Guides: Open Educational Resources (OER): Learn more

Where to start?

The OER Starter Kit
Developed by Open Access & Scholarly Communication Librarian Abbey Elder at Iowa State University, this ebook is a great place to... well, get started!

This guide was created to provide instructors with an introduction to the use and creation of open educational resources (OER). The text is broken into five sections: Getting Started, Copyright, Finding OER, Teaching with OER, and Creating OER. Although some chapters contain more advanced content, the starter kit is primarily intended for users who are entirely new to Open Education.

Open Textbooks: the Billion Dollar Solution
A 2023 report by Student PIRGs on the current OER landscape and the impacts of OER initiatives.
OER Mythbusting
Responses to common misconceptions about open educational resources (OER)
Open Textbooks Guide
An introductory guidebook prepared by the Open Textbooks Alliance that includes statistics, case studies, and strategies for OER adoption.
How to use Open Educational Resources
A self-paced online workshop intended to prepare you to understand open licensing and incorporate OER into your classroom.
Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Open Educational Resources
A Guide for Authors, Adapters & Adopters of Openly Licensed Teaching and Learning Materials. By the Center for Media & Social Impact (CMSI).
Open Pedagogy Toolkit
A guide for students who are engaging in open pedagogy. Instructors may wish to use this toolkit as a resource to scaffold conversations about open pedagogy with their students.
The Rebus Guide to Publishing Open Textbooks (So Far)
An evolving guidebook for educators interested in producing and sharing their own open textbooks.
SPARC Open Education
A non-profit organization advocating for open and equitable education and research.

Iowa OER
Information, news, and surveys from the Iowa Open Education Action Team, a team of representatives from community colleges, Regent’s universities, private colleges, and the legislature working to support open education in the state of Iowa.
IPAL OER
A project of the Iowa Private Academic Libraries (IPAL), that facilitated 62 open education projects at 18 private colleges and universities in Iowa in 2021-2022. Funded by a grant through the Governor’s Emergency Education Relief (GEER) fund.