This month’s blog post was contributed by Rebecca S. Funke, Director of Library Resources at Des Moines Area Community College.

Large textbook repositories aren’t the only places to find OER for course curriculums. While many college and university systems use OER Commons to host OER authored by their faculty, some create their own institutional repository for OER, or create a collection of OER within their institutional repository. These can be a great resource when looking for OER to use with your students. GALILEO Open Learning Materials is such a repository and brings together open educational resources throughout the University System of Georgia, including textbooks and ancillary materials. 

What is GALILEO?

This repository is administrated by Affordable Learning Georgia, a 2013 initiative of GALILEO and the University System of Georgia which aims to reduce the cost of textbooks to students, as well as to enhance access to learning materials in support of students’ academic pursuits.

How to search the collection

As is common in other institutional repositories, users can browse the collection by subject, author, and material type. Additionally, users looking for OER with a particular CC license will find the browse By Creative Commons License very helpful. 

A search box is also available if a more refined exploration is needed. The collection is nicely balanced between the sciences and humanities, with the addition of a few fine arts and mathematics resources as well. 

Downloading materials

Pertinent information (e.g. Authors, publication date, description, TOC) for each title is easily available on the landing page. Many of the OER in GALILEO are available as a PDF or DOC download, though only a few textbooks are accessible via HTML as well (as in this book, Fundamentals of Cell Biology, available in Manifold).  Users will also frequently find the option to download individual sections of the textbook, in addition to the entire work (as in this book, Psychological Adjustment). This can be wonderfully helpful if you are looking to adapt or remix an OER.  

Other institutions with OER repositories  

• OERTX (Texas)
• Open Michigan (Michigan)
• Milne Open Textbooks (SUNY)

GALILEO isn’t one of a kind by any means. There are a few other institutions with OER repositories as well, like the examples linked above!

Furthermore, you don’t need to have an OER-specific repository to share locally-created OER. Many colleges and universities have their own institutional repository for sharing local research, which can also be used to share collections of OER. For example, the University of Northern Iowa has shared lesson plans and other OER in their UNI ScholarWorks OER Collection, and instructors at Iowa State University have shared worksheets, case studies, and scientific illustrations in the ISU Digital Repository OER Collection. Leveraging the tools available at your institution can help you get started with publishing and sharing OER without needing extra funding or support. This can be particularly helpful for sharing supplementary content like lesson plans, PowerPoints, and other non-textbook OER! 

Chat with us!

Are you interested in learning more about this topic? You can reach out on the Iowa OER mailing list to talk to OER leaders across the state and to share your recommendation for a future blog post, webinar, or resource from Iowa OER!