Research Guides: Open Educational Resources: Open Courses

Open Course Definitions

What is an Open Course?

Open Course is a broad term that extends the concept of "open educational resources" by indicating that not only the content but also the learning and interaction within a course is freely available. There are open courses on a variety of topics, for various groups and ages. Open courses generally do not allow students to earn formal course credit or degrees. (Some colleges and universities may offer a credit earning version of some of their open courses, for an added fee; for example, U of C, Irvine)

What is "OpenCourseWare"?

An OpenCourseWare (OCW) is a free and open digital publication of high quality college and university‐level educational materials. These materials are organized as courses, and often include course planning materials and evaluation tools as well as thematic content. OpenCourseWare are free and openly licensed, accessible to anyone, anytime via the internet. (defintion from the OpenCourseWare Consortium). Like other open courses, OpenCourseWare generally do not allow students to earn formal course credit or degrees.

What is a MOOC?

MOOC is an acronym for “Massive Open Online Course." It is a course that anyone with an internet connection can attend for free.

Syllabi

Chronicle Vitae Syllabi
From the site: "Search, view, and share syllabi with other teaching scholars, to help you craft the best syllabus for your class."
LEARN NC Lesson Plans
LEARN NC’s lesson plans span the wide range of curriculum areas for every grade from K to 12. Our collection includes the best instructional plans created by North Carolina educators as well as high-quality materials from state and national partners.

Focusing on K-12

Curriki
Curriki is an online community for creating and sharing curricula and teaching best practices. Curriki contains more than 51,000 free K-12 lessons, units, assessments, and multimedia learning resources across all subject areas, many of which are mapped to Common Core and state standards.
CK-12
CK-12 Foundation is a non-profit that creates and aggregates high quality curated STEM content, aligned to Common Core Math or Next Generation Science Standards.
North Carolina Learning Object Repository
The North Carolina Learning Object Repository (NCLOR) collects documents, audio/video clips, simulations, learning modules, assessments, and more – virtually any type of learning resource that can be digitized and processed. Teachers from around the state can then search the NCLOR, find materials appropriate to the classes they are teaching, and use them as is or modify them to suit their needs.

Open Course Resources

Academic Earth
Collection of online courses in a variety of subject areas, collected from multiple institutions.
Coursera
Coursera provides universal access to the world’s best education, partnering with top universities and organizations to offer courses for anyone to take, for free. About 900 courses from more than 100 partner institutions are included.
edX
EdX offers interactive online classes and MOOCs from the world’s best universities, colleges and organizations. Online courses from MITx, HarvardX, BerkeleyX, UTx and many other universities. Topics include biology, business, chemistry, computer science, economics, finance, electronics, engineering, food and nutrition, history, humanities, law, literature, math, medicine, music, philosophy, physics, science, statistics and more. EdX is a non-profit online initiative created by founding partners Harvard and MIT.
iTunes U
ITUnes U is home to more than 500,000 free lectures, videos, books, and other resources on thousands of subjects. iTunes U. Stanford, Yale, Oxford, UC Berkeley, MoMA, and the New York Public Library are among the hundreds of institutions that are sharing courses, lectures, videos, books, and other resources with students and lifelong learners all over the world using an ITunes U course site. Students need to download the ITunes app (Windows or Apple) to access via ITunes.
Khan Academy
Khan Academy "offers practice exercises, instructional videos, and a personalized learning dashboard that empower learners to study at their own pace in and outside of the classroom." Educational levels vary from K-12 through college; a variety of subjects is supported.
Open Education Consortium
The Open Education Consortium is a collaboration of higher education institutions and associated organizations from around the world creating a broad and deep body of open educational content using a shared model. This is the successor to the Open Courseware Consortium.
OpenLearn
More than 600 free online courses from Britain's The Open University.
Saylor
Saylor.org is a free and open collection of college level courses. Each course culminates with a final exam, and students receiving a passing grade can download a certificate of completion.

Open Teaching Materials

MERLOT II (Multimedia Education Resource for Learning and Online Teaching)
Merlot II is a free and open peer reviewed collection of online teaching and learning materials and faculty-developed services. You can search by learning material type and collection. Create an account to create your own collections in Merlot, and use the content builder to create mash-ups of existing materials for your classroom.
OER Commons
A network for teaching and learning materials and open textbooks providing a single point of access through which educators and learners can search across collections to access more than 24,000 items.
Open Course Library
The Open Course Library (OCL) is a collection of shareable course materials, including syllabi, course activities, readings, and assessments designed by teams of college faculty, instructional designers, librarians, and other experts. Some of our materials (also called open educational resources, or OER) are paired with low cost textbooks ($30 or less).
Open Learning Initiative
The Open Learning Initiative (OLI) is a grant-funded group at Carnegie Mellon University, offering innovative online courses to anyone who wants to learn or teach. Our aim is to create high-quality courses and contribute original research to improve learning and transform higher education.
OpenStax CNX
View and share free educational material in small modules that can be organized as courses, books, reports or other academic assignments.
Orange Grove: Florida's Digital Repository
The Orange Grove repository is Florida's digital repository for instructional resources. The repository provides an environment for educators to search for, use, remix, share, and contribute educational resources. The repository can also be integrated with your Learning Management Systems (e.g., Blackboard, Desire 2 Learn, Canvas). Includes K-12 resources.
Library Connect
Shares library and information science best practices, issues, technology and trends.