The Mason OER Metafinder | SUNY-Geneseo’s OASIS Search Tool | Links to Other OER Search Resources
The Mason OER Metafinder
About the Mason OER Metafinder
The Mason OER Metafinder helps you find Open Educational Resources. Unlike other OER discovery sites (e.g, OER Commons, OASIS, MERLOT, OpenStax, etc.) with our Metafinder you aren’t searching a static database that we’ve built. Instead, the OER Metafinder launches a real-time, simultaneous search across 22 different sources of open educational materials as you hit the Search button.
Because it is a real-time, federated search, it can take a bit longer than searches of pre-indexed, curated content; however, as compensation the results returned are absolutely up-to-the-minute for each search target. Additional results will continue to trickle in as the search continues running and you begin examining your results.
A distinct feature of the Mason OER Metafinder is the scope of our discovery service. We’re searching well-known OER repositories like OpenStax, OER Commons, MERLOT but also sites like HathiTrust, DPLA, Internet Archive and NYPL Digital Collections where valuable but often overlooked (and often “open”) educational materials may be found.
Given the many “standards” of metadata in the OER universe, we can’t guarantee that every item retrieved is “Open” in the strictest interpretation of that term…so make it a practice to check the rights of any item you use.
Our OER Metafinder is built using the Explorit Everywhere! software developed by Deep Web Technologies in Santa Fe, New Mexico. We use their software to provide a number of different metafinders for Mason researchers (e.g., our Sciences Metafinder is a quite popular example).
Jillian Maynard, at the University of Hartford, has created a very nice video introduction to the Metafinder. If you want to know more about the Metafinder or have ideas for additional search targets, contact Wally Grotophorst.
To keep up with the latest news about the Metafinder, follow @OerMason
- American Memory Project (Library of Congress)
- AMSER – Applied Math and Science Education Repository
- BC Campus:Open Ed
- Digital Public Library of America
- Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB)
- HathiTrust – Full View Available
- JSTOR Open Access Books
- Library of Congress (limit to available online)
- Merlot.Org
- MIT OpenCourseware
- New York Public Library Digital Collections
- OAOpen.org
- OASIS
- OER Commons
- OERs at Internet Archive
- Open Michigan
- Open Research Library
- Open Textbook Library
- OpenStax CNX
- Project Gutenberg
- Teaching Commons
- World Digital Library
Mason OER Metafinder (MOM)SUNY-Geneseo’s OASIS Search Tool
The SUNY-Geneseo Openly Available Sources Integrated Search (OASIS) is a search tool that aims to make the discovery of open content easier. OASIS currently searches a curated database drawn from 80 different sources and contains 331,461 records.
Other Search Tools
In addition to the Mason OER Metafinder and SUNY OASIS above here are several other sites you might wish to search. While these sites are already included in both search systems above, their sites may be helpful.
- The University of Minnesota’s Open Textbook Library
- The Open Textbook Library provides a growing catalog of free, peer-reviewed, and openly-licensed textbooks.
- OER Commons
- OER Commons offers a comprehensive infrastructure for curriculum experts and instructors at all levels to identify high-quality OER and collaborate around their adaptation, evaluation, and use to address the needs of teachers and learners.
- OpenStax CNX
- OpenStax publishes high-quality, peer-reviewed, openly licensed textbooks that are absolutely free online and low cost in print.
- MIT OpenCourseWare
- MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW) is a web-based publication of virtually all MIT course content.