Open Textbooks
The following are some well-known collections of open textbooks.
- OpenStaxHigh-quality, peer-reviewed, and openly-licensed textbooks currently used in 47% of colleges and universities across the US and internationally. Many also include ancillary materials and instructor-specific resources.
- Open Textbook LibraryA growing catalog of free, peer-reviewed, and openly-licensed textbooks covering a wide range of subjects. Supported by the Open Textbook Network.
To be on the list, the books must be used by author's institution and by at least one other institution. - Saylor Academy BookshelfA collection of textbooks intended to support the open courses offered by Saylor Academy, but they are openly licensed for use, revision, and sharing.
OER Repositories - Textbooks & Other Materials
In addition to textbooks, these repositories offer a wide variety of OER content, including videos, lessons, and other course materials.
- LibreTextsA multi-institution effort to develop and collect open textbooks, courses, simulations, visualizations, and labwork. LibreTexts was recently awarded a $5M federal grant to grow OER, with a focus on STEM disciplines.
- MERLOTThe Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching (MERLOT) is a free and open online community of resources designed primarily for faculty, staff and students of higher education.
- OER CommonsA teaching and learning network offering a broad selection of high-quality Open Educational Resources, that are freely available online to use and, in most cases, to adapt to support individualized teaching and learning practices.
- Skills Commons"An online library containing free and open learning materials and program support materials" for trades programs.
- Teaching Commons"The Teaching Commons brings together high-quality open educational resources from leading colleges and universities. Curated by librarians and their institutions, the Teaching Commons includes open access textbooks, course materials, lesson plans, multimedia, and more."
OER Courses
The following sites provide completely open courses. Many include textbooks and supplemental learning materials together.
- Lumen LearningLumen provides open courses in a variety of high-demand subjects and disciplines. These courses are collections of high-quality OER, not necessarily traditional textbooks. You can use them as-is or modify them to fit your instructional style and students’ needs.
- MIT OpenCoursewareIncludes online textbooks that are open-licensed electronic versions of print books. Also includes self-published online books, or course notes which are so thorough that they serve as an alternative to a conventional textbook. From the originator of the OpenCourseWare movement!
- Open Course Library"The Open Course Library (OCL) is a collection of shareable course materials, including syllabi, course activities, readings, and assessments designed by teams of college faculty, instructional designers, librarians, and other experts."
- Saylor AcademyClose to 100 courses at the college and professional level, all openly-licensed.
Open Images, Audio, and Video
- Creative Commons SearchFind photos and images to use in your documents. The owners of these images have given permission for their work to be reused - very important for anything you create outside of school!
- Khan AcademyEasy-to-follow and simply explained online video tutorials on a variety of topics, from math and physics to arts and test prep.
- Wikimedia CommonsAll images and other media files on this site are freely reusable without permission.
Open Books & Journals
Open Books
These repositories offer openly-licensed and public domain academic and classic works, though they are not textbooks.
- Directory of Open Access BooksThis site is a clearinghouse of links to books hosted in various locations and includes a large selection of international textbooks.
- HathiTrust Digital LibraryCollection of millions of titles digitized from libraries around the world.
- Project GutenbergProvides access to thousands free e-books, available in EPUB and kindle formats and can be downloaded or read online. These e-books are free in the United States because their copyright has expired.
Open Journals
We've identified select high-quality sources of open journal content.
You can also find open access journal articles in OneSearch. Look for articles with the orange "Open Access" label or use the "Open Access" filter to limit your results.
- Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)
This link opens in a new window
Open access (freely accessible), quality, peer-reviewed academic journals covering all subjects. - Digital Commons NetworkAccess free full-text scholarly peer-reviewed articles other materials from university and college researchers worldwide.
