Open Educational Resources (OER)

Arising from a Budapest meeting of the Open Society Institute, the BOAI is a worldwide initiative to accelerate efforts to make research articles freely available online. According to their declaration, they primarily endorse self-archiving and the proliferation of open access journals as means to expand access to scholarly literature.

A consortium of community and technical colleges committed to expanding access to education and increasing student success through adoption of open educational policy, practices, and resources. Among their activities are webinars to support professional development regarding OER. They are a project of Open Education Global (see below).

MERLOT is an online repository and international consortium of institutions of higher education, industry partners, professional organizations and individuals. MERLOT identifies, peer reviews, organizes, and makes available existing online learning resources in a range of academic disciplines for use by higher education faculty and students. The University of North Dakota has partnered with MERLOT since 2008.

Formally known as the Open Education Consortium, OE Global is an international non-profit network with the goal of expanding educational access, innovating pedagogy, and improving student outcomes. OE Global promotes open education tools and practices beyond OER, including open science and massive open online courses.

An interdisciplinary research group that (1) conducts original research on the impact of OER adoption on educational outcomes and (2) designs and shares frameworks for studying the effects of OER adoption. Their site includes not only their publications but also a tool for measuring the impact of OERs and instructive examples of open pedagogy.

Located within the Institute of Educational Technology at the UK's Open University and funded by the Hewlett Foundation, OER Hub studies the impact of OERs. Although less active nowadays, their prior publications and presentations can be found on their website.

A not-for-profit publisher operating from Birkbeck College, University of London that currently rleases 28 open-access journals in the humanities. Funding from an international library consortium replaces author-facing publishing fees.

Formerly the Open Textbook Network, OTN strives to make open education the default for higher education. They maintain the Open Textbook Library, a collection of peer-reviewed academic textbooks, and boast a community of like-minded people. You can also find professional development programs and workshops through their website.

SPARC, the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, is a non-profit organization that advocates for the design of open and equitable educational systems. SPARC's activities include supporting policies at the local, national, and international level and providing insights to members.