Open educational resources

The feature of open educational resources (OERs) is that they are released for public use (public domain) or licensed with an open license , which gives others the rights to freely

• access
• reuse
• adapt
• distribute

the materials with or without restrictions.

A Creative Commons license is the most widely used open license. Creative Commons-licensed material enables users to access, process and share the material within the material's license terms of use.

This page highlights the places where you can search for or store open educational resources. Links to the search portals for CC-licensed materials are also listed here.

The Library of Open Educational Resources – aoe.fi

             

The national Library of Open Educational Resources - aoe.fi is a joint service of the Ministry of Education and Culture and the Finnish National Agency for Education. It compiles open educational resources (OERs) into a single view shared by all levels of education. Here you can both use and share open educational resources. The service is constantly evolving.

The service for open educational resources seeks to promote the use of such resources by providing a platform on which materials produced by individuals or in the context of various projects can gain visibility and longevity. By saving educational resources in the service, users can ensure that the materials will remain available for use long after the project that produced them has concluded. They can then be utilized by users both in educational institutions and outside them. The purpose of the library is to make it as easy as possible for teachers, students and the average citizen to find open learning resources.

More information, see the Library's Frequently Asked Questions.

Video: Avointen oppimateriaalien kirjasto – aoe.fi (English subtitles)

See:

• Avointen oppimateriaalien kirjasto - Lisätietoa ja usein kysytyt kysymykset (in Finnish)

• Avointen oppimateriaalien edistäminen - kansainvälinen vertailu (in Finnish)

• The national Library of Open Educational Resources - aoe.fi: A joint service of the Ministry of Education and Culture and the Finnish National Agency for Education. It compiles open educational resources (OERs) into a single view shared by all levels of education. Here you can both use and share open educational resources. The service is constantly evolving.

• Finna.fi: Search for open educational resources in Finna.fi.  

• Inhemska och utländska öppna lärresurser (in Finnish): This list is a result of the project Avointen oppimateriaalien edistäminen. The list, which is continuously updated, compiles various Finnish and international open educational resources and services.

Metasearch engines:

• OER Commons: A public digital library of open educational resources. Explore, create, and collaborate with educators around the world to improve curriculum.

                                   

                                  Picture: Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0

• Openly Available Sources Integrated Search - OASIS: A metasearch engine that covers a large amount of open materials available online including open textbooks and other open educational resources.

                             

• The Mason OER Metafinder (MOM): Real-time federated search for OER content.

• MERLOT: The MERLOT system provides access to curated online learning and support materials and content creation tools, led by an international community of educators, learners, and researchers.

 

Open textbooks:

• Open Textbook Library: Open textbooks within e.g. business administration, computer science, pedagogy and social sciences. 

• Open Textbooks - OER Commons: ISKME's digital librarians have curated collections of Open Textbooks and full courses to help leverage OER in your classroom.

• B.C. Open Textbook Collection: The B.C. Open Textbook Collection is home to a growing selection of open textbooks for a variety of subjects and specialties. Discover open textbooks that have been reviewed by faculty, meet our accessibility requirements, and/or include ancillary materials (quizzes, test banks, slides, videos, etc.).

• Publishers of OA books: The list is part of the Open Access Directory.

• OpenStax texbooks: Openly licensed textbooks in, e.g., economics and entrepreneurship.

• LibreTexts: Open and updated educational resources in, e.g., medicine, technology, and social sciences.

CC-licensed materials, especially those licensed under CC BY or CC BY-SA licenses, are well suited as building blocks for open educational resources. When you find useful CC-licensed materials:

• Save the selected material's publication address, author's name or signature, and the exact license.
• Always observe the material's license terms of use. See License User Guide (in Finnish).
• When using the material, acknowledge its source, author, and license. Whenever possible, use the material's permanent identifiers (e.g., DOI, URN or handle) to ensure that the links are permanent.

 

- CC-licensed content:

• CC Search: Search for CC-licensed materials. 

            

• Open content: Openly licensed images, music, books, audiobooks, educational resources. Extensive coverage of open content online.

• Freely available materials in the Finna.fi service:  Finna.fi is a search service where you can find materials in Finnish archives, libraries and museums. Part of the materials is open and can be used freely.

• Internet Archive: a non-profit digital library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, photos, websites, and more. The materials can be used for educational purposes within the framework of the licenses.

 

- CC-licensed images and video materials:

• Open science and use of images: ImagOA by Aalto University: A guide on the use, licensing, and retrieving of open images.

                 

• Wikimedia Commons:  Collection of a large amount of freely usable media files to which anyone can contribute.

                                 

• Google images

  When searching for images via Google, it is possible to filter the images according to usage rights. After the search, click on Tools and Usage rights to select images based on your needs.

                              

• Vimeo: Vimeo supports open licensing of videos. 

                             

 

- CC-licensed music and sounds:

• Jamendo 

• Freesound 

• Freesound - Yle Arkisto: Yle Elävä arkisto offers sound effects for general use (in Finnish).

• Free Music Archive 

• CCmixter 

• SoundGator - free sound effects