Many faculty members of Penn State's College of Earth and Mineral Sciences create digital educational resources for use by students in Penn State courses. Faculty participants in the college's Open Educational Resources (OER) initiative have contributed their work on the OER site voluntarily for use by teachers and learners around the world who can't afford to enroll in formal classes, or who don't need to earn academic credit. The OER initiative was launched by the college in 2007.
The courses — covering topics ranging from mapping to energy policy to oceanography to astronomy to global warming — were developed by the John A. Dutton e-Education Institute, the learning design unit for EMS.
Through the Open Educational Resources website, you can access nearly all online courses developed by the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences in their entirety. OER courses do not provide access to quizzes, assignment submission or instructor feedback. To gain access to Penn State faculty and earn academic credit, you need to register for classes.
If you're a currently enrolled student, you can find out more about what you might learn about in an online EMS course. If you're not a student, you can browse our online courses to learn more about a range of science and engineering topics related to the Earth, energy, and materials.
We have made our content available for non-commercial re-use as well under a Creative Commons license.
Visit the Open Educational Resources website to learn more.
