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Browsing by Course-Related Materials or Libraries and Collections : located in OER Teaching and Learning Materials . You can also browse by subject areas as well as grade level.

Under the heading“Course-Related Materials,”there are three categories:

  • Full Course—to see all or part of a course
  • Learning Modules—to see a portion of a course
  • OpenCourseWare—to see all materials in MIT’s OCW Consortium.

At a glance, you can see how many items are in each category. The number in parentheses shows the quantity of OER items for that category. If, for example, you don’t have time to browse hundreds or thousands of OER items, filter your search after you click on the category.

If you are looking for a specific instructional component such as a simulation or a video lecture, course-related materials are also categorized by 16 different instructional components. Clicking on any one of these components will display a listing of all the items for that particular instructional component.

Under the heading“Libraries and Collections,”you will find digitized primary sources from a wide variety of digital media collections and libraries.

You can also browse each individual content provider’s collection for either the Course-Related Materials or the Libraries and Collections.

Browsing by Tags

Tags are keywords you associate with an OER item. Tags are a way for you to personalize/categorize OER items. OER Commons provides pre-set categories; tags are the way for you to create your own categories. Read more on tags .

Top 30 Tags : located on the right side of the OER Commons homepage.

The results page lists other tags related to the one you chose.

TagCloud: located on the right side of the OER Commons homepage . The“ TagCloud ”page lists all the tags in OER Commons.

The size of a word indicates its popularity.

Activity: find materials

Using one or more of the searching or browsing methods, locate materials you can begin using in your teaching or learning. After finding an item you can use, save it by clicking the“Save Item”link located under the title. (See Figure 3.)

Figure 3. Visual representation of an OER item with the“Save Item”link.

When you save this item, it goes into your portfolio. We’ll be talking more about your OER Portfolio in another module.

Activity: share your experience

In the OER Commons discussion“ How and Why of OER ,”post your stories, suggestions, and questions with using OER in your teaching and learning. Here are some questions to consider in your post:

  • What was a surprising find as you searched for materials?
  • What frustrations have you encountered while searching for materials?
  • What are your top three or four wishes in how an OER site should be designed?

For more information

The following resource has been selected to provide more information on concepts we covered in this module.

Other modules in this course include…

This module showed how quickly you can find OER materials. The next module,“ Tagging, Rating, and Reviewing OER Materials ,”will show how you can start contributing to OER Commons by tagging, rating, and reviewing the materials you have used.

For more information about OER Commons, send an email to info@oercommons.org .

Use this feedback form to send OER Commons general feedback, a feature request, or information about a bug/problem you had using the site.

To see the ever-growing list of the new content providers and contributors to OER Commons, visit the Content Providers page often. You can be one too!

“Quotable quote”

When information is identified as meaningful, it is a force for change.

Wheatley, M. J., (1999). Leadership and the New Science. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.

About this module

The "How Tos" of OER Commons is a set of learning modules evolving out of the development of OER Commons ( (External Link) ), a teaching and learning network for free-to-use educational materials from around the world, created and licensed by the Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education (ISKME).

Course contributors are Lisa Petrides, Amee Godwin, and Cynthia Jimes, and online learning consultant, Patricia Delich.

For more information, visit (External Link) and (External Link) .

Questions & Answers

what is biology
Hajah Reply
the study of living organisms and their interactions with one another and their environments
AI-Robot
what is biology
Victoria Reply
HOW CAN MAN ORGAN FUNCTION
Alfred Reply
the diagram of the digestive system
Assiatu Reply
allimentary cannel
Ogenrwot
How does twins formed
William Reply
They formed in two ways first when one sperm and one egg are splited by mitosis or two sperm and two eggs join together
Oluwatobi
what is genetics
Josephine Reply
Genetics is the study of heredity
Misack
how does twins formed?
Misack
What is manual
Hassan Reply
discuss biological phenomenon and provide pieces of evidence to show that it was responsible for the formation of eukaryotic organelles
Joseph Reply
what is biology
Yousuf Reply
the study of living organisms and their interactions with one another and their environment.
Wine
discuss the biological phenomenon and provide pieces of evidence to show that it was responsible for the formation of eukaryotic organelles in an essay form
Joseph Reply
what is the blood cells
Shaker Reply
list any five characteristics of the blood cells
Shaker
lack electricity and its more savely than electronic microscope because its naturally by using of light
Abdullahi Reply
advantage of electronic microscope is easily and clearly while disadvantage is dangerous because its electronic. advantage of light microscope is savely and naturally by sun while disadvantage is not easily,means its not sharp and not clear
Abdullahi
cell theory state that every organisms composed of one or more cell,cell is the basic unit of life
Abdullahi
is like gone fail us
DENG
cells is the basic structure and functions of all living things
Ramadan
What is classification
ISCONT Reply
is organisms that are similar into groups called tara
Yamosa
in what situation (s) would be the use of a scanning electron microscope be ideal and why?
Kenna Reply
A scanning electron microscope (SEM) is ideal for situations requiring high-resolution imaging of surfaces. It is commonly used in materials science, biology, and geology to examine the topography and composition of samples at a nanoscale level. SEM is particularly useful for studying fine details,
Hilary
cell is the building block of life.
Condoleezza Reply
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Source:  OpenStax, The "how tos" of oer commons. OpenStax CNX. Oct 16, 2007 Download for free at http://cnx.org/content/col10468/1.4
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