Resources
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Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC)SPARC is a global coalition committed to making Open the default for research and education. SPARC empowers people to solve big problems and make new discoveries through the adoption of policies and practices that advance Open Access, Open Data, and Open Education.
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Open Textbook LibraryLinks four popular tools to locate, create, and store open textbooks and resources including Open Textbook Library and OER Commons.
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Creative CommonsCreative Commons helps you legally share your knowledge and creativity to build a more equitable, accessible, and innovative world.
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Directory of Open Access JournalsDOAJ is an independent, community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals. (Some DOAJ journals are indexed in Scout)
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U of Alabama Institutional RepositoryCollects, preserves, and distributes digital scholarly and research materials created by The University of Alabama community.
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OAIsterA union catalog via Worldcar representing open access resources from collections worldwide.
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OAPEN LibraryThe OAPEN Library contains freely accessible academic books, mainly in the area of humanities and social sciences.
Textbook Costs
We often hear about OERs in reference to rising textbook costs. The University of Alabama's Student Financial Aid Office estimates a full-time, dependent undergraduate student will spend approximately $800 annually for textbooks.
Graduate students will spend an average of $628 - $1,471 annually on textbooks and supplies as of the 2021-2022 academic year. Learn more from the Education Data Initiative.
Recent OER and Open Access Research
Use Scout or one of the recommended databases to stay abreast of OERs in development, practice, and/or research. Remember that search results will depend on terms, limiters, and selected databases.
Recommended search terms: OER, open educational resources, MOOCs, textbook cost, open education, open access
Recommended databases and selected articles are linked below.
Recommended Databases
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Academic Search Premier This link opens in a new window Multi-disciplinary database; articles from journals and other publications. coves business, education. history, literature, medicine, philosophy, politics, and technology.
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Chronicle of Higher Education This link opens in a new window The Chronicle, published weekly, is a top source for news, advice, and job listings for academe professionals. Its website offers daily news, advice columns, job listings, articles, discussion forums, and career-building tools like online CV management and salary databases.
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ERIC EBSCOhost This link opens in a new window ERIC Uses the EBSCO search screen interface. ERIC is the world's largest source of information on education and provides indexing and abstracting for articles and documents from 1966 onward.
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Education Source Ultimate This link opens in a new window The comprehensive full-text research database is designed for education students, professionals, and policymakers, covering all levels of education and specialties like multilingual education, health education, and testing.
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Professional Development Collection This link opens in a new window Specialized collection of citations, abstracts, and full-text articles and images for education professionals. Covers topics from children's health and development to pedagogical theory and practice from professional development titles.
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SAGE Knowledge This link opens in a new window SAGE Knowledge includes an expansive range of SAGE eBook and eReference content for social science— including scholarly monographs, reference works, handbooks, professional development titles, case studies, and streaming video.
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Scopus with ScopusAI This link opens in a new window Abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature and quality web sources from publishers across the sciences, technology, medicine, social sciences, and arts & humanities.University Libraries is conducting a 1-year pilot subscription to Scopus AI to assess the benefits and features of the product. Pilot access to the Scopus AI product is available through December 2026.
Selected Articles
What are...
Open Educational Resources (OER): "teaching, learning, and research resources that are free of cost and access barriers, and which also carry legal permission for open use." (SPARC)
Further reading: Hood, C. (2016). Open educational resources. In S. Danver (Ed.), The SAGE encyclopedia of online education (pp. 878-879). Thousand Oaks,, CA: SAGE Publications Ltd. doi: 10.4135/9781483318332.n277
Open Access (OA): "the free, immediate, online availability of research articles combined with the rights to use these articles fully in the digital environment." (SPARC)
Using OER and OA for teaching and research
You're probably engaging with OER and OA regularly! Publishers such as Taylor & Francis, SAGE, Springer, and Elsevier all publish some open access journals and/or OA content. You can search Cabell's Directory for additional open access information. Most publishers will have webpages for their open access content. See links for additional information.
Examples:
- Open Review of Educational Research
- AERA Open
- Journal of Education and Research
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Cabell's Directory of Publishing Opportunities This link opens in a new window Cabell's offers publishing data on journals to help users looking to publish their work. Information includes contact details and websites of journals for reference. Links to guidelines and submission info, Journalytics, and Predatory Reports are provided.