Support students with open educational resources (OERs)
What is an OER?
Open educational resources (OERs) are teaching, learning, and research materials in any format that are either in the public domain or released under an open licence. This means they can be freely accessed, reused, adapted, and shared at no cost. (see: UNESCO definition of OERs)
OERs come in many forms – open textbooks, instructional videos, audio, quizzes, and interactive activities. The Library can help you adopt existing OERs or create your own, including open textbooks enriched with multimedia and interactive elements.
Adopt OERs in your unit
As an educator, you can either find and use an existing OER, or create a new one to address a specific need for your subject.
Once you’ve sourced a suitable resource and integrated it into your unit, add it to your Leganto reading list. We have easy-to-follow instructions and dedicated help for teaching staff creating or updating their reading lists.
When you choose to replace expensive textbooks with similar, high-quality OERs, you:
- Reduce financial barriers for students
- Enable recognition of groups or individuals often excluded in the academic sphere
- Boost access to resources for students enrolled in short courses or micro-credentials
- Support inclusion of under-represented voices.
Learn more:
We can support you in sourcing, using or adapting quality open educational resources. Book one-to-one support with a librarian, or apply for a grant.
Find existing OERs
There are a number of ways and tools to find the right OERs to suit your discipline and needs.
Multidisciplinary collections
- OER Commons - An extensive library of digital OERs
- MERLOT - A search tool with a curated database, provided by California State University
- Mason OER Metafinder - A search tool of repositories and websites, provided by George Mason University
- OASIS (Openly Available Sources Integrated Search) - A search tool of OER collections, provided by State University of New York
Discipline-specific collections
- AMSER (Applied Math & Science Educational Repository)
- COERLL (Center for Open Educational Resources and Language Learning)
- Noba Project (Psychology)
- Programming Historian (Humanities data)
- Virtual Labs (STEMM)
Open textbook directories
Open textbooks and open-access research books that are suitable for both educators and students
- CAUL Collective - A shared OER publishing platform for participating CAUL Member institutions in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand
- Pressbooks - A publishing platform for textbooks, educational and academic books
- Open Textbook Library - Higher education level textbook collections
- OER Commons
- OAPEN (Open Access Publishing in European Networks) - Repository for peer-reviewed open access books
- Australian Open Educational Resources (OERs)
- Australian Open Textbook Collections
You can use tools such as Copilot to find OER texts that are similar to commercial textbooks or to find textbooks with particular characteristics.
OER evaluation checklist
As you consider the suitability of an OER for your unit, remember the following:
- Free for anyone to read
Is the resource free-to-use in the public domain without registration or payment required? - Suitable for your students or audience
Is the resource aligned with course objectives, appropriate and up-to-date for the discipline, and also suitable for the academic level of your students? - Up to your quality standards
Check that the creator or author is identified and reputable, the content in the resource is accurate, and if it uses audio, video, or images, they need to be of high quality. - Easy-to-use
The resource needs to be clear and easy to understand. The interface, or user experience, also needs to be easy to navigate. - Accessible
The resource must be accessible to students of all abilities. Check that audio and video resources have a transcript or subtitles with alternative formats available if required, such as a Word document or PDF.
Copyright considerations if modifying OERs
If you need to adapt a resource – for example, by adding Australian case studies or incorporating more diverse perspectives into an existing textbook to meet your curriculum needs – there are important copyright considerations to keep in mind.
- Licence type
Check and abide by the Creative Commons licence being used. It needs to allow for derivative works. - Attribution
Always credit the original creators. - Derivative works
Indicate what changes were made and provide a link to the original. - Non-OER content
If you add material from other sources (e.g., images, case studies), ensure those additions are properly licensed. - Commercial restrictions
Some licences prohibit commercial use, which matters if your adaptation is used in a paid course.
If you need specialist advice, you can email our copyright advisor or book one-to-one support.
Create new OERs
If you haven't been able to find an appropriate OER for your unit, consider creating your own. It will benefit not just your students, but boost access to quality educational materials all around the world.
We can help you create your own open educational resource. Book one-to-one support with a librarian, or apply for a grant.
Examples of Monash-created OERs
Get help
Book one-on-one support to speak with one of our expert librarians.
Email librarians@monash.edu for expert support via email.
Email copyright advisor for specialist advice regarding copyright.