CCSF Library: Open Educational Resources (OER): Other Open Resources

Are Open Access and OER the same thing?

Open Access (OA) and OER are related, but different!

At this moment, there is overlap between the two, but this may change!

OA (Open Access) refers to online content such as scholarly books, textbooks, and journals that can be accessed free of charge
Sometimes authors or educational institutions must pay an Article Processing Charge (APC) to a publisher to make an article Open Access. Sometimes articles are "embargoed" for a while before they become Open Access. You can see examples of this with resources like SpringerOpen and Proquest Open Access Publishing Plus.
There are varying opinions about the definition of Open Access. Some agree that it means for one to freely access and read open access content without modification rights, while in others open access grants ability to remix and revise the content. However, OA usually doesn't include modification rights.
Regardless, these types of resources should be identified by a Creative Commons license in order to qualify as Open Access

Open Access Resources: click the tabs below for journals, books, or textbooks

Directory of Open Access Journals "DOAJ is an online directory that indexes and provides access to quality open access, peer-reviewed journals."
PLOS (Public Library of Science) "PLOS (Public Library of Science) is a nonprofit publisher and advocacy organization founded to accelerate progress in science and medicine by leading a transformation in research communication."
OMICS Group: Open Access Publications "Established in the year 2007 with the sole aim of making the information on Sciences and technology ‘Open Access’, OMICS Group publishes 400 online open access scholarly journals in all aspects of Science, Engineering, Management and Technology journals"
Springer Open Journals "SpringerOpen, launched in June 2010, includes Springer’s portfolio of 160+ peer-reviewed fully open access journals across all areas of science ranging from very specialized titles to SpringerPlus, our interdisciplinary open access journal that covers all disciplines."
Intech Open Journals "InTech is a pioneer and world's largest multidisciplinary open access publisher of books covering the fields of Science, Technology and Medicine. Since 2004, InTech has collaborated with 87235 authors and published 2420 books and 6 journals with the aim of providing free online access to high-quality research and helping leading academics to make their work visible and accessible to diverse new audiences around the world. "
Open Content on JSTOR Thousands of free journal articles and open access book chapters.

Directory of Open Access Books "The directory is open to all publishers who publish academic, peer reviewed books in Open Access and should contain as many books as possible, provided that these publications are in Open Access and meet academic standards. "
Oapen Access: Publishing in European Networks "The OAPEN Library contains freely accessible academic books, mainly in the area of Humanities and Social Sciences. OAPEN works with publishers to build a quality controlled collection of Open Access books, and provides services for publishers, libraries and research funders in the areas of dissemination, quality assurance and digital preservation. "
Intech Open Books "InTech is a pioneer and world's largest multidisciplinary open access publisher of books covering the fields of Science, Technology and Medicine. Since 2004, InTech has collaborated with 87235 authors and published 2420 books and 6 journals with the aim of providing free online access to high-quality research and helping leading academics to make their work visible and accessible to diverse new audiences around the world. "
BC Campus Repository of multiple subjects of textbooks from British Columbia
Open Content on JSTOR Thousands of free journal articles and open access book chapters.
Milne Open Textbooks Milne Library Publishing at SUNY Geneseo manages and maintains Milne Open Textbooks, a catalog of open textbooks authored and peer-reviewed by SUNY faculty and staff.

Open Textbooks Guide
OpenStax College Textbooks (Rice University) Freely accessibly textbooks available in a variety of subjects including math, science, humanities and sciences. Access and read online, download a pdf, or order a printed copy at a low cost.
Open Textbook Library (U of Minnesota) From the University of Minnesota: "This library is a tool to help instructors find affordable, quality textbook solutions. All textbooks in this library are complete and openly licensed."
BC Campus Open Ed Textbooks Textbooks from the BC Open Textbook project that are licensed under an open copyright license and made available online to be freely used by students, teachers, and members of the public.
Milne Open Textbooks Milne Library Publishing at SUNY Geneseo manages and maintains Milne Open Textbooks, a catalog of open textbooks authored and peer-reviewed by SUNY faculty and staff.

OpenCourseWare

OpenCourseWare (OCW), initially developed by MIT in 2001 is an initiative to share their course content for free and online to everyone, not just MIT students. This movement has grown and is now offered from a number of other learning institutions. Listed here are several, but not all, institutions that offer OCW.

The Courses in this section are not necessarily "true" OER, and some of them might contain contain features with a paywall-- but they all have at least some free content that may be useful with your teaching. If you are seeking "true" OER courses that you can modify, redistribute, and own the licenses to, check out Cool4Ed and OER Commons on the "Where to Find OER" tab of this guide.

MIT OpenCourseWare Access to materials from thousands of MIT courses.
Open Michigan
UCI Open