Strategies for Searching OER Repositories and Collections

Search Strategies

Knowing a few search strategies will make for more effective searching. Watch the following short video and then review the search tips below so you can use them as you search for resources for your class. 

Tips for Searching Repositories

  • Keywords might not return the best results as resources are often input without proper indexing
  • Browse broadly - look at subject areas that are broader than yours but may still include information on your subject
  • If it is an option browse by subject or discipline
  • Use the provided tools or filters to narrow down your search to more relevant results

Take a few minutes to try out these strategies using a few of the suggested repositories on the previous page.

Google Advanced Search 

Using Google Advanced Search is a great way to find resources by license type. Here are directions on how to use Google Advanced Search to find materials with open licenses.

  1. On the Google Advanced Search Links to an external site. page, scroll to the bottom and look for the "usage rights" field.
  2. Change the "usage rights" field to "Creative Commons licenses."

Google search tips:

  1. To find specific types of websites such as .gov or .edu type in the search box Site:.gov or Site:.edu.
  2. To eliminate specific websites or words you can use a minus symbol before the word. For example if you want to search for something but do not want Wikipedia to show up in the results simply type in the search box -Wikipedia.
  3. Use quotations around a phrase to search for results containing that exact phrase. For example search for "climate change" will return less, but more relevant results than searching for the phrase without quotation marks.

ASCCC OERI Webinars

OER Basics II Links to an external site.: A continued exploration of OER Basics. We will cover some search strategies for finding OER and have a quick primer on licensing and adopting/adapting OER. Participants will leave the webinar with some “go to” sites for finding OER and a basic understanding of different forms of copyright and licensing.

Attributions

Searching in OER Repositories - Use the Tools! Creative Commons Attribution license (reuse allowed) Links to an external site.