Help With Searching

Enter a query

You can perform a simple search by putting in Keywords into the Search box. Any word or words that are included in the description about an OER item is searched. After seeing the results, you can click on "filter results" to refine the search by a wide range of criteria.

Craft your Advanced Search

You can perform an Advanced Search for any word or words and can refine the search in advance by a wide range of criteria common to OER. Adding Keywords is required and choosing additional criteria is optional.

After seeing the results, users can click on "filter results" to refine the search further.

Do a Quick Search of My Portfolio

When you are within your My Portfolio area, you may do a Quick Search using the Quick Search box that appears in the left-hand column. Entering keywords into this box creates a search only for items in My Portfolio.

Search by Institution or Collection

Search for those OER developed by a specific institution by using the specific collection name. To search by collection name, enter the collection name in the Keyword search. Go to browse the list of Content Providers' collections.

Searching and Metadata

OER Commons is built on a collection of metadata. This means we structure descriptive terms that allow searching and finding a resource. An OER item is required to have a Title, Subject Area, Institution and Collection name, URL, Abstract or summary, Grade Level, and Keywords, to be included in and pointed to by the OER Commons search and browse system.

OER become easier to find and use when this basic set of descriptive terms is enriched and enhanced by additional metadata. OER Commons encourages the use of additional metadata fields by its Content Providers, including Conditions of Use, Author, Date, Regional Relevance, Notable Hardware, Software, or Network Requirements, Media Formats, and Available Material Types, which describes the components of a course or other resource.

In addition to this data coming from the Content Provider, OER Commons encourages you, the user, to add searchable metadata, such as Tags, which creates your own keyword vocabulary, your Ratings, Reviews, and annotations to OER items. Through use and shared use, OER become enhanced, and therefore, more useful to more people.

While there are competing metadata standards and protocols in the wider web and educational landscapes, we have built on existing standards with metadata fields that are largely translatable to other standards, such as Dublin Core. Currently, we import metadata in two XML formats and CSV format.

To learn more about metadata or becoming a Content Provider, email us.