Open Educational Resources (OER)
This page contains language learning and teaching resources explicitly labelled as OER, made available under open licences that allow reuse for educational purposes, and repositories and directories of OER.
Directories are databases of links to OER
COERLL: Centre for Open Educational Resources for Language Learning. A directory of OER in a range of European and non-European languages, including American Sign Language, Hindi, Arabic, and Japanese. Hosted by the University of Texas at Austin, in the USA.
MIT Open Courseware. The progenitor of the Open Courseware movement, MIT allows you to find and download course materials. Languages supported: Chinese, English, French, German, Japanese, Portuguese and Spanish.
Openlearn. This is a groundbreaking and innovative project from the UK Open University. It's a full learning environment where you can access all OU course materials, build your own learning programme by mixing modules, and get actively involved in learner fora and clubs. There's even a videoconferencing tool so that you can talk to other students. The Languages section has Chinese, English, Gaelic, Welsh, French, Italian, German and Spanish. Openlearn is far more than an open courseware repository, and is far and away the best open courseware site in UK Higher Education. Highly recommended.
Online language courses. Structured language courses delivered as Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), taught by academics at respected higher education institutions. Registration is free and open to all. Part of a larger online courses site delivering courses across a wide range of subject areas. The site is designed to be mobile-friendly, but that may not be the case with all the courses it lists.
OER repositories contain downloadable resources
Languages Box. A contributory repository of OER languages resources, hosted at the University of Southampton, UK. Resources include documents, presentations, quizzes and websites. You can create an account to contribute your resources to the repository.
LORO: Languages Open Resources Online. A large, contributory repository of language resources for teaching and learning, run by the Open University, which includes OU course materials. You can register in order to create your own profile, manage your resources, bookmark and save your searches.
Links on this page last checked: 25/12/12
Page last modified: March 19 2013