Subject Guides: Open Educational Resources (OER): Searching for any OER content

Before you start your search for OER

Use this OER Development Worksheet (Word download) to help determine the OER required for educational purposes.
Get acquainted with licensing and attribution, so you know:
- how OER content can be openly licensed, e.g. CC BY, for use. The six CC licences include:
  - CC BY - Attribution must be given to the creator.
  - CC BY-SA - Attribution required, and you agree to licence new derivative versions of the resource you create under CC BY-SA.
  - CC BY-NC - Attribution required; non-commercial use only; commercial use requires a separate, negotiated licence.
  - CC BY-NC-SA - Attribution required, non-commercial use only; commercial use requires a separate, negotiated licence; and you agree to licence new derivative versions of the resource you create under CC BY-NC-SA well.
  - CC BY-ND - Attribution required; no derivative works permitted; creation of derivative works requires a separate, negotiated licence.
  - CC BY-NC-ND - This licence is the most restrictive of our six main licences. It allows others to download your works and share them with others as long as they mention you and link back to you, but they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially.
- How to attribute (openly CC license) the OER you create.
- Document third-party copyright content permissions (Excel download).

How to search for any OER content

Example:

Search, using keywords from the Subject title and course description (a.k.a About this Subject) e.g.,
200432.4 Commercial Law
About this Subject

In this subject, students learn about the concepts of law, its impact on businesses, and how to apply the law to solve practical legal problems that arise in business. The subject is designed to help you identify where potential legal issues or problems can arise in business. In addition, it deals with concepts of Australian law and commercial legal obligations that are important to professional practice and studies in later units. The subject topics are Australian Legal Institutions and Sources of Law, Case Law and Doctrine of Precedent, Legislation and Statutory Interpretation, The Australian Federation and Concepts of Constitutional Law, Principles of Tortious Liability, the formation, vitiation, performance and discharge of contracts, forms of business structure, consumer transactions, consumer protection and agency.
Use the resources in this guide (refer to the Boxes below to search the Mason OER Metafinder (MOM) and the Publicly Available Content Database) to search several OER repositories using the search query: “commercial law” (Australia OR Australian). You can also try searching the Pressbooks Directory. You should retrieve:

these search results in MOM: https://oer.deepwebaccess.com/oer/desktop/en/results.html
these search results in the Publicly Available Content Database (Apply filters to limit the search to Full text and Peer reviewed, Date Range: last ten years, and exclude Creative Commons License CC BY-ND) e.g.,

How to find any OER content

We recommend using the Mason OER Metafinder (MOM) as it does real-time searching across 21 different sources of open educational materials. You can also filter your search for results relevant to Australia.
To search in MOM, add your keywords to the Full Record field (see example above). You can also try browsing each platform separately to search by subject/discipline and material type (select platforms using the blue checkboxes).

How to search the Publicly Available Content Database (ProQuest)

You might also like to search the Publicly Available Content Database (you will need a WesternAccount to log in off-campus).
Do a keyword search in the search box, and also filter your query by selecting:
- Document Type (select relevant content from the list); and
- Creative Commons license (select appropriate licence from the list).

How to attribute (openly license) your OER content

For guidance on how to attribute your OER content, see: Licensing and Attribution.