Looking for OER? Try SmartSearch!
Finding quality OER can be challenging. A google search for "OER environmental science" will yield thousands of results, most of them requiring additional searches rather than immediate access to a resource. MERLOT's SmartSearch is an easier way to search for OER. Search by topic or field of interest and get results from MERLOT, other OER libraries, and the web. The results are relevant, easy to access, and with MERLOT resources, many are peer-reviewed. This tool makes finding OER for any subject easy and straighforward.
In the Fall of 2019, I received a grant from my college to adopt OER for an environmental science course. I currently teach 4 sections of the course every semester, with an enrollment of around 100 students total. The traditional text I was using costs $140 and students complained about it's usefulness for the price. After considering a switch to a different text, I decided to pursue OER.
I wasn't familiar with any environmental OER so I began to look around. I had used SmartSearch before for resources on a very specific topic, but I had not used it to search for OER for an entire course. I ran the search "environmental science OER" on both SmartSearch and on Google. SmartSearch delivered results that gave me not just a link, but also told me the type of material, the author, and gave me user/editor ratings. It was easy to pick those materials that were open textbooks and were rated highly. I was also able to filter my results by material type, by discipline, or by audience. A Google search provided me with links which I had to click on individually to determine what the resource was and if I could use it. It was more time consuming and yielded fewer quality results than SmartSearch.
- Filter results by resource (OER textbook) and discipline to get the most relevant results
- If a material is not listed in MERLOT but is found in a different OER library, you can add the resource to the MERLOT collection
- Create a collection on MERLOT to save all your OER materials in one place.
- SmartSearch is easy to use - no account needed to access resources
- Filter results by resource type, discipline, audience, etc.
- Top rated resources appear first - visible as editor/user reviews
- Many materials are peer reviewed for quality and ease of use
- SmartSearch will also search other OER libraries and the web for additional resources