Open Educational Content/olcos/Tutorial1 Use Open Content/Searching ODEC with Search Engines

Search engines belong to the web like the mother to the child. Without search engines and their indexing efforts, the web would be a pure chaos for its users. First of all, searching for ODEC is not magic. You can use the same methods and techniques like you use for a general search. Just enter one or more keywords or even better a phrase into the search box of your favorite search engine and get the results presented.

Attention: Before using the content you have found check if it uses an ODEC license and how you can reuse the material.

Assignment

Give it a try and return to this page.

If you have found many resources without clear information regarding copyright it is likely that you cannot use these resources. However, checking every single resource or document in terms of its license and reuse restrictions is very time-consuming. Therefore it makes sense to use search tools that make it easier to locate Creative Commons licensed content anywhere on the Web. Besides the general search facility that search engines offer, some of them allow to search specifically for Open Content. The next part of this tutorial will introduce these search engines. It will show you how to use them to find content that you can reuse for your purposes.

Web Resources

Directory of Search Engines

Search Engine Math

Search Feature Charts

List of Search Engine Tutorials