Low-Cost, No-Cost, and Open Educational Resources (OER)

Welcome to the Cornette Library Low-Cost, No-Cost, and Open Educational Resources (OER) guide.  The purpose of this guide is to aide in understanding, finding, and creating Low-Cost, No-Cost, and Open Educational Resources.

Resources listed in this guide have shown to have a strong collection of OER materials, noticeable licensing information, or might be helpful to those seeking Low-Cost and No-Cost options. Please ensure that you check the licensing information on any content before redistributing it. 

The Library has not evaluated these resources for content nor accessibility.  Use your professional and subject expertise in evaluating and using these resources.

The guide will be updated periodically based on newly found resources and faculty feedback.

If you would like to schedule an appointment with a librarian to talk more about Open Educational Resources, please fill out the OER Consultation form.  To begin the process, click on the "OER Consultation Form" button below.

OER Consultation Form

Dr. Nick Flynn wins inaugural Open Educational Resources Educator Award from the WT Student Government Association.

Cornette Library wanted to take a moment and congratulate Dr. Nick Flynn, professor of biochemistry, on being awarded the Open Educational Resources Educator Award from the WT Student Government Association.

We contacted Dr. Flynn to ask him for the details of his OER use. These are his answers.

How do you use OER?

I use the OpenStax textbook for my freshman chemistry courses. Also, I provide free study guides to my students, not technically OER, but still fits the intention of it.

Why do you use OER?

I had to sell plasma and take out temporary, emergency loans during college to make ends meet sometimes, which included purchasing textbooks at the end of the semester.

Is there anything else that you’d like to say about OER?

There are some excellent OER resources out there for many of the disciplines we teach. I’d encourage our faculty to seek out these resources and include them in their instructional materials.

Thank you, Dr. Flynn, for your fantastic work with OER. We appreciate you.

(Dr. Flynn’s answers were lightly edited for punctuation.)

The OpenStax Chemistry 2nd edition book can be accessed at the OpenStax website.

Enyonam Osei-Hwere wins Magister Optimus award at a West Texas A&M

On August 17th, Dr. Enyonam Osei-Hwere won the highest award available for faculty at West Texas A&M, the Magister Optimus award. Dr. Osei-Hwere was selected by the Faculty Senate for this honor, based on her wide range of accomplishments, including leading study abroad trips to South Africa, exceptional student evaluations, and her committment to student success through OER. Dr. Osei-Hwere is an active member of the OER working group and a recipient of a THECB OER Development grant. If you would like to explore the materials created by Dr. Osei-Here and Patrick Osei-Hwere, feel free to go to the WT-Developed OER page and click on Media Communication, Convergence, and Literacy.

WT Faculty Develop Writing Textbook With THECB Grant

Ms. AJ McCormick and Dr. Rebecca Weir of WT’s Department of English, Philosophy, and Modern Languages are developing a textbook designed for use by NCBO (non-credit bearing option) writing students and teachers, with grant funding from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. Because NCBO courses are required by Texas State, but have no consistency between institutions in how they are taught, this textbook is designed for students to be able to work through on their own, or one-on-one with a designated writing tutor, or in a mini-class setting led by an instructor, or in a regular class session with an instructor. One of the beauties of this textbook is that, because it’s available in OER and is free for students to access, it is available to students throughout their scholarly careers, even when they simply need a brush-up, and long after they’ve left their freshman-level coursework. Instructors from any field will find it useful because it offers an easy online writing activity to assign to particular students, dependent on student need, or to review with an entire class to address problems or prepare for a writing assignment. McCormick and Weir are in the process of testing out a few selected lessons now (21/22), but hope to have the entire book available for use sometime in the coming academic year (22-23).

THECB OER Development Grant for MCOM 1307

Mr. Patrick Osei-Hwere and Dr. Enyonam Osei-Hwere of WT's Communication Department received a THECB OER Development grant to develop a quality open textbook that is timely and up to date and create an OER online course for MCOM 1307 Introduction to Media Communication. The goal is to develop instructional materials that cover all course objectives and are designed to enable students connect concepts and their application to maximize their learning. They transitioned sections of MCOM 1307 during the 2022 Spring semester from a required commercial textbook to an OER textbook that maintains high quality education and is free to students except the cost of printing. They also developed and adopted instructional materials for teaching the online sections of the course that make optimal use of the open textbook in course instruction. Students enrolled in the sections using the OER had instructional materials available the first day of class thereby improving access to course materials for all students and especially for financially strapped students. Mr. Patrick Osei-Hwere and Dr. Enyonam Osei-Hwere plan to continue updating the OER and make it available for adoption by faculty teaching sections of MCOM 1307 at WT, Amarillo College, and South Plains College in the Fall of 2022.

WT Education Professor Wins $25,000 Statewide Grant

Dr. Adam Weiss wins a $25,000 state grant to develop OER.