Open Textbooks, OER & Other Open or Free Resources for Faculty
A guide to exploring open textbook options for faculty.
Other Helpful Resources
- Text Readability Rating: Readable.ioType or paste a portion of the text and you'll receive a rating on readability, including an approximate grade level
Request OER help
Ask for help with OER adoption or use! Just fill out this form and we'll get back to you:
Search for Open Textbooks & Other OER
Kirkwood's own T4LT Podcasters have a great 3-part series on resources for locating OER:
All-in-one meta-searches
- OASIS search toolAll-in-one search tool for finding OER. OASIS currently searches open content from 52 different sources and contains 155,375 records.
- Mason OER MetafinderAll-in-one search tool for finding OER. Searches many popular OER repositories and referatories such as MERLOT, OER Commons, and the Open Textbook Library.
Open Textbook sources, often with ancillary materials
- OpenStax CollegeOpenStax is a place for instructors who simply want an open textbook that’s ready to go. These textbooks are free to use online or downloaded in PDF format. They also have print and bound versions available for purchase (as of now the price varies by title, between around $30 and $60). The quality of these texts is very good. They are authored by faculty and have been carefully edited and peer reviewed. They also have ancillary materials to accompany each text.
- BCcampusA repository of open textbooks, peer reviewed and adapted by faculty in British Columbia, Canada.
- Lumen LearningA unique open resource, providing a package of online course materials for many widely-offered college level courses. Now provides online interactive homework and study help systems for courses with Candela, Waymaker, and OHM.
- Open Textbook LibraryHosted by the University of Minnesota, focuses solely on open textbooks, with faculty reviews where available.
- LibreTextsLibreTexts takes a different approach by integrating an editing and remixing interface with the content. Much OER content is already on the site and can be remixed into a custom text using their drag-and-drop interface. They have a blog and a YouTube channel with lots of examples and how-to descriptions.
- Milne Open TextbooksFormerly "Open SUNY Textbooks". Managed and maintained by Milne Library Publishing at SUNY Geneseo. State University of New York's open textbook publishing initiative repository.
- Saylor Academy BookshelfAnother site that focuses mostly on open textbooks
Other Free or Open Licensed eBooks
- Kirkwood Library eBooksUse the Library search to discover open access books in our eBook collections. Type your topic into the search box, then select the "Content limit" on the left side of the screen that says "Open Access".
- Open Research LibraryLarge collection of academic titles. All are open licensed and free to access and download.
- Project MUSE Open AccessIn addition to the subscription content on Project MUSE available to the Kirkwood Community, Project MUSE also contains an open access collection of academic books and journals freely available to any user for access or download.
- Project GutenbergBooks in the public domain (most of these are books old enough that their copyright has expired).
- Open LibraryAn open project, user-contributed files and fixes, books available in many different formats. Wonderful online reading interface!
- NCBI BookshelfThis is a service from the U.S. National Library of Medicine and National Institutes of Health. It provides free access to over 700 texts in life science and healthcare.
- FeedBooksFeedbooks sells e-books but also has and links to a variety of free books in the public domain. They describe themselves as "a cloud publishing and distribution service, connected to a large ecosystem of reading systems and social networks." Find the free books by clicking "Public Domain" at the top of the page, or browse the "Original Books" link for more unique titles.
Other OER search sites
- CCCOER: Community College Consortium for Open Educational ResourcesThis consortium website offers a wide variety of resources for faculty looking for OER, workshops, or colleagues to connect with. Kirkwood is a member of this consortium.
- MERLOT"Free and open" online learning materials - mostly bite-size pieces rather than whole textbooks.
- OER CommonsFind a wide variety of open resources, mostly in bite-size chunks for easy collection and remixing.
- OER Commons: Iowa Colleges and UniversitiesA subset of OER Commons. "OER in these collections have been adopted, created, or recommended by faculty in the state of Iowa."
Faculty Select database
If you encounter any problems with this database or have any questions, please contact Kate Cameron in Library Services.
Faculty Select is a NEW database now available to Kirkwood faculty!
The aim of the database is to provide faculty a streamlined process for finding free, high quality academic resources as possible replacements for traditional high-cost textbooks.
There are two types of records you'll find in the Faculty Select database:
| OER | DRM-Free eBooks |
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Open-licensed, so materials may be freely:
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Traditional copyright applies, so:
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Printing: Copies may be printed through the Bookstore and Print Services for student purchase |
Printing: Must be linked through Talon for individual student download (and printing if desired) |
| Free to access online | Purchased by the library & available to students at no cost through the library website |
| Wide variety of different publishers and authors. Titles in Faculty Select have been vetted by EBSCO. | Published by traditional academic publishers, and formatted for easy downloading and saving by unlimited users. |
| Select "OER only" limit to see availability of these free and flexible resources first. | Select "eBooks available for purchase" limit to search only DRM-free eBooks. |
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To preview & adopt: Click "Preview or adopt this open eBook" and fill out the form. This information goes only to Kirkwood librarians to track OER usage. |
To preview & adopt:
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To access the Faculty Select database:
Log in to Talon, and locate the faculty resources links just below your course tiles. Faculty Select is the fifth link down. 
Discipline-Specific OER Sources
In addition to these resources, see the OER People and Projects at Kirkwood guide.
Business
- Prendismo Collection"The Prendismo Collection offers access to the world’s premiere collection of digital video content on business, leadership and entrepreneurship."
