Open and affordable educational resources are any learning or teaching resources that are available at little or no cost to students. These can include textbooks, course readings, course syllabi, multimedia, games, assessment tools, or any other material that can be used for educational purposes.
Open and affordable educational resources are transforming the educational landscape today:
- They are free or low-cost to students
- All students have access to course materials on day one of classes. They allow customization, remixing, and the ability for instructors to be more involved with their course content
- They often include ancillary materials, such as multimedia, lecture slides, lab manuals, and more
- Students can be involved in the creation of ancillary materials, quiz banks, and other learning tools, which deepens their engagement with course content
- Because open and affordable materials are freely available online, students can return to it as much as they choose to, enabling the possibilities of life-long learning
- A University of Georgia study found that students using Open Educational Resources (OER) actually got better grades
Finding Open and Affordable Educational Resources
Find an open textbook to adopt or adapt or conduct a scan of existing open textbooks before creating a new one.
The Mason OER Metafinder (MOM)
A search tool to find OER content across more than 20 resources. Hosted by George Mason University.
MERLOT
Discipline-specific learning materials, learning exercises, and Content Builder webpages contributed by the MERLOT member community. MERLOT is a program of the California State University.
Milne Open Textbooks
A catalog of open textbooks authored and peer-reviewed by SUNY faculty and staff. Hosted by SUNY Geneseo.
OER Commons
A comprehensive, openly accessible digital library to identify high-quality OER, created by the Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education (ISKME).
OASIS
A search tool to find open content across more than 130 sources. Hosted by SUNY Geneseo.
OERs at Internet Archive
Free courses, video lectures, and supplemental materials from universities in the United States and China.
Open NJ
Repository of Open Educational Resources (OER) that was created or adopted at participating New Jersey institutions along with materials created through the Open Textbook Collaborative grant.
OpenStax
Publisher of peer-reviewed, openly licensed college textbooks. Hosted by Rice University.
Open Textbook Library
A multidisciplinary curated list of open textbooks. Many of these books have been reviewed by faculty to assess their quality.
Not Finding What You Need?
Explore the resources listed on this site under Ancillary Materials or Health Sciences.
Rutgers University librarians are available to help faculty members and instructors interested in incorporating open and affordable materials in their classroom, or those wanting to find these materials in order to apply for the Open and Affordable Textbooks (OAT) Program. For more suggestions, or if you would like to be referred to a subject specialist in your area of teaching, please contact an OAT team member.