Skip to Main Content

Academics: English & Communication

Quick Search for OER

Type your search, then click the source you wish to search.

Hint: Enclose phrases in quotation marks, as in "critical thinking".



Need more information?

OpenStax/Connexions is a place to find, adopt, and adapt textbooks and associated materials and to view and share educational material made of small knowledge chunks called modules that can be organized as courses, books, reports, etc.

Open Oregon Searches courses and describes and links to the resources used. Oregon community college instructors use these resources to reduce textbook costs in their courses. If you see a name and email address, feel free to contact that person about their class.

Skills Commons from the US Department of Labor’s Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) program is a free and open online library free and open learning materials and program support materials for job-driven workforce development. This site is great for program, course, and curriculum development.

The Mason OER Metafinder (MOM) helps you find Open Educational Resources. Unlike other OER discovery sites (e.g, OER Commons, OASIS, MERLOT, OpenStax, etc.) with our Metafinder you aren't searching a static database that we've built.  Instead, the OER Metafinder launches a real-time, simultaneous search across 22 different sources of open educational materials as you hit the Search button.

MERLOT is a free and open online community of resources designed primarily for faculty, staff and students of higher education from around the world to share their learning materials and pedagogy.

The Open Education Consortium is a free and open digital publication of high quality university-level educational materials. These materials are organized as courses, and often include course planning materials and evaluation tools as well as thematic content. They come from universities all over the world, such as MIT, Harvard, Yale, Tufts, Open University Netherlands.

"AMSER (the Applied Math and Science Education Repository) is a portal of educational resources and services built specifically for use by those in Community and Technical Colleges but free for anyone to use. AMSER is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) as part of the National Science Digital Library, and is being created by a team of project partners led by Internet Scout."

ATE Central "With an emphasis on two-year colleges, the National Science Foundation's ATE (Advanced Technological Education) program focuses on the education of technicians for the high-technology fields that drive our nation's economy."

Open Access Databases: English & Communication

  • American Archive of Public Broadcasting
    "The Library of Congress and WGBH in Boston have embarked on a project to preserve for posterity the most significant public television and radio programs of the past 60 years: The American Archive of Public Broadcasting. The American people have made a huge investment in public radio and television over many decades, calculated at more than $10 billion. The American Archive will ensure that this rich source for American political, social, and cultural history and creativity will be saved and made available once again to future generations."
  • Annenberg Media
    Free streaming video series on most subjects for use by individuals or instructors.
  • Antarctic Digital Database [Antarctic Digital Database]
    "The SCAR Antarctic Digital Database (ADD) is a seamless compilation of topographic data for the continent of Antarctica to 60°S" (LOADB)
  • Atlas of North American English Mietoption
    For the study of phonetics, phonology and sound change.
  • Bartleby.com: Great Books
    Reference and classics, including all 70 volumes of the Harvard Classics
  • Bartlett's Familiar Quotations
    This tenth edition (1919) contains over 11,000 searchable quotations.
  • Directory of Poets & Writers
    "P&W's Directory of Poets and Writers lists names, addresses, and publication credits for over 10,000 contemporary authors. The Directory is a must for writers interested in connecting with their peers. It's also a great resource for editors, agents, and reading series coordinators."
  • Early English Books (EEB-TCP)
    These 25,000 (plus a few hundred) texts are freely available to anyone wishing to use them. They are licensed under the Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication (CC0 1.0 Universal), which will be indicated in the header of each text. They have been transcribed by hand by the Text Creation Partnership.
  • English Language and Literature Commons
    Over 25,000 scholarly open access articles available for download.
  • Hathi Trust
    Search over 5 million digitized titles.
  • Internet Classics Archive
    "Select from a list of 441 works of classical literature by 59 different authors, including user-driven commentary and "reader's choice" Web sites. Mainly Greco-Roman works (some Chinese and Persian), all in English translation."
  • JURN
    A curated academic search-engine, indexing 4,348 free ejournals in the arts, the humatie, business, law, science, and medicine. Search or use the directory to access individual titles.
  • Mass Communication Commons
    Almost 20,000 scholarly open access articles on various aspects of mass communication.
  • MERLOT
    "MERLOT is a curated collection of free and open online teaching, learning, and faculty development services contributed and used by an international education community."
  • Moonlit road
    Tales of the American South
  • Open Access eBooks on JSTOR
    "The ebooks, which reflect JSTOR
  • Perseus Digital Library Collections
    Created and maintained by Tufts University, the Perseus Digital Library includes an Art & Archaeology Artifact Browser and an extensive Greek and Roman Materials Collection.
  • Project Gutenberg
    Thousands of free ebooks from the original ebook project.
  • Speech and Rhetorical Studies Commons
    Almost 2,000 scholarly open access articles on various aspects of speech studies.
  • Springer Open
    "SpringerOpen, launched in June 2010, includes Springer’s portfolio of 200+ peer-reviewed fully open access journals across all areas of science."
  • University of Virginia Hypertexts
    Books, maps, exhibits, and more
  • Varieties of English
    "The Handbook of Varieties of English (editors: Bernd Kortmann and Edgar W. Schneider) consists of two parts: Volume 1: Phonology and Volume 2: Morphology and Syntax. Descriptive survey articles authored by widely acclaimed specialists in the field cover all main national standard varieties, distinctive regional, ethnic, and social varieties, and major contact varieties of English, as well as major ESL varieties. The articles share a common core, which makes them invaluable research tools for cross-linguistic comparisons. Information on the historical and cultural backgrounds as well as the current sociolinguistic situations in the respective regions is provided, as well as state-of-the-art reports on major issues in current research." (LC)
  • Yale Digital Content
    "Search nearly two million items and half a million images from across Yale's collections." Find Yale online courses, and museum items. Some content subject to copyright -- be sure to check.

Open Access Databses: Speech

  • Atlas of North American English Mietoption
    For the study of phonetics, phonology and sound change.
  • Mass Communication Commons
    Almost 20,000 scholarly open access articles on various aspects of mass communication.
  • Speech and Rhetorical Studies Commons
    Almost 2,000 scholarly open access articles on various aspects of speech studies.
  • Varieties of English
    "The Handbook of Varieties of English (editors: Bernd Kortmann and Edgar W. Schneider) consists of two parts: Volume 1: Phonology and Volume 2: Morphology and Syntax. Descriptive survey articles authored by widely acclaimed specialists in the field cover all main national standard varieties, distinctive regional, ethnic, and social varieties, and major contact varieties of English, as well as major ESL varieties. The articles share a common core, which makes them invaluable research tools for cross-linguistic comparisons. Information on the historical and cultural backgrounds as well as the current sociolinguistic situations in the respective regions is provided, as well as state-of-the-art reports on major issues in current research." (LC)

Open Courses

©2022 Houston Community College Libraries