Career & Technical Fields
- AMSER: Applies Math and Science Educational Repository"AMSER is a portal of educational resources and services built specifically for use by those in Community and Technical Colleges but free for anyone to use. AMSER is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) as part of the National Science Digital Library, and is being created by a team of project partners led by Internet Scout."
- BCcampusBC Campus has a growing collection of Career and Technical materials. Search a topic or click "Browse", "Find open textbooks". See "Trade" topic near the bottom of the subject list.
- National Science Digital LibraryThe National Science Digital Library provides high quality online educational resources for teaching and learning, with current emphasis on the sciences, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines
- SkillsCommons: Workforce Development Digital LibraryA growing repository of materials developed by Federal TAACCCT Grant recipient colleges. Some great resources here! Includes these industries: Construction; Educational Services; Health Care & Social Assistance; Administrative & Support Services; Waste Management Services; Professional, Scientific & Technical Services; Information Technologies; Mining, Quarrying, Oil & Gas Extraction; Repair & Maintenance; Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing & Hunting; Manufacturing.
Language Learning
- Center for Open Educational Resources and Language Learning"The COERLL is one of 15 National Foreign Language Resource Centers funded by the US Department of Education. The overall mission of these federally-funded centers is to improve the teaching and learning of foreign languages by producing resources (materials and best practices) that can be profitably employed in a variety of settings."
Math and Sciences
- AMSER: Applies Math and Science Educational Repository"AMSER is a portal of educational resources and services built specifically for use by those in Community and Technical Colleges but free for anyone to use. AMSER is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) as part of the National Science Digital Library, and is being created by a team of project partners led by Internet Scout."
- American Institute of Mathematics: Approved Open Textbooks List"Open-source or open-access textbooks that have been judged to meet the evaluation criteria set by the AIM editorial board."
- The Chem Collective"The ChemCollective is organized by a group of faculty and staff at Carnegie Mellon who are interested in using, assessing, and creating engaging online activities for chemistry education."
- ChemWiki"The Dynamic Chemistry e-Textbook"
- Explorations: An Open Invitation to Biological AnthropologyHuman Evolution or Biological Anthropology -- A large nationwide project to create an interactive textbook and supplemental materials for this course
- LyryxOpen Textbooks in Business, Economics, Math, & Statistics. Textbooks and supplements are accessible at no cost. Optional software to accompany the texts is available at a low cost.
- MyOpenMathMyOpenMath runs on the open source, IMathAS platform, providing free hosted use of this platform in support of free, open textbooks like the ones listed on OpenTextBookStore.com. The intent is to provide classroom use of the platform, without any required cost to students, for schools wanting a managed install of the IMathAS platform, and to provide students self-study opportunities.
- National Science Digital LibraryThe National Science Digital Library provides high quality online educational resources for teaching and learning, with current emphasis on the sciences, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines
- OHM (Online Homework Manager)An excellent and low priced alternative to online math homework systems. Based on OpenStax mathematical textbooks.
- Open Textbook Store"OpenTextBookStore was created by educators frustrated with the time involved in finding adoptable open textbooks, with the hope to make open textbook adoption easier for other faculty. Just to be clear, we are not a publisher. This is just a listing site for publicly available open textbooks, maintained by a teacher. Print copies are made available through third party print-on-demand companies. Many of the courses have course packages available through MyOpenMath.com, which provides free online homework for several open math textbooks."
- Scottsdale (AZ) Community College Math BlogA list of Open and Sharable Resources and tools utilized by the SCC Math Department
Nursing and Allied Health
- HEAL (Health Education Assets Library)"A digital library of multimedia teaching resources for the health sciences. HEAL provides access to tens of thousands of images, videoclips, animations, presentations, and audio files that support healthcare education."
- Open RN ProjectThis project is funded by a grant from the Department of Education, with the purpose of developing and supporting open textbooks for use by nursing programs.
- List: Interactive OER for healthcare studentsCurated short list of recent OER on healthcare topics with interactive elements.
- SkillsCommons: Workforce Development Digital LibraryA growing repository of materials developed by Federal TAACCCT Grant recipient colleges. Some great resources here! Includes these industries: Construction; Educational Services; Health Care & Social Assistance; Administrative & Support Services; Waste Management Services; Professional, Scientific & Technical Services; Information Technologies; Mining, Quarrying, Oil & Gas Extraction; Repair & Maintenance; Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing & Hunting; Manufacturing.
- NCBI BookshelfThis is a service from the U.S. National Library of Medicine and National Institutes of Health. It provides free access to over 700 texts in life science and healthcare.
- Intech Open eBooks in Health SciencesOpen licensed ebooks
- Free Books 4 DoctorsCollection of links to free medical textbooks across the Web.
Social Sciences
- Noba Project"Teach and learn psychology for free"
Open and/or Free Music, Images, Films & other Media
- Unsplash"Photos for everyone". Instead of having a Creative Commons license, usage of all photos is governed by the site license, which states photos may be used, for free, without permission, for any use (except creating a similar photo finding service). See license: https://unsplash.com/license
- PixabayFree stock photos, CC0 (Creative Commons Zero license, zero rights reserved)
- PexelsDatabase of free stock photos. CC0 (Creative Commons Zero license, zero rights reserved)
- Internet ArchiveFree Movies, Music, Books & Wayback Machine: exceptional resource!
- HippoCampusMaterials are free but may not be copied or transformed.
- PBS VideoPBS has free streaming video of many of their programs. (Free but not open.)
- Prendismo Collection"The Prendismo Collection offers access to the world’s premiere collection of digital video content on business, leadership and entrepreneurship."
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