There are numerous places to search for OER, and an early scan helps confirm your project fills a gap while surfacing materials you can adopt or adapt (in part or in full). Start by browsing our dedicated collection or searching Primo. 

Conduct a broad web search as well. For example, try:

• "Social work" OER
• Physics OER 
• [your subject] OER  

During your preliminary search, you’ll encounter resources that vary in quality and licensing. Start a simple record of anything that looks promising - even if you’re unsure you’ll use it - to save time later. For each item, note the licence and what it permits so you know how you can reuse or adapt the resource, and keep general evaluation principles in mind as you review.

Looking for more? Check Finding OER for search tips, and use the OER Directory in this guide to discover additional collections, including multimedia resources.

We recommend documenting searches and tracking resources you've found, including work you can not include in your OER and the reasons why, from the start of the process.

The following Excel sheets can be used to track these searches. Remember, you can adapt them to your needs.

Most works published as OER or on OER platforms will clearly state their copyright and CCL; however, you may still need to check individual components (e.g. images) for specific license conditions.

You may also want to include multimedia or content that is not sourced from an OER platform, for example: videos, images from stock libraries, H5P interactives, journal articles, books or websites.

Copyright or usage conditions can be located in different places. There is no standard, and you may need to hunt. Some common examples are:

• Books and ebooks: Usually in the front matter, or reverse title page
• Journal articles: Look in the header or footer of a PDF, check beneath the author names or affiliation information, and check the end of the article before the references. Check the journal article webpage. Check the permissions link.
• YouTube Videos: Click on the more link at the end of the description under a video, scroll down to the end of the details just above comments to find out if a video has a CC licence in its metadata. Some YouTube videos have a CCL but the licensor has not added the information to the video metadata when they uploaded it, so also check the description text or the video content itself. YouTube CC licences default to CC BY 3.0, so check if the creator has applied a later version or different licence in the video description and content. 
• Images from stock libraries: Check for a Terms and Conditions, or Terms of Use or Copyright for a link in the footer or About pages. 

If there is no copyright or licence statement and no indication that the work is in the public domain, then assume it is © all rights reserved. Works do not have to be marked for copyright to apply. 

For an overview of CCL read more on our OER Libguide.

When evaluating OER for your project, consider the following points:

• Relevance: How well does the content align with your course or subject?
• Effectiveness: How well is the information conveyed?
• Copyright: Does the book have an open licence that permits modifications?
• Organisation: Does the book follow a logical structure?
• Balance: Does the book balance text with visuals, and theory with real-world examples?
• Inclusion and diversity: Is the content (text, images and resources) inclusive? Does it present diverse perspectives?
• Accessibility: How well does the book follow accessibility standards?
• Authority: Is the source authoritative and is there clear provenance?
• Details: Is formatting consistent, is there an adaptation statement and do attributions follow best practice?

As you evaluate resources, keep detailed notes. You can add columns to your search tracker for these notes, ensuring you don't duplicate efforts later.

If an open textbook meets most of your criteria, consider whether you can adapt it to enhance its quality and usefulness. This might involve editing, revising, or replacing content. Weigh the scope of these changes against the effort required to produce a new OER to determine the best option for your project. Consider the time and effort required if you need to reformat, follow up on attributions or replace videos or images.

For more information, please see Evaluating OER.

There are a number of checklists you could use to determine whether the OER you have found is appropriate for your needs. Here are a number of resources to choose from.