assistant to create a truly open textbook—one that is free and accessible for all students. This is a collaboration between BCcampus, Camosun College, and CAPER-BC.

Free Author Tools for OERs

• MERLOT Content Builder
  • Originally a project of CSU, this is a free website development tool to help you create OERs for your classes.
• Open Author from OER Commons
  • This tool from the non-profit ISKME allows you to create customized and accessible OERs.