Research Guides: Open Textbooks and Open Educational Resources: Intro and Open Textbooks

Introduction

This guide is for Carleton faculty members looking to incorporate open textbooks and open educational resources into their courses. Please feel free to reach out to your liaison if you have questions about copyright or how to find more. If you are interested in an open access collection, please reach out to Collection Strategy and Development.

Librarians by Subject
Click on a librarian's name to find contact and schedule information.
Collection Strategy and Development

Open Textbooks and Open Educational Resources

Open Textbook Library from University of Minnesota
Open textbooks are licensed by authors and publishers to be freely used and adapted. Download, edit and distribute them at no cost. Over 800 textbooks available.
OASIS
Openly Available Sources Integrated Search (OASIS) is a search tool that aims to make the discovery of open content easier. OASIS is being developed at SUNY Geneseo's Milne Library.
LibreTexts
The LibreTexts mission is to unite students, faculty and scholars in a cooperative effort to develop an easy-to-use online platform for the construction, customization, and dissemination of open educational resources (OER) to reduce the burdens of unreasonable textbook costs to our students and society.
Open Educational Resources (OER) Commons
OpenStax
OpenStax books are free to view online, download as PDF, but there is a cost on iBooks.
BC Campus OpenEd
Search engine for open educational resources and open textbooks.
Open resources related to a specific book
From The California State University, enter an ISBN number for a book and find related open educational resources to support teaching that book or as an alternative.
GALILEO Open Learning Materials
This repository is administrated by Affordable Learning Georgia, an initiative of GALILEO and the University System of Georgia which aims to reduce the cost of textbooks to students and contribute to their retention, progression, and graduation.

Why Choose Open Educational Resources?

Commercial Textbooks Present Challenges in a Virtual Environment from University of Guelph Library
Approximately 85% of existing course textbooks are simply unavailable to libraries in any other format than print.

Copyright

Creative Commons Licenses
Most open textbooks or open educational resources have a Creative Commons license that applies to them. These are the types of licenses and what they mean for what you can do with a resource. Often you can copy, distribute, edit, remix, and build upon the work so long as you give credit to the creator.