Open Educational Resources (OER)

The Libraries proudly support faculty making their courses affordable for all students. Among other things, the Libraries offer a large collection of textbooks for student use and support making library-licensed e-content available to your students. We’re also ready to help you discover, use or even develop and publish your own open educational resources

• Choose a standard textbook, put a physical copy on reserve, then let your students know how to access it.
• If your course is covered by the criteria of the Libraries’ TextSelect program, make students aware that the textbook is available to check out at the Fenwick Library Information Desk.
• Choose a textbook or articles where the library already offers free digital access. Place the item on ‘e-reserve‘ and then link to the item on your Blackboard site or include a link in your syllabus.
• Choose an existing Open Educational Resource, see our Finding OER page for more details.

The University Libraries is the proud home of the Mason OER Metafinder, the first tool of its kind that can search 21 quality sources for OER simultaneously. Additional information on the OER Metafinder can be found at MOM.gmu.edu.

To start searching for Open Educational Resources, you can enter your search terms in the box below or click Advanced Search for more options. Further tools to search for OER can be found on the Finding OER page.

The Libraries' Teaching and Learning Team supports undergraduates in general education courses, as well as graduates, faculty, and community members familiarizing themselves with the Mason Libraries. As part of their overall portfolio, Teaching and Learning staff work collaboratively with Mason Publishing to help faculty identify appropriate OER materials for undergraduate teaching.

Other services offered include:

• Reference and Research Support
  • The Gateway Library offers drop-in reference and research services, especially for undergraduate research.
• Classroom Instruction Sessions
  • Classroom Instruction provided by the The Teaching and Learning Team facilitates the development of research and critical thinking skills.
• Workshops
  • In addition to by-request workshops, the Teaching and Learning Team offers regular workshops on the Zotero citation management software.

Further information about the ways that Mason supports OER can be found on the Support for OER at Mason page.