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If you use materials or images in your presentations for which you do not hold the rights, you can replace them with educational materials labeled as "free." These are known as "Open Educational Resources," or OER for short. As part of a BMBF project, extensive guidance materials and explanatory videos have been developed for this purpose. They are specifically aimed at universities. 

 

Here, we explain how OER can be useful in teaching and where you can find them:

 

1. Definition of OER

What does the term OER mean in the context of higher education? Watch the following video (2 min 47 sec):

 

2. Where can I search for and find OER?

 

Here are some search engines you can use to find OER:

CC Search
https://search.creativecommons.org/
Most popular search engine for OER. Filters directly by license terms
 
OER Hoernchen https://oerhoernchen.de/
Specialized search engine for OER. Filters by license terms
 
OER Commons
https://www.oercommons.org/
English search engine for OER. Filter option by educational level
available.
 
OpenStax CNX Library
https://cnx.org/browse
Free books and slides on a wide range of topics—in English
 
Wikibooks
https://de.wikibooks.org/wiki/Hauptseite
Free books on Wikipedia
 
The Orange Grove
https://florida.theorangegrove.org/
Search engine covering all free materials from the State of Florida in English contains mostly material for higher education
 
L3T
http://l3t.eu/homepage/
Textbook for learning and teaching with technologies
 

University databases:

OpenLearnWare from TU Darmstadt
https://openlearnware.tu-darmstadt.de/
Lectures on the fields of natural sciences, humanities, and engineering
OpenCourseWare from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
https://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm
Course materials for courses across all disciplines
OpenEducationEurope
https://www.openeducationeuropa.eu/de
Materials on e-learning and e-learning design
OpenMichigan
https://open.umich.edu/find/find-open-educational-resources
Covers a wide range of subjects, including law, mathematics,
educational science, and medicine
Open Yale Courses
https://oyc.yale.edu/courses
Covers a wide range of topics, mostly licensed under CC BY SA

Video databases:

 
YouTubehttps://www.youtube.com/
YouTube search for open-license content available, wide range of topics
 
Vimeo
https://vimeo.com/de/
Video material covering a wide range of topics
 
Open Learnware from TU Darmstadt
https://openlearnware.hrz.tu-darmstadt.de/
E-lectures from TU Darmstadt on engineering, natural sciences, and humanities with various CC licenses
 
Media Library of Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf
https://mediathek.hhu.de/
A wide variety of video material. All public videos are licensed under a CC BY license.
 

 

3. How do I use the materials I’ve found correctly?

 

These videos are licensed under the Creative Commons CC BY SA 4.0 license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ When using the credits, please cite as follows (copy & paste): “How to Find OER” by OERinForm | oer.amh-ev.de | Creative Commons – Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kj9RgUCywdk

 
This information and these videos come from the website of the BMBF project OERinForm.
There you will find further comprehensive information on the topic.