Open Educational Resources (OER) are a practical way to embrace open pedagogy in learning and teaching.
OER are freely accessible and openly licensed teaching and learning materials like textbooks, videos, quizzes, case studies, and more. OER can be reused, shared, revised and remixed. Examples include:
- use relevant chapter/s from an open textbook, rather than prescribing the whole text
- embed an open video in a lecture presentation
- use open case studies to support assessment tasks
- use Adobe RMIT – Curriculum by Discipline to support learning.
Search for OER
To find OER a variety of tools can be used, including databases, metafinders and collections from other universities.
Open textbook collections are repositories of freely available, openly licensed textbooks that educators and students can use, adapt, and share without cost. These can be used as readings in courses or to support explanations of concepts or scenarios. Use an entire text or lift the relevant sections.
Use these metafinders to search for OER:
Or go to the Open Educational Resources (OER) library guide for more metafinders and open textbook collections:
Finding OER Textbooks
This video demonstrates how to search for OER textbooks via several search engines, how to access the texts, and how the texts can be used for teaching by identifying the Creative Commons licence.
Use videos, images, and music to enhance your course content, drive engagement, and provide students with access to assets that can support their assessments.
Examples include:
- Free, open-source illustrations from Open Doodles.
- State Library of Victoria’s copyright free image collection, contributors include academics from University of Pittsburgh, University of British Columbia, MIT and more.
Go to the Open Educational Resources (OER) library guide to explore OER in different formats:
Case studies and virtual labs can be used as tutorial activities, mini-assessments and more.
Examples include:
- A simulation game related to nursing care in an emergency room setting, from American Colleges Centennial College, George Brown College, Toronto Metropolitan, and The Chang School.
- Online simulations of chemistry labs available under Creative Commons license.
Go to the Open Educational Resources (OER) library guide to explore case studies and simulations:
The Curriculum by Discipline collection on the Adobe-RMIT site offers rich resources to support digital creativity and skill-building. It features interdisciplinary projects in education, design, and technology—ranging from Indigenous storytelling and fashion photography to VR nutrition and AI in graphic design—highlighting innovation, social impact, and future-focused learning.
The Library's Teaching Support team can help
Ask us for:
- OER recommendations for new course development and those undergoing a review activity
- advice on how to replace commercial textbooks with OERs
- advice on embedding OER content in Canvas
- advice on open licensing and Creative Commons.
