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Open Educational Resources (OER)

Some Basic Search Tips

Most search engines, databases, repositories, archives, and other places where information is gathered will have an 'Advanced Search' feature. How this looks will vary from site to site, but there are several common features shared among them.

For OER materials, you will need to look for something called 'licenses', 'usage rights', or 'creative commons' as this will let you filter by whether or not you are allowed to use the item in question freely or not.

Below are some helpful tips on how to find these boxes on specific, commonly used websites.

Search Tips

  1. Go to Google Advanced Search (or Google "Google Advanced Search" and click on the first link).
  2. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and look for “usage rights”.
  3. Click on the down arrow and select the desired usage rights for the search.
  4. Put your search into the search bar at the top of the page.

It's recommended that you narrow your search by language when using advanced search! Otherwise you may end up with great resources in a language you cannot read. You can find the language selection under "Then narrow your results by" section of advanced search.

For Bing:

  1. Go to Bing image search (or, search for Bing image search in any search engine). 
  2. Search for the desired image.
  3. After results are retrieved, on the right hand side of the screen click on the “filter” button and select “license” located directly below the search bar.
  4. Select desired usage rights (here, most likely "Creative Commons") and results will be refreshed. 

For Google:

  1. Go to Google image search (or, search for Bing image search in any search engine). 
  2. Search for the desired image.
  3. After results are retrieved, on the top of the page, under the search bar, select "tools". Then, select "usage rights".
  4. Select desired usage rights (here, most likely "Creative Commons") and results will be refreshed. 

The Mason OER Metafinder is a real-time search engine that searches through several OER websites and databases. It can be a great resource, but can be a little more intimidating as it's less like Google and more like a full database!

  1. Go to the Mason OER Metafinder, or search “mason oer metafinder” in any search engine ( Google works best for this).
  2. Enter your search into the boxes on the left-hand side.
    1. "Full Record" is similar to SwoopSearch's "Any Field" category.
  3. For the broadest search, leave all boxes checked. If you want to look in only specific areas, deselects the boxes you do not want.
  4. After searching, results can be further refined by using the menu on the left hand side of the page.
  1. Go to Oasis, or search “oasis oer” in any search engine.
  2. To browse by material type click on the box with the desired type under the search bar, or type your search into the search bar.
  3. For more control over your search, use the "Advanced Search" feature of Oasis.
  4. To refine the search results, use the menu on the left hand side of the page.

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