The Open Access Directory (OAD) is a compendium of simple factual lists about open access (OA) to science and scholarship, maintained by the OA community at large. By bringing many OA-related lists together in one place, OAD makes it easier for everyone to discover them, use them for reference, and update them. The easier they are to maintain and discover, the more effectively they can spread useful, accurate information about OA.
Many Flickr users have chosen to offer their work under a Creative Commons license, and you can browse or search through content under each type of license.
A collective of institutions that have uploaded publicly held photography collections. Images found in Flickr Commons site have “No Known Copyright Restrictions."
You can limit your results to creative commons by selecting "labeled for reuse" under usage rights.
A media file repository making available public domain and freely-licensed educational media content, including images, sounds and videos.
New York Public Library Digital Gallery
Provides free and open access to over 800,000 images digitized from the The New York Public Library's vast collections, including illuminated manuscripts, historical maps, vintage posters, rare prints, photographs and more.
An open-access database of image collections shared by institutional users of Shared Shelf.
Providing access to the visual collections of the Wellcome Library, which documents "2000 years of human culture" with a focus on biomedical imagery. Most images are open access, with others available for paid licensing.
Artstor Images for Academic Publishing (IAP)
The Images for Academic Publishing (IAP) program makes available publication-quality images for use in scholarly publications free of charge.
The Getty makes available, without charge, all available digital images to which the Getty holds the rights or that are in the public domain to be used for any purpose. No permission is required.
With so many published papers now freely available through repositories and preprint servers, it's only natural that a new service has emerged: the free version detector. With one click, search the world for free versions of published research.
These sites are good places to start looking for works in the public domain; however, you should always check copyright notices for the specific work before using it.
General/Multimedia
Sound
Historical Resources
Government Resources
Ted: Inspiring thinkers on a range of subjects present big ideas and lectures on a regular basis- completely CC licensed.
Khan Academy: hundreds of short educational videos covering many subjects; especially strong collections in science and math.
PhET Science Simulations: These interactive tools from the University of Colorado at Boulder are mostly CC licensed.
Wikimedia Commons: The thinkers behind Wikipedia bring you images, video, and music all openly licensed or in the public domain.
HippoCampus: HippoCampus, a project of the Monterey Institute of Technology and Education (MITE), is full of high-quality resources in a variety of subjects. It is aimed at high school and college level users.
Vimeo: A social network of video producers. This is a great place to look for a wide variety of content- some is completely open for redistribution, some is open access.
Critical Commons: A community of people who seek to promote the use of media in teaching. The materials posted here are mostly presented using Fair Use guidelines.
Questions or suggestions?
Interested in learning about other "open" movements such as open data, open source, open hardware, open content, open education, open educational resources, open government, open knowledge, open access, open science, or the open web?
Looking for suggestions for a replacement textbook for your course? Need help finding materials?
Contact a Librarian
Contact the Center for Academic Technology for assistance integrating OERs into your Brightspace Course Modules.