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Research Guides

Open Education

A hub for information and links about OER, Open Educational Practices and Pedagogy, and Open Education activities and projects at U of T

Introduction

This guide combines both an overview of open education with selective lists of major repositories of resources such as open textbooks, open courseware, and other multimedia learning materials that can be used by students and faculty. 

Be sure to also check out the Scholarly Communications & Copyright homepage This link opens in a new tab which provides further support for U of T's course reserves and syllabus service, copyright and fair dealing, academic publications, licensing, and much more.  

  • OER stands for Open Educational Resources. They take many forms, including open textbooks, courses, and other learning content including animations, tutorials, videos, journal articles, and quizzes. OER can be used for teaching, learning, and research, and are usually available under a Creative Commons license that permits no-cost access, use, adaptation, and redistribution by others.
     
  • Open courseware (OCW)  is an entire course, often at the college or university level, that can be accessed without charge over the Internet.  
     
  • Open textbooks are mostly peer-reviewed textbooks, at the college or university level, that can be accessed entirely free of charge over the Internet. Often, open textbooks are available to download in modifiable formats that allow instructors to make modifications. The goal behind adapting open textbooks is to significantly reduce student costs.   

For Students

Use this guide to locate free or lower-cost sources of course materials. A good place to start is the OER by Discipline This link opens in a new tab page. For further information on open access repositories, such as OA journal repositories, please see open access support This link opens in a new tab on the Scholarly Communications & Copyright webpage.

For Instructors

Instructors may use this guide to identify free or lower-cost eBooks and course materials for your students, or as a starting point for creating your very own OER. If you have found some appropriate OER links, you can then add these to Quercus, or get in touch with our staff at syllabus.service@library.utoronto.ca for assistance in using UTL's Course Reserves and Syllabus Service This link opens in a new tab.

For help creating permanent links to resources you would like to share with students, see this This link opens in a new tab UTL guide.

Note on copyright-protected materials: What if the material you would like to post is copyright-protected? Please refer to the University of Toronto Fair Dealing Guidelines Link opens in a new tab This link opens in a new tab and the Copyright Basics and FAQ Link opens in a new tab This link opens in a new tab that is produced by the University of Toronto legal counsel. These documents provide in-depth information on copyright issues and will help answer questions about if and how much of a copyright-protected work can be shared freely with students or whether permissions should be sought to do so. Any in-depth copyright questions that cannot be answered by these guidelines can be directed to scholarly.communications@library.utoronto.ca

For a basic guide on creating your own OER texts see the page: Creating & Adapting OER Texts.

For a beginner's guide to creating other forms of OER, see the page: Developing & Publishing OER

For further information on Open Educational Resources (including initiatives, conferences, and pedagogy) see the final section 'Further Information on OER' on the Developing OER page.

Further Information on OER

Websites & Resources:

Conferences & Events:

Courses & Toolkits:

General Reference:

Groups & Organizations:

Articles & Further Readings:

  • Henderson, S., & Ostashewski, N. (2018). Barriers, incentives, and benefits of the open educational resources (OER) movement: An exploration into instructor perspectives. First Monday, 23(12). https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v23i12.9172 This link opens in a new tab
  • Hilton, J. Open educational resources, student efficacy, and user perceptions: a synthesis of research published between 2015 and 2018. Education Tech Research Dev 68, 853–876 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-019-09700-4 This link opens in a new tab
  • Luo, T., Hostetler, K., Freeman, C., & Stefaniak, J. (2020). The power of open: benefits, barriers, and strategies for integration of open educational resources. Open Learning, 35(2), 140–158. https://doi.org/10.1080/02680513.2019.1677222 This link opens in a new tab
  • Pomerantz, J., & Peek, R. (2016). Fifty shades of open. First Monday, 21(5), 1–. https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v21i5.6360 This link opens in a new tab

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Books: