Open Educational Resources | Avila University

Hooley-Bundschu Library and Learning Commons

Free/Open Online Collections

Ebooks can be a great way to way to add OER content to your class. Avila has several different ebook subscriptions, each with their own licensing restrictions and service models. In addition, many ebook providers grant free / open access to ebook collections. Below is a guide to Avila’s ebook subscriptions and free/ open online ebook collections.

What are Open Educational Resources (OER)?

Open Educational Resources (OERs) are any type of educational materials that are in the public domain or introduced with an open license. The nature of these open materials means that anyone can legally and freely copy, use, adapt and re-share them.

“OER are teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use and re-purposing by others. Open educational resources include full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks, streaming videos, tests, software, and any other tools, materials, or techniques used to support access to knowledge.” [Casserly, Cathy, and Education. “Open Educational Resources.” Hewlett Foundation, 3 Aug. 2016, hewlett.org/strategy/open-educational-resources/]

OER are typically created using the same tools as anything else – word processors, graphic editor programs, etc. No special new skills or tools are necessarily to create OER beyond what you already have been using to create course content or activities. Anything that you create in a course could become an OER: text, articles, books, graphics, videos, activities, assignments, assessments, games, etc.

How to get started with OER at Avila University

The first step is finding OER, and that is what this guide is designed to do, so check out the three following OER sections:

The Open Educational Resources Introduction section… explains the “who, what, when, where, why, and how” of OER so you can better understand and customize OER for your courses.
The Discipline Specific OER section…will help you find content specific to a discipline of study.
The Open Textbook Network section… will link you to collections of open and free textbooks that can be customized for your courses.
The EBooks section…will link you to eBook resources that provide OER and Avila ebook content, and also offer tips for finding, displaying, and using eBooks.

SPECIAL NOTE: This OER website is specifically designed to introduce OER to the Avila University community, but don’t forget about the online/electronic resources available to you through Avila’s Hooley-Bundschu Learning Commons. The Learning Commons holds licensed journals, databases, and an increasing number of eBooks (over 500,000). These resources may be accessed through the Learning Commons website by Avila University students, faculty, and staff with a valid Avila username and password). These resources cannot be customized or re-used in the same way as OER because of copyright restrictions; these eResources are not “open”, but are ready and freely available for Avila students, faculty, and staff.

Updates and Content Submission
This OER website is continuously being updated. The quality of resources collected here will be a function of feedback submitted by students and faculty. Found an OER that is not listed in these pages? We would love to hear about it. Send the link / comments to thomas.pfeifer@avila.edu.

License
All original content on this page is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. It is not necessary to seek permission to reuse the content, although – per the terms of the license – attribution is required.

Attributions
This guide contains materials derived from multiple works: “Faculty Guide to Open Educational Resources (OER)” by Highline College licensed under CC BY 4.0 ; “Austin Community College (ACC) Library Services Guide on Open Educational Resources” by Carrie Gits licensed under CC BY 4.0 ; and “OER – Open Educational Resources” by Portland Community College Library licensed under CC BY-NC 3.0.

Some content from University of Oklahoma Libraries.
All linked-to content adheres to its respective license.

Why use Open Educational Resources?

Why OER?
According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, 7 in 10 students will not purchase a textbook because it was too expensive; textbooks and learning materials cost students approximately $1,200 to $1500 per year [1]. Through Open Educational Resources (OER), the cost of student materials can be drastically reduced. In addition, OER gives instructors the ability to customize textbook materials, thus creating an effective textbook. OER also relieves instructors of being bound to traditional, expensive print resources. It is the ever-increasing cost of textbooks and materials for students that is now pushing the OER movement forward.

One in five college students has skipped or deferred a class due to the price of the required learning resources.
The cost of textbooks is rising at a rate of 4 times inflation
60% of students have delayed purchasing textbooks until they’ve received their financial aid.

Through OERs the cost of student materials can be drastically reduced

OERs give faculty the ability to customize course materials, creating the “perfect” course packet or textbook instead of being bound to a traditional one-size-fits-all model. Customization gives faculty control over the quality of their course materials as well as the type and timing of updates to textbooks and other resources. Customization also allows faculty to infuse course materials with pedagogy that reflects the mission of “preparing leaders for the transformation of society”. Some faculty also enjoy the opportunity to include upper-level students in the creation of course materials. OERs also allow required textbooks or materials to be available to all students from the very first day of class or beforehand.

This OER website is specifically designed to introduce Open Educational Resources to the Avila University community. The main emphasis in the OER initiative at Avila is to make learning content more cost-effective, discoverable, and accessible for students, faculty, and staff. The OER initiative at Avila looks to improve faculty teaching and student learning while building a learning environment unique to Avila.

Redden, Molly. “7 In 10 Students Have Skipped Buying a Textbook Because of Its Cost.” Chronicle.com, The Chronicle of Higher Education, 23 Aug. 2011, www.chronicle.com/article/7-in-10-Students-Have-Skipped/128785.

“Some Content from University of Oklahoma Libraries.”
All linked-to content adheres to its respective license.

The difference between Open Educational Resources and library resources that are licensed.

There is a Difference Between Open-Educational Resources and Library Resources

Beyond Open Educational Resources, there are library/licensed educational materials. Faculty could consider filling in some of the instructional-resource gaps by using library resources, such as e-books and online database articles.

Licensed e-books, online magazines & journals, streaming media, and other online resources available through the Avila University Learning Commons subscriptions are not considered Open Educational Resources.

These e-books and online database resources are restricted to Avila students, faculty, and staff, and they are already-licensed materials that do not allow for customization and re-use or redistribution the same way as Open Educational Resources. Although library online resources are not “open”, they are considered “alternative educational resources” (AER) that you can take advantage of and make available at no cost to your students. Library resources are also sometimes referred to as LER, which stands for licensed/library educational resources.

AER = alternative educational resources
LER = licensed/library educational resources
OER = open educational resources

Video: Library Resources as Course Materials Results in Students Saving Money

“Some Content from University of Oklahoma Libraries.”
All linked-to content adheres to its respective license.

Using Open Educational Resources in Canvas.

How to use the Open Attribution Builder tool in Canvas

On all the rich content boxes in our Canvas courses, we have access to an “Open Attribution Builder,” located in the drop-down menu under the blue “V” icon along with the content box editor. This makes it really easy to:

Cite yourself by inserting a CC-license attribution for single pages or modules in Canvas

Plus it’s a way to easily cite content from others, like YouTube videos or CC-licensed images from Flickr or Pixabay, that you have integrated into your course.

Here’s a 2-minute video with basic guidelines on how to use the “Open Attribution Builder” to license open materials you create or use in Canvas:

Video source: “Using the Open Attribution Builder to License Canvas Content” by Matthew Bloom, Standard YouTube license

Text source: Adapted from “Sample CC license attribution statements to use on LS documents and course pages” by Jennifer Snoek-Brown, Tacoma Community College, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

How to openly license your courses in Canvas
By default, the courses we create in Canvas retain traditional, private copyright. But you can change that default setting to make your courses in Canvas openly licensed. This way, you are also contributing your own OER!

Below are condensed instructions for how to set a Creative Commons license for your courses in Canvas. You can read more in this Canvas Guide about the types of available content licenses, and more instructions and screenshots about setting a CC license for a course in this Canvas Guide.

Open up your course and go to Settings. The “Course Details” tab should be the default Settings page.
Scroll down to the License drop-down menu and select a license option, as seen in the screenshot below:

Be sure to click the “Update Course Details” button at the bottom of this page, or your changes won’t save!
Doublecheck your course’s home page. Once you have updated your course details, go back to your course’s home page. You should now see the relevant CC license statement automatically added to the bottom of the home page. Here’s a sample below:
Be sure to click the “Update Course Details” button at the bottom of this page, or your changes won’t save!
Doublecheck your course’s home page. Once you have updated your course details, go back to your course’s home page. You should now see the relevant CC license statement automatically added to the bottom of the home page.

Why Open Educational Resources are important in higher education.

Why are OER important? Cost Savings.
For students already struggling to afford rising tuition and housing costs, the additional expense of textbooks can be a hurdle to accessing higher education. In a study conducted by Florida Virtual Campus in 2012, 65% of respondents indicated that they did not purchase textbooks at one point in their schooling due to cost. The same survey also indicated that 35% of students reduced their semester course load due to textbook costs and that 23% of students regularly forego purchasing textbooks due to cost alone. According to a Consumer Study conducted by NBC in 2015, from January 1977 to June 2015 textbook prices within the United States have risen 1,041%; this amount has risen over three times the rate of U.S. inflation.

While there are many short-term measures that students can use to save money on textbooks, such as buying or borrowing used materials, rental programs, or using e-textbooks and library reserves, none of these options are as innovative as OER. Open educational resources, like open textbooks, can decrease the cost of education because they are either free or low cost. Lower costs will result in students being less dependent on student loans and may even result in higher program completion rates. Greater open textbook adoption will therefore result in a more affordable, more accessible post-secondary education.

Because their license allows OER to be retained and reused, OER can also be accessed repeatedly throughout one’s degree, unlike online textbooks (or e-books) and course materials that require expensive access codes that expire when a course is finished. OER can therefore be used to enhance future projects or assignments or serve as supplementary reading later in one’s degree or post-graduation, promoting low-cost, lifelong learning that is not confined to the span of a course.

OER cost savings in action:

Why are OER important? Pedagogical Benefits.
The many cost-saving benefits of OER are matched by the equally important pedagogical benefits of open education.

One of the main teaching benefits is that, since open materials are fully revisable and remixable, they can be customized to fit the way an instructor wants to teach a course. When using static traditional resources that cannot be easily edited or combined due to copyright restrictions, instructors may be forced to teach their courses in a way that conforms to available resources, rather than teach the course in their ideal way. Using OER allows the freedom to revise material by removing irrelevant content or adding one’s own content, as well as the flexibility to combine parts of resources together, thereby ensuring materials are contextualized to a specific course.

Because anyone, including students, can be involved in the creation, revision, and distribution of OER, instructors can also use these resources to engage in “open pedagogy,” assignments that leverage OER to create more meaningful learning experiences. Traditionally, students work hard on assignments that will be handed to their instructor, graded, and then never seen again. Instead, instructors might, for example, ask students to edit OER for redistribution or have students openly license their own work for use by future students, thereby allowing their work to be shared with a more meaningful audience. This positions students as active participants in scholarly knowledge-sharing.

Open pedagogy in action:

Why are OER important? Knowledge Creation and Dissemination.
OER also provides benefits to members of communities beyond college and university campuses, allowing for knowledge creation and sharing outside the bounds of the traditional class and campus settings. It can be difficult for that outside of scholarly communities to access and participate in learning materials or research, and the creation of openly licensed research and teaching materials helps break down such barriers. This allows broader access to information and research, and broader participation in scholarship, helping universities to spread their core missions to society as a whole.

Open knowledge in action:

A UBC video game law course invited members of the outside community to join in course discussions through an open course website

What are the Main Barriers to Adopting OER?
Research has shown there are many barriers to faculty and instructors adopting open educational resources. These include a mixture of true barriers and barriers caused by faculty perceptions of OER and open pedagogy. Students should keep the following list of barriers in mind when starting their own advocacy for OER; suggestions in Steps Two and Three of this toolkit attempt to address them.

Not available or difficult to find. Faculty who are new to OER perceive knowing where to find relevant course materials, as well as the time involved in finding them, as barriers to adoption. It is thus important that institutions provide staff and library support for the adoption process, as well as incentives for faculty to spend extra time adopting OER.

Perception of quality. Faculty are used to using traditionally published resources and may be hesitant to adopt OER when they don’t know if they can trust their quality. However, those who have used OER often report their quality as equal to or better than traditional resources. The pedagogical benefits that come with the flexibility of OER should be emphasized in messaging to faculty, as these can contribute to improved perception.
Traditional textbook package. Traditional textbooks often come with not just a book, but also with ancillary resources like online homework platforms or banks of exam questions. Faculty will be more likely to adopt OER if, in doing so, they can adopt both a textbook and a package of related materials.
Institutional culture. Faculty may be reluctant to adopt OER if they perceive that they are alone in doing so, or that they are acting against the culture of their institution. Student advocacy should target not just faculty, but also university administrations who set strategic priorities and make decisions about what initiatives to fund. Showing broad support from the student body can also help to shift institutional culture.
Not an individual decision. Often, the choice of which textbook to use in large courses is made by departments, not individual faculty members. This makes it more difficult for faculty to choose to adopt OER, because of competing interests and values of instructors. Working with faculty champions to speak to those instructors who may be reluctant to adopt OER can be successful to ensure widespread support. This can be effective in leveraging the support of instructors who are willing to do the work behind adoption.

Updates and Content Submission
This OER website is continuously being updated. The quality of resources collected here is a function of feedback submitted by students and faculty. Found an OER that is not listed in these pages? We would love to hear about it. Link to it in a comment or send it to Larry.kramer@avila.edu.

License
Step One: What Are OER, Why Are They Important, and What are the Barriers to Adoption? by BCcampus is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

Open Educational Resources, the Creative Commons, and Copyright.

The difference between OER and typical resources are the permissions that you assign to the works you create.
One popular way to look at these permissions is the 5R Open Course Design Framework by Lumen Learning:

Retain: Other people have permission to make, own, and control copies of your resource.
Reuse: Other people can use your resource in a wide range of ways (like in a class, a website, a video, etc.).
Revise: Other people can adapt, adjust, modify, or alter your resource itself (for example, translating it into another language).
Remix: Other people can combine your original or revised resource with other materials to create something new.
Redistribute: Other people can share copies of your original resources, their revisions, or their remixes with others.

Of course, many people can already do this with many resources online. The difference with OER is that you give permission to do these through a specific open license.

Open Licensing
Most people are familiar with copyright, although probably not the details of copyright law. The main point of copyright is to protect the usage and distribution of original works of authorship, usually in favor of the creator of the work. Anything under copyright is designated as “all rights reserved.”

On the other end of the spectrum is public domain, where either the owner has released all rights, or the rights have expired. This is typically referred to as “no rights reserved.” Different countries, and even different states within various countries, will have varying copyright laws that address rights and public domain.

Between these two options resides the bulk of open licensing that is often referred to as “some rights reserved.” One of the most popular ways to license these works is through a Creative Commons (CC) license. These are a set of licenses that designate how you would like your work to be attributed, shared, and used (or not used) for commercial purposes. CC licenses are open, free to use, and popular with millions around the world. Also, it is important to note that CC works in parallel with copyright – you can still retain copyright while using CC.

Utilizing a CC license can help get your work out to more people. A brief review of the different CC licenses:

Attribution (CC BY): Other people can distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon your work (commercially or non-commercially), as long as they give you credit for your original work.
Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY SA): Others people can remix, tweak, and build upon your work (commercially or non-commercially), as long as they give you credit and license their new work under the same terms.
Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY NC): Other people can remix, tweak, and build upon your work (non-commercially). Their new work must also credit you and be non-commercial, but they don’t have to license their derivative works the same way you did.
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY NC SA): Other people can remix, tweak, and build upon your work (non-commercially) – as long as they give you credit and license their new work under the same terms.
Attribution-NoDerivatives (CC-BY ND): Others can share your work – commercially and non-commercially – as long as your work is credited to you and shared complete and unchanged.
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs (CC BY NC ND): Others can download your work and share with others as long as they give you credit, don’t change your work in any way, or use your work commercially.

What is the Creative Commons?

Keep in mind that licensing does not just apply to text content. Images, videos, animations, and other creative works can also be offered through an open license. With all forms of media – especially video content – just remember to keep track of everything you use when creating the media. Not everything you use may be free to include in an open license. For example, if you use a famous song for background music in your videos, you won’t be able to release those videos as OER. Keep this is mind with graphics, music, sound effects, and other parts you utilize when creating video or media. There are vast libraries of license-free media that you can use if needed – just search for the type of license-free media you need. You may have to look at multiple websites to find exactly what you are looking for.

“Some Content from University of Oklahoma Libraries.”
All linked-to content adheres to its respective license.

Open Educational Resources and Open Pedagogy.

What is Open Pedagogy?
Open pedagogy “rethink[s] the relationship between teachers, students, and knowledge where teachers and students become learners together, and “content” becomes a dynamic, always changing category with which we engage rather than a stable set of facts to be mastered.”

Ross, Heather M. “April Open Perspective: What is Open Pedagogy?” 2017 Open Perspectives. Year of Open. https://www.yearofopen.org/april-open-perspective-what-is-open-pedagogy/

Examples of open pedagogy
How do I teach in the open?

Examples of and issues about open pedagogy. From University of British Columbia
What is Open Pedagogy?

In-depth blog post by David Wiley that explores open pedagogy
Renewable assignments: Student work adding value to the world

Christina Hendricks, University of British Columbia. Outlines different types of renewable assignments, as well as examples.
Examples of Open Pedagogy work at TCC

Updates and Content Submission
This OER website is continuously being updated. The quality of resources collected here will be a function of feedback submitted by students and faculty. Found an OER that is not listed in these pages? We would love to hear about it. Link to it in a comment or send it to Larry.kramer@avila.edu.

“Some Content from University of Oklahoma Libraries.”
“Some Content from Concordia University Library, Portland,Oregon.”
All linked-to content adheres to its respective license.

Open Educational Resources Video Links.

Open Educational Resource Videos & Films
This guide suggests resources or ways to find openly licensed or public domain resources for your teaching and learning.

TED and TED-ED

Provides access to videos from expert speakers on a wide range of topics. TED talks are available under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-Non Derivative license. The TED-ED portion of TED aims at educators and students. Note that TED-ED videos on YouTube are available under YouTube policy. For more, refer to the TED talk usage policy.

YouTube

An online video community that allows users to discover, watch, and share originally-created videos. YouTube allows users to mark their videos with a Creative Commons Attribution license. To find YouTube videos with such a license, after typing your search query in the search box, click the “Filters” drop-down menu and select “Creative Commons”.

Using YouTube “Creative Commons” Videos

Vimeo

A social platform for sharing videos. Vimeo permits the upload of videos licensed with Creative Commons. To limit search results to only show items with Creative Commons licenses, on the main search results page, look for “+ more filters” on the left. Then under “License”, select “CC0” or other desired licenses.

Khan Academy

Provides video lessons mostly in mathematics and science topics. Also offers lessons in the humanities and economics. Khan Academy videos are licensed under the MIT license: http://opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.php. Most videos are under a Creative Commons Attribution license. Users need to set up a personal login and password.

OER Commons

A comprehensive source of Open Educational Resources for K-12 and college-level programs under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license. Includes videos, lesson guides, sound files, and online tutorials from around the world.

Internet Archive: Moving Image Archive

Contains various types of digital moving images, such as fiction and documentary films, advertisements, news footage, television programs, etc. Select those with a Creative Commons license for reuse (Tips to search for different license types).

Internet Archive: Feature Films

Contains feature films, shorts, silent films, and trailers. Select those with a Creative Commons license for reuse (Tips to search for different license types).

Internet Archive: Prelinger Archives

Contains thousands of films from the Prelinger Archives! Prelinger Archives was founded in 1983 by Rick Prelinger in New York City. Select those with a Creative Commons license for reuse (Tips to search for different license types).

The Public Domain Project

Download thousands of historic media files for your creative projects. Completely free & made available by Pond5

“Content from University of Oklahoma Libraries.”
All linked-to content adheres to its respective license.

Discipline-Specific Open Educational Resources

About: In the discipline-specific OER links below, you will find a large collection of credible, often used open educational resources. The links in the subject-dedicated web pages feature textbooks, supplemental materials, and video lectures. Each resource is introduced by a short paragraph that lists what one can expect to find in that particular resource, its developers, and their university affiliations, in addition to the usage terms associated with the content. All of the content featured on these pages is free to use, but usage rights vary. Most content found within these pages is released under a Creative Commons license. Some content is in the public domain, and fewer still are under full copyright but can be linked to or used free of charge.
Use: This collection is intended to be used to help alleviate the high textbook prices incurred by students, faculty, and staff at Avila University and also at other educational institutions. Hopefully, users will feel free to adopt these resources or leave constructive comments about the resources found on these pages. Comments from students and faculty alike will be thoughtfully considered and used to guide the future development of this collection. If you need additional content or are not finding what you need in the provided links, please contact thomas.pfeifer@avila.edu or call 816.501.2912 for additional help with open resources.

General Open Educational Resource Collections:

OER Commons

The OER Commons was developed to serve educators in discovering, creating, and collaborating around the use, evaluation, and improvement of open educational resources. Not only can OER Commons help during the hunt for OER, but it can also serve as a place to create resources. The OER Commons open author tool allows users to combine text, images, audio, and video files into their own customized resource as well as create brand new resources from scratch. Recommended for the Business, Education, History, Life Sciences, Psychology, and Sociology subject areas.

MOBIUS on OER Commons

Avila University is a member of MOBIUS, a library consortium. MOBIUS maintains an OER Commons hub. You can find open resources relevant to Avila and our partner libraries here.

OpenStax (formerly Connexions)

Connexions is an educational content repository and a content management system that can be used to search for and remix learning modules. The modular nature of Connexions makes remixing or downloading specific pieces of content a seamless task. Because content can be submitted by anyone, Connexions features what it calls lenses which provide a mechanism for viewing vetted and endorsed contents. Lenses act as a preliminary quality control measure. This site is not recommended for any specific subject areas, although it is recommended for the OpenStax Textbooks.

Merlot

Merlot is a web-based repository of educational material that is free, open, and peer reviewed. Merlot makes searching for resources easy, as it provides a link to the original content, a description of it, and all associated information such as its intended audience as well as its usage permissions. Merlot also features tools for combining content found within its repository. Recommended for the Business, Education, Music, Political Science and Sociology subject areas.

Saylor

Saylor is a modular repository of open educational resources. Faculty at Saylor compile open educational material from across the web into courses that are modeled after those taught in universities. Saylor’s search feature is a quick way to highlight resources that contain a specific topic. Recommended for the Art History, Business, Engineering, History, Political Science and Psychology subject areas.

Updates and Content Submission

This OER website is continuously being updated. The quality of resources collected here is a function of feedback submitted by students and faculty. Found an OER that is not listed in these pages? We would love to hear about it. Link to it in a comment or send it to thomas.pfeifer@avila.edu.

License

All original content on this page is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. It is not necessary to seek permission to reuse the content, although – per the terms of the license – attribution is required.

Attribution: “Content from University of Oklahoma Libraries.”
All linked-to content adheres to its respective license.

Current OER Programs & Initiatives

Schools across the nation are pushing for the use of OER in their classrooms. Some colleges and universities have implemented OER initiatives or even “Zero Cost” textbook programs. Please take a moment to browse the lists of current schools who have adopted an OER program or initiative.

Many of the listed schools provide open use LibGuides and resources to promote better understanding of OER and provide suggestions for locating, vetting, and utilizing OER in your own classroom.

The following list is not complete, but a good sampling of the schools throughout the nation that are already working to adopt and, in some cases, create OER on their campus

Schools in Missouri and Kansas

University of Missouri – Not only do they have a robust OER initiative on campus, they also work to ensure many university publications are published as OER and work with Project Gutenberg to add to and update their files of any materials in the Public Domain.

The University of Missouri – Kansas City (UMKC)

The University of Kansas

Kansas State University

Washington University

Park University

Southeast Missouri State University

St. Louis Community College (all campuses)

The University of Central Missouri

Schools Across the United States

Rice University – Rice was a pioneer in the field of OER, creating one of the first collections of open textbooks (OpenStax).

Emory University

Rutgers University

The State University of New York (SUNY) – SUNY Geneseo has created Milne Open Textbooks, a catalog of textbooks authored by SUNY faculty, designed for college-level programs, and licensed under an Creative Commons license.

The University of Maryland

Keene State College

The University of New Hampshire

University of Texas – Arlington

All linked-to content adheres to its respective license.

Where to Find More OER

American Institute of Mathematics – Approved Textbooks

CALI – The Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction

DPLA – The Digital Public Library of America

Merlot

Open Course Library

British Columbia OpenEd

Open SUNY

Project Gutenberg

Teaching Commons

Directory of Open Access Books

Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources

NOBA

All linked-to content adheres to its respective license.

OER | Biology

On this webpage you will find OER Biology textbooks along with supplemental materials and a few lecture videos

The purpose of these discipline-specific pages is to display content that might be of interest to faculty who are considering adopting open educational resources for use in their classes. This list of content is by no means exhaustive. The nature of open educational resources is very collaborative and it is in that spirit that we encourage any comments about the content featured on this page or recommendations of content that are not already listed here.

Textbooks

Biology 2e – OpenStax

Biology 2e is designed to cover the scope and sequence requirements of a typical two-semester biology course for science majors. The text provides comprehensive coverage of foundational research and core biology concepts through an evolutionary lens. The book also includes various types of practice and homework questions that help students understand—and apply—key concepts.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Biofundamentals™ -Mike Klymkowsky, Ph.D.

“The text is clear and concise, and the images and tutorials you’ve chosen are excellent. I’ve been blundering about for the last few years trying to adapt the textbooks offered to my (often unfocused) vision of how students could best make sense of biology.” -Matthew W. Brewer, Ph.D., Georgia State University

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

Anatomy and Physiology -OpenStax

Anatomy and Physiology is a dynamic textbook for the yearlong Human Anatomy and Physiology course taught at most two- and four-year colleges and universities to students majoring in nursing and applied health. A&P is 29 chapters of pedagogically effective learning content, organized by body system, and written at an audience-appropriate level. The lucid text, strategically constructed art, inspiring career features, and links to external learning tools address the critical teaching and learning challenges in the course. -OpenStax

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Find more Biology textbooks in these collections
Open Textbook Library The Open Textbook Library is a collection of open textbooks that features reviews written by professors. A project of the University of Minnesota, The Open Textbook Library provides a review rubric for faculty to use when evaluating textbooks and displays them for the benefit of potential adopters.

BC Campus Open Ed The B.C. Open Textbook Project is funded by the BC Ministry of Advanced Education, and BCcampus is tasked with managing it. A goal of the Project is to provide flexible and affordable access to higher education resources in B.C. by making available 40 openly-licensed textbooks. These texts will be available for selection by B.C. faculty, and digital versions of the texts will be free of charge to students. For those who prefer a printed copy, this format will also be available on demand for a low cost. -BC Campus
MERLOT MERLOT is a collection of online resources curated by a community of faculty, staff, and students of higher education. This subset of the MERLOT collection features openly licensed textbooks for use by students and faculty. MERLOT allows its users to rate materials and comment on specific resources.

Supplemental Materials

Encyclopedia of Life

“Our knowledge of the many life-forms on Earth – of animals, plants, fungi, protists and bacteria – is scattered around the world in books, journals, databases, websites, specimen collections, and in the minds of people everywhere. Imagine what it would mean if this information could be gathered together and made available to everyone – anywhere – at a moment’s notice.” -EOL

Biology -Khan Academy

Video lectures covering topics seen in a first year college biology course including cells and cell division, cellular respiration, photosynthesis and immunology to name a few.

The use of Khan Academy and materials is subject to their Creative Commons License and other terms of use.

BioWiki -UC Davis

The BioWiki is a collaborative approach toward biology education where an Open Access textbook environment is constantly being written and re-written by students and faculty members resulting in a free Biology textbook to supplant conventional paper-based books.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Wikimedia Commons

Wikimedia Commons is a media file repository making available public domain and freely-licensed educational media content (images, sound and video clips) to everyone, in their own language. Use the search to find content related to your interest.

Lecture Videos

Introductory Biology -MIT

These lectures from the MIT Biology Department cover the fundamental principles of biochemistry, genetics, molecular biology, and cell biology. Biological function at the molecular level is particularly emphasized and covers the structure and regulation of genes, as well as, the structure and synthesis of proteins, how these molecules are integrated into cells, and how these cells are integrated into multicellular systems and organisms. In addition, each version of the subject has its own distinctive material.

Lecturers:

Prof. Barbara Imperiali, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Biology

Prof. Adam Martin, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Biology

Dr. Divaya Ray, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Biology

Use of the MIT OpenCourseWare site and materials is subject to their Creative Commons License and other terms of use.

License

Attribution: “Content from University of Oklahoma Libraries.”

All linked-to content adheres to its respective license.

OER | Chemistry

On this page you will find OER Chemistry textbooks along with supplemental materials and a few lecture videos.

The purpose of these discipline specific pages is to display content that might be of interest to faculty who are considering adopting open educational resources for use in their classes. This list of content is by no means exhaustive. The nature of open educational resources is very collaborative and it is in that spirit that we encourage any comments about the content featured on this page or recommendations of content that are not already listed here.

Textbooks

Introductory Chemistry -David W. Ball

David W. Ball of Cleveland State University brings his new survey of general chemistry text, Introductory Chemistry. This book is intended for a one-semester introductory or preparatory chemistry course. Throughout the chapters, David presents two features that reinforce the theme of the textbook, that chemistry is everywhere.

Author:

Dr. David W. Ball, Cleveland State University, Chemistry

Introductory Chemistry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License.

General Chemistry -Wikibooks

Wikibooks is for textbooks, annotated texts, instructional guides, and manuals. These materials can be used in a traditional classroom, an accredited or respected institution, a home-school environment, or for self-learning.

Wikibooks are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license.

Virtual Textbook of Organic Chemistry -William Reusch

This virtual textbook allows for visualization of 3D-molecular models while teaching principles of Organic Chemistry.

Author:

William Reusch, Michigan State University, Chemistry

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 License.

Organic Chemistry Wikibook

This text has a complete index. Each entry in its index is denoted with a symbol noting its completeness. It appears to be a mature-developing text. It is full of well composed diagrams and well organized text.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike 3.0 license.

Thermodynamics and Chemistry -Howard Devore

Thermodynamics and Chemistry is designed primarily as a textbook for a one-semester course in classical chemical thermodynamics at the graduate or undergraduate level. It can also serve as a supplementary text and thermodynamics reference source.

Author:

Howard DeVoe, Associate Professor Emeritus, University of Maryland

This text is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Open Textbook Collections

Find more Chemistry textbooks in these collections
Open Textbook Library The Open Textbook Library is a collection of open textbooks that features reviews written by professors. A project of the University of Minnesota, The Open Textbook Library provides a review rubric for faculty to use when evaluating textbooks and displays them for the benefit of potential adopters.

BC Campus Open Ed The B.C. Open Textbook Project is funded by the BC Ministry of Advanced Education, and BCcampus is tasked with managing it. A goal of the Project is to provide flexible and affordable access to higher education resources in B.C. by making available 40 openly-licensed textbooks. These texts will be available for selection by B.C. faculty, and digital versions of the texts will be free of charge to students. For those who prefer a printed copy, this format will also be available on demand for a low cost. -BC Campus
MERLOT MERLOT is a collection of online resources curated by a community of faculty, staff, and students of higher education. This subset of the MERLOT collection features openly licensed textbooks for use by students and faculty. MERLOT allows its users to rate materials and comment on specific resources.

Supplemental Materials

Organic Structure Elucidation -Notre Dame

This online workbook has been developed for senior undergraduate and graduate students learning to solve the structures of organic compounds from spectroscopic data.

Manager:

Bradley D. Smith, University of Notre Dame, Chemistry and Biochemistry

ChemCollective -Carnegie Mellon

The ChemCollective is a collection of virtual labs, scenario-based learning activities, tutorials, and concept tests. Teachers can use our content for pre-labs, for alternatives to textbook homework, and for in-class activities for individuals or teams. Students can review and learn chemistry concepts using our virtual labs, simulations, and tutorials. The ChemCollective is organized by a group of faculty and staff at Carnegie Mellon who are interested in using, assessing, and creating engaging online activities for chemistry education.

Project Director:

Prof. David Yaron, Carnegie Mellon University, Chemistry

The ChemCollective site and its contents are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivitaves 3.0 License.

ChemWiki -UC Davis

The ChemWiki is a collaborative approach toward chemistry education where an Open Access textbook environment is constantly being written and re-written by students and faculty members resulting in a free Chemistry textbook to supplant conventional paper-based books.

Director:

Prof. Delmar S. Larsen, UC Berkeley, College of Biological Sciences

Licensing varies depending on content.

Organic Chemistry I -MIT

The material found at this link is part of an open courseware class at MIT. This resource includes PDFs of selected lecture notes, a complete set of assignments for the lass with solutions and a complete set of exams without solutions.

Instructors:

Dr. Sarah Tabacco, MIT

Prof. Barbara Imperiali, Organic Chemistry, MIT

This material is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike International 4.0 License.

Organic Chemistry I -MIT

This subject deals primarily with the basic principles to understand the structure and reactivity of organic molecules. Emphasis is on substitution and elimination reactions and chemistry of the carbonyl group. The course also provides an introduction to the chemistry of aromatic compounds. This courseware includes a full set of assignments and exams both with solutions.

Instructors:

Dr. Kimberly Berkowski, MIT

Prof. Sarah O’ Connor, MIT.

This material is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike International 4.0 License.

Synthetic Organic Chemistry II -MIT

This course focuses on general methods and strategies for the synthesis of complex organic molecules. Emphasis is on strategies for stereoselective synthesis, including stereocontrolled synthesis of complex acyclic compounds. This courseware includes an entire set of lecture notes.

Instructor:

Prof. Rick Danheiser, MIT

This material is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike International 4.0 License.

Lecture Videos

Principles of Chemical Science – MIT

This course provides an introduction to the chemistry of biological, inorganic, and organic molecules. The emphasis is on basic principles of atomic and molecular electronic structure, thermodynamics, acid-base and redox equilibria, chemical kinetics, and catalysis.

Instructors:

Prof. Christopher Cummins, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Chemistry

Prof. Sylvia Ceyer, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Chemistry

This material is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike International 4.0 License.

License

Attribution: “Content from University of Oklahoma Libraries.”

All linked-to content adheres to its respective license.

OER | Computer Science

On this page you will find OER Computer Science textbooks along with supplemental materials and a few lecture videos.

The purpose of these discipline specific pages is to display content that might be of interest to faculty who are considering adopting open educational resources for use in their classes. The nature of open educational resources is very collaborative and it is in that spirit that we encourage any comments about the content featured on this page or recommendations of content that are not already listed here.

Textbooks

Think OS: A Brief Introduction to Operating Systems – Allen B. Downey

In many computer science programs, Operating Systems is an advanced topic. By the time students take it, they usually know how to program in C, and they have probably taken a class in Computer Architecture. Usually the goal of the class is to expose students to the design and implementation of operating systems, with the implied assumption that some of them will do research in this area, or write part of an OS. This book does not assume that you have studied Computer Architecture. As we go along, I will explain what we need. -Allen B. Downey

Author:

Allen B. Downey, Ph.D., Computer Science, Olin College

This text is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.

Think Python: How to Think Like a Computer Scientist – Alex B. Downey

Think Python is an introduction to Python programming for beginners. It starts with basic concepts of programming, and is carefully designed to define all terms when they are first used and to develop each new concept in a logical progression. Larger pieces, like recursion and object-oriented programming are divided into a sequence of smaller steps and introduced over the course of several chapters. Some examples and exercises are based on Swampy, a Python package written by the author to demonstrate aspects of software design, and to give readers a chance to experiment with simple graphics and animation. -Allen B. Downey

Author:

Allen B. Downey, Ph.D., Computer Science, Olin College

This text is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.

Think Java: How to Think Like a Computer Scientist 2nd Edition – Alex B. Dowey

Think Java is a hands-on introduction to computer science and programming used by many universities and high schools around the world. Its conciseness, emphasis on vocabulary, and informal tone make it particularly appealing for readers with little or no experience. The book starts with the most basic programming concepts and gradually works its way to advanced object-oriented techniques. -Allen B. Downey

Author:

Allen B. Downey, Ph.D., Computer Science, Olin College

This text is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Think C++: How to Think Like a Computer Scientist – Allen B. Downey

The single most important skill for a computer scientist is problem solving. The goal of this book is to teach you to think like a computer scientist. Of course, the other goal of this book is to prepare you for the Computer Science AP Exam. We may not take the most direct approach to that goal, though. For example, there are not many exercises in this book that are similar to the AP questions. On the other hand, if you understand the concepts in this book, along with the details of programming in C++, you will have all the tools you need to do well on the exam.

Author:

Allen B. Downey, Ph.D., Computer Science, Olin College

This text is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Think Ocaml: How to Think Like a Functional Programmer – Allen B. Downey, Nicholas Monje

How to Think Like a Computer Scientist is an introductory programming textbook based on the OCaml language. It is a modified version of Think Python by Allen Downey. It is intended for newcomers to programming and also those who know some programming but want to learn programming in the function-oriented paradigm, or those who simply want to learn OCaml.

Authors:

Allen B. Downey, Ph.D., Computer Science, Olin College

Nicholas Monje

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License,

Think Python 2nd Edition – Allen B. Downey

How to Think… is an introduction to programming using Python, one of the best languages for beginners. -Allen B. Downey

Authors:

Allen B. Downey, Ph.D., Computer Science, Olin College

Jeff Elkner, Northern Virginia Community College

This text is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.

Think Complexity 2nd Edition – Allen B. Downey

An introduction to algorithms and data structures in Python, including graphs and arrays, and complexity science, which includes small world graphs, scale-free networks, cellular automata, self-organized criticality, fractals, and agent-based models. -Allen B. Downey

Author:

Allen B. Downey, Ph.D., Computer Science, Olin College

This text is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

The Little Book of Semaphores -Allen B. Downey

The approach of this book is to identify patterns that are useful for a variety of synchronization problems and then show how they can be assembled into solutions. After each problem, the book offers a hint before showing a solution, giving students a better chance of discovering solutions on their own. The book covers the classical problems, including “Readers-writers,” “Producer-consumer”, and “Dining Philosophers.” In addition, it collects a number of not-so-classical problems, some written by the author and some by other teachers and textbook writers. Readers are invited to create and submit new problems. -Allen B. Downey

Author:

Allen B. Downey, Ph.D., Computer Science, Olin College

This text is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Physical Modeling in MATLAB

Most books that use MATLAB are aimed at readers who know how to program. This book is for people who have never programmed before. As a result, the order of presentation is unusual. The book starts with scalar values and works up to vectors and matrices very gradually. This approach is good for beginning programmers, because it is hard to understand composite objects until you understand basic programming semantics. -Allen B. Downey

Author:

Allen B. Downey, Ph.D., Computer Science, Olin College

This text is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Learning Perl the Hard Way -Allen B. Downey

This book if for people who already know how to program in another language, but who do not already know Perl. This book spends little time on the basics and emphasizes good programming style in Perl. Additionally, this text focuses on object-oriented Perl programming.

Author:

Allen B. Downey, Ph.D., Computer Science, Olin College

This material is licensed under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.

Operating Systems and Middleware: Supporting Controlled Interaction -Max Hailperin

This book is intended for upper-level computer science students who want to understand how contemporary operating systems and middleware work. In this book you will find many forms of balance. The high-level application programmer’s view, focused on the services that system software provides, is balanced with a lower-level perspective, focused on the mechanisms used to provide those services. Timeless concepts are balanced with concrete examples of how those concepts are embodied in a range of currently popular systems.

Author:

Max Hailperin Ph. D., Computer Science, Gustavus Adolphus College

This text is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Open Textbook Collections

Find more Computer Science textbooks in these collections
Open Textbook Librar y The Open Textbook Library is a collection of open textbooks that features reviews written by professors. A project of the University of Minnesota, The Open Textbook Library provides a review rubric for faculty to use when evaluating textbooks and displays them for the benefit of potential adopters.

BC Campus Open Ed The B.C. Open Textbook Project is funded by the BC Ministry of Advanced Education, and BCcampus is tasked with managing it. A goal of the Project is to provide flexible and affordable access to higher education resources in B.C. by making available 40 openly-licensed textbooks. These texts will be available for selection by B.C. faculty, and digital versions of the texts will be free of charge to students. For those who prefer a printed copy, this format will also be available on demand for a low cost. -BC Campus
MERLOT MERLOT is a collection of online resources curated by a community of faculty, staff, and students of higher education. This subset of the MERLOT collection features openly licensed textbooks for use by students and faculty. MERLOT allows its users to rate materials and comment on specific resources.
MIT OCW Bookshelf This is a collection of complete textbooks and textbook-like notes that can be found within all of the open courseware featured in MIT’s open courseware site. As one might expect from MIT, many of the textbooks featured here focus on Mathematics, Computer Science, and Engineering.

Supplemental Materials

Think Stats 2nd Edition -Allen B. Downey

Think Stats emphasizes simple techniques you can use to explore real data sets and answer interesting questions. The book presents a case study using data from the National Institutes of Health. Readers are encouraged to work on a project with real datasets. if you have basic skills in Python, you can use them to learn concepts in probability and statistics. Think Stats is based on a Python library for probability distributions (PMFs and CDFs). Many of the exercises use short programs to run experiments and help readers develop understanding. -Allen B. Downey

Author:

Allen B. Downey, Ph.D., Computer Science, Olin College

This text is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

Academic Earth Computer Science Courses

A large selection of computer science courses on a variety of topics.

Computer Science -edX

Enroll in the latest computer science courses covering important topics in artificial intelligence, cyber security, software engineering, and big data. Add a portfolio of programming skills or get an overview of the field with Harvard University’s Introduction to Computer Science, a free course that you can start today.

Crash Course Series: Computer Science

In this series, you will trace the origins of our modern computers, take a closer look at the ideas that gave us our current hardware and software, discuss how and why our smart devices just keep getting smarter, and even look towards the future! Computers fill a crucial role in the function of our society, and it’s our hope that over the course of this series you will gain a better understanding of how far computers have taken us and how far they may carry us into the future.

Future Learn – Tech & Coding Courses

Learn to code or develop your programming skills with online coding courses – from beginner to advanced level. Explore technology trends – like big data, cyber security, data science or digital marketing – with flexible courses from top universities.

Khan Academy – Computer Programming

Videos covering the fundamentals of programming using JavaScript.

Khan Academy – Computer Science

Videos covering algorithms (how we process computing problems), cryptography (how we protect secret information) and information theory (how we encode and compress information).

C++ Reference

In order to better communicate to our computers what exactly it is we want them to do, we’ve developed a wide range of programming languages to make the communication process easier.

Code Academy

Interactive courses on JavaScript, HTML/CSS, PHP, Python, Ruby, APIs created by members of the community.

JavaScript Cheat Sheet

This resource is a beginner’s essential JavaScript Cheat Sheet that provides help with JavaScript basics, variables in JavaScript, operators, functions, and other useful codes to know to help learn how to build a website.

Stack Exchange

Stack Exchange network consists of 133 Q&A communities including Stack Overflow, the largest, most trusted online community for developers to learn, share their knowledge, and build their careers.

W3Schools

W3Schools is a web developers site, with tutorials and references on web development languages such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, SQL, W3.CSS, and Bootstrap, covering most aspects of web programming.

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)

W3C’s primary activity is to develop protocols and guidelines that ensure long-term growth for the Web. W3C’s standards define key parts of what makes the World Wide Web work.

License

Attribution: “Content from University of Oklahoma Libraries.”

Attribution: “Content from Humboldt State University Library.”

All linked-to content adheres to its respective license.

OER | English Literature

On this page, you will find several OER English, Literature, and Writing textbooks along with supplemental materials and a few lecture videos.

Textbooks

Writing Commons

Writing Commons is a comprehensive, peer-reviewed, Open Text for students and faculty in college-level courses that require writing and research. Writing Commons has been adopted by Georgia Institute of Technology, University of South Florida-Tampa, Ohio State University, and Duke University.

Editors: Cassandra Branham, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University; Megan McIntyre, University of Arkansas.

Most pages are published under a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 license, but a few are published under a CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 license.

English Composition I – Saylor

This course promotes clear and effective communication skills through use of the Pre-Write, Write, and Revise method. The remaining units will focus on the minutiae of good writing practices, from style to citation methodology.

Project Gutenberg

Project Gutenberg serves digital versions of a variety of books including fiction, non-fiction, classic, law, and technical.

The Gutenberg Project serves only books whose copyright has expired or has been released for unlimited non-commercial use.

The Public Domain Review

The Public Domain Review is an online journal an not-for-profit project dedicated to promoting and celebrating the public domain in all its richness and variety. All works eventually fall out of copyright – from classics works of art to absentminded doodles – and in doing so they enter the public domain . . . Our aim is to help readers explore this rich terrain – like a small exhibition gallery at the entrance to an immense network of archives and storage rooms that lie beyond. -The Public Domain Review

All material featured in The Public Domain Review is in the Public Domain or openly licensed.

Digital Public Library of America

The Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) brings together the riches of America’s libraries, archives, and museums, and makes them freely available to the world. It strives to contain the full breadth of human expression, from the written word, to works of art and culture, to records of America’s heritage, to the efforts and data of science. The DPLA aims to expand this crucial realm of openly available materials, and make those riches more easily discovered and more widely usable and used. -DPLA

Directors:

Catherine Casserly, CEO, Creative Commons

Paul Courant, Dean of Libraries, University of Michigan

Carl H. Pforzheimer, Professor and Librarian, Harvard University

Laura DeBonis, Former Director of Library Partnerships for Google Book Search

The copyright status of items in the DPLA varies. Many items are in the public domain. For individual rights information, please check the Rights field in the metadata or follow the link to the digital object on the content provider’s website for more information.

Open Textbook Collections

Open Textbook Library

The Open Textbook Library is a collection of open textbooks that features reviews written by professors. A project of the University of Minnesota, The Open Textbook Library provides a review rubric for faculty to use when evaluating textbooks and displays them for the benefit of potential adopters.

BC Campus Open Ed

The B.C. Open Textbook Project is funded by the BC Ministry of Advanced Education, and BCcampus is tasked with managing it. A goal of the Project is to provide flexible and affordable access to higher education resources in B.C. by making available 40 openly-licensed textbooks. These texts will be available for selection by B.C. faculty, and digital versions of the texts will be free of charge to students. For those who prefer a printed copy, this format will also be available on-demand for a low cost. -BC Campus

MERLOT

MERLOT is a collection of online resources curated by a community of faculty, staff, and students of higher education. This subset of the MERLOT collection features openly licensed textbooks for use by students and faculty. MERLOT allows its users to rate materials and comment on specific resources.

Supplemental Materials

Writing Spaces

Writing Spaces collects peer-reviewed essays and composes them into textbook chapters that are intended to not only be instructional in nature but to also be excellent examples of college-level writing. Some of the included essays provide students with sound writing advice and strategies; others can be used to stimulate classroom discussion.

All Writing Spaces essays are published under a Creative Commons License; however, licenses vary from essay to essay.

Online Writing Lab -Purdue

The Online Writing Lab at Purdue University maintains a general-purpose writing guide. Here you can find grammar guidance, research and citation references, and topic-specific writing examples.

The content found at the Purdue Online Writing Lab is free to reference; however, it is under copyright. See their terms of use.

English in The World Today -The Open University

This unit introduces you to the role that English plays in the world today and examines the social, political, and cultural factors that have influenced its development. It traces the history of the language from its arrival in Britain in the fifth century AD through to the present day and its status as a language with a truly global reach. It looks at how and why English came to occupy this position, and at what the consequences of its global spread are for the way it’s used and perceived around the world. -The Open University

Author:

Philip Seargeant, The Open University

This unit is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License.

Lecture Videos

Feature Films-Internet Archive

The Internet Archive is a repository whose purpose is to provide permanent access to historical collections that exist in digital form to researchers, historians, scholars, and the general public. Highlighted here is the Internet Archive’s film collection. Films in this collection are in the public domain either because the copyright holder wishes to share them or their copyright has expired.

Many movies and collections are licensed with Creative Commons Licenses or are in the public domain, but license terms vary from film to film.

LibriVox

LibriVox volunteers record chapters of books in the public domain, and then release the audio files back onto the net for free. All published audio is in the public domain and therefore may be used for any purpose. LibriVox contains recordings of literary classics, autobiographies, plays, and poetry among many other genres.

All recordings featured on LibriVox are in the public domain.

License

Attribution: “Content from University of Oklahoma Libraries.”

All linked-to content adheres to its respective license.

OER | History

On this page you will find several OER History textbooks along with supplemental materials and a few lecture videos.

Textbooks

The American Yawp

The American Yawp offers a free and online, collaboratively built, open American history textbook designed for college-level history courses. Unchecked by profit motives or business models, and free from for-profit educational organizations,The American Yawp is by scholars, for scholars. All contributors—experienced college-level instructors—volunteer their expertise to help democratize the American past for twenty-first century classrooms.

The American Yawp is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

History in the Making: A History of the People of the United States of America to 1877 – University of North Georgia

Prior to its publication, History in the Making underwent a rigorous double blind peer review, a process that involved over thirty scholars who reviewed the materially carefully, objectively, and candidly in order to ensure not only its scholarly integrity but also its high standard of quality.

This book provides a strong emphasis on critical thinking about US History by providing several key features in each chapter. Learning Objectives at the beginning of each chapter help students to understand what they will learn in each chapter. Before You Move On sections at the end of each main section are designed to encourage students to reflect on important concepts and test their knowledge as they read. In addition, each chapter includes Critical Thinking Exercises that ask the student to deeply explore chapter content, Key Terms, and a Chronology of events. -University of North Georgia

Authors:

Catherine Locks, Fort Valley State University, History

Sarah K. Mergel, Ph. D., Dalton State College, History

Pamela Thomas Roseman Ph. D., Georgia Perimeter College, History

Tamara Spike, Ph. D., University of North Georgia

This work is licensed by The University System of Georgia under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Project Gutenberg

Project Gutenberg serves digital versions of a variety of books including fiction, non-fiction, classic, law, and technical.

The Gutenberg Project serves only books whose copyright has expired or has been released for unlimited non-commercial use.

US History/English colonies -Wikibooks

Wikibooks are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license.

American History

This online textbook is one of a series of three. It begins by describing Native American Society as it was directly before colinization. This text comprehensively discusses, all topics of American history up to the turn of the twenty first century.

Author:

Carol Berkin Ph.D., History, CUNY Graduate Center

Ira Berlin, History, University of Maryland

Joseph Ellis Ph.D., History, Mt. Holyoke College

This text is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

American Government

Beginning with the nature of government, this text covers all of the main topics of government including federalism, congress, bureaucracy, and civil rights.

Author:

Carol Berkin Ph.D., History, CUNY Graduate Center

Ira Berlin, History, University of Maryland

Joseph Ellis Ph.D., History, Mt. Holyoke College

This text is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Ancient Civilizations

This online text comprehsneively addresses all major ancient civilization including Egypt, Greece, Rome, Africa, and China.

Authors:

Carol Berkin Ph.D., History, CUNY Graduate Center

Ira Berlin, History, University of Maryland

Joseph Ellis Ph.D., History, Mt. Holyoke College

This text is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Open Textbook Collections

Open Textbook Library

MERLOT

Supplemental Materials

OER Commons

The OER Commons is a single search source that pulls from multiple OER collections, including MERLOT and Connexions. It is a great first step in an OER search, but often more results can be found by searching the specific collection. This collection is recommended for OER searches for History because it includes content from the Library of Congress, American History Project, History Matters, and the WGBH Open Vault.

The Public Domain Review

All material featured in The Public Domain Review is in the Public Domain or openly licensed.

Digital Public Library of America

Directors:

American History Collection – Library of Congress

American Memory provides free and open access through the Internet to written and spoken words, sound recordings, still and moving images, prints, maps, and sheet music that document the American experience. It is a digital record of American history and creativity. These materials, from the collections of the Library of Congress and other institutions, chronicle historical events, people, places, and ideas that continue to shape America, serving the public as a resource for education and lifelong learning. -American Memory

Patrons desiring to use materials from this website bear the responsibility of making individualized determinations as to whether privacy and publicity rights are implicated by the nature of the materials and how they use such materials.

Presidential Speech Archive -Miller Center, University of Virginia

The Scripps Library, through cooperation with various presidential libraries, has been collecting some of the most important presidential speeches in American history. These speeches all have transcripts, and some are available in their entirety in audio or video form.

History – Open Yale

The Department of History is home to one of the most popular majors on the Yale campus and encompasses the histories of Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and North and South America. Courses range in focus from the earliest recorded historical periods up through the modern day. Students are required to study history from a variety of geographical, chronological, and methodological perspectives, utilizing source materials wherever possible. The department also houses the History of Medicine and Science major.

Lectures and course material within Open Yale Courses are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License.

Roman Architecture – Open Yale

The Department of the History of Art at Yale offers a wide range of undergraduate and graduate courses in art, architecture, and visual culture in their social and historical contexts. These courses are not characterized by a single methodological approach, but by a commitment to the firsthand investigation of works of art and to theoretically sophisticated multidisciplinary analysis. The undergraduate curriculum includes courses on Ancient, Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, and modern European and American art, in addition to courses on pre-Columbian, African, and Asian art. Students are encouraged to make use of original materials at the Yale University Art Gallery and the Yale Center for British Art.

Instructor:

Diana E. E. Kleiner, Ph. D., Yale, Art History

Lectures and course material within Open Yale Courses are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License.

License

Attribution: “Content from University of Oklahoma Libraries.”

All linked-to content adheres to its respective license.

OER | Journalism

On this page you will find several open Journalism textbooks along with supplemental material and a few lecture videos.

Textbooks

Verification Handbook -European Journalism Centre

The Verification Handbook is a groundbreaking new resource for journalists and aid responders, which provides step-by-step guidelines for using user-generated content (UGC) during emergencies. In a crisis situation, social networks are overloaded with situational updates, calls for relief, reports of new developments, and rescue information. Reporting the right information is often critical in shaping responses from the public and relief workers; it can literally be a matter of life or death. The Handbook prescribes best practice advice on how to verify and use this information provided by the crowd, as well as actionable advice to facilitate disaster preparedness in newsrooms.

Editors:

Craig Silverman, The Poynter Institute

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Story-Based Inquiry – UNESCO

The publication focuses on the hypothesis-based inquiry approach, which takes the basic assumption that a story is only a hypothesis until verified. The methods and skills applying to every step of the investigative process, from conception to research, writing, quality control and dissemination, have been thoroughly analyzed and are well illustrated by case studies in each chapter. -Story-Based Inquiry

Author:

Mark Lee Hunter, Global Investigative Journalism Network

All rights to this work are reserved; however, it is available for free download.

Global Investigative Journalism: Strategies for Support

Fueled by globalization, international aid, and the efforts of journalism groups, the worldwide practice of investigative reporting has grown dramatically since the fall of communism began in 1989. Given the field’s rapid growth, in 2012 CIMA updated and expanded its research and commissioned a new survey to understand the nature and scope of investigative journalism as a facet of media development. Global Investigative Journalism: Strategies for Support, by David E. Kaplan, director of the Global Investigative Journalism Network, looks at key drivers and actors and suggests ways to best support and professionalize the practice in developing and transitioning countries.

Open Textbook Collections

Find more Journalism textbooks in these collections


Open Textbook Library The Open Textbook Library is a collection of open textbooks that features reviews written by professors. A project of the University of Minnesota, The Open Textbook Library provides a review rubric for faculty to use when evaluating textbooks and displays them for the benefit of potential adopters.

BC Campus Open Ed The B.C. Open Textbook Project is funded by the BC Ministry of Advanced Education, and BCcampus is tasked with managing it. A goal of the Project is to provide flexible and affordable access to higher education resources in B.C. by making available 40 openly-licensed textbooks. These texts will be available for selection by B.C. faculty, and digital versions of the texts will be free of charge to students. For those who prefer a printed copy, this format will also be available on demand for a low cost. -BC Campus
MERLOT MERLOT is a collection of online resources curated by a community of faculty, staff, and students of higher education. This subset of the MERLOT collection features openly licensed textbooks for use by students and faculty. MERLOT allows its users to rate materials and comment on specific resources.

Supplemental Materials

Statistics – OpenIntro

The authors of this text intend for the reader to develop a foundational understanding of statistical thinking methods. Statistics is an applied field with a wide range of practical applications which a student does not have to be a math expert to understand even when using real, interesting data. Emphasized in this text is the practical applications of statistical tools. The authors have highlighted their imperfections and how student can use them to learn about the real world. -OpenIntro.

This textbook has been adopted by OU faculty member, Dr. Claude Miller.

Authors:

David M. Diez, Google/YouTube, Quantitative Analyst

Christopher D. Barr, Harvard School of Public Health, Biostatistics

Mine Çetinkaya-Rundel, Duke University, Statistics

This text is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license.

The Data Journalism Handbook 2

This book is intended to be a useful resource for anyone who thinks that they might be interested in becoming a data journalist, or dabbling in data journalism. Lamentably the act of reading this book will not supply you with a comprehensive repertoire of all if the knowledge and skills you need to become a data journalist. This would require a vast library manned by hundreds of experts able to help answer questions on hundreds of topics. Luckily this library exists and it is called the internet. Instead, we hope this book will give you a sense of how to get started and where to look if you want to go further. Examples and tutorials serve to be illustrative rather than exhaustive.

Authors:

Jonathan Gray, Open Knowledge Foundation

Liliana Boungru, European Journalism Centre

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Global Investigative Journalism Casebook -UNESCO

The Casebook contains more than 20 recent investigative stories from around the world, covering a wide variety of topical subjects such as freedom of information, good governance, social and legal issues, the environment, health and gender. Each article is accompanied by an explanation of how the authors conducted their research and wrote their pieces. Many of the authors belong to the Global Investigative Journalism Network, and their stories exemplify the cutting-edge techniques and high standards developed within this network.

Author:

Mark Lee Hunter, Global Investigative Journalism Network

All rights to this work are reserved; however, it is available for free download.

Lecture Videos

Journalism Lectures -Oxford

This collection of lectures form the University of Oxford features audio recordings of discussions on topics such as “How people access climate change news”, “How Mobile Phones are changing journalism practice in the 21st century, and “The Strengths and Weaknesses of Social Media.”

Most of the lectures in this collection are licensed under a Creative commons Attribution-ShareAlike license.

License

Attribution: “Content from University of Oklahoma Libraries.”

All linked-to content adheres to its respective license.

OER | Kinesiology

On this webpage you will find OER Kinesiology textbooks along with supplemental materials and a few lecture videos

Open Textbook Collections

Human Nutrition (FNDH 400) Flexbook – Kansas State University

Written by Brian Lindshield of KSU, this open textbook covers an “intermediate-level nutrition course” aimed at sophomores both on- and off-campus.

MERLOT

MERLOT is a curated collection of free and open online teaching, learning, and faculty development services contributed and used by an international education community.

OER Commons

OER Commons provides a curated collection of textbooks and resources for Kinesiology.

Open Stax – Anatomy and Physiology

Anatomy and Physiology is a dynamic textbook for the two-semester human anatomy and physiology course for life science and allied health majors. The book is organized by body system and covers standard scope and sequence requirements.

Courses and Videos

Exercising Advocacy: Some Personal Ideas and Experiences

This lecture by Prof. Timothy Noakes discusses the role of science in assisting the rise of South African cricket and ends with the story of Lewis Gordon Pugh’s swims in the Antarctic and Arctic including his epic 18 minutes (1km) swim at the North Pole in June 2007.

Future Learn – Health & Psychology Courses

Want to enhance patient care or improve your own wellbeing or mental health? Our online healthcare courses provide you with vital skills, knowledge and training. Learn about everything from Parkinson’s disease to obesity or nutrition with top researchers.

Khan Academy – Health & Medicine

Course videos covering advanced topics in physiology and labs. This course has been retired but there is still good information here.

The Learning Classroom: Theory into Practice

This is an online college course developed for students preparing to be teachers, as well as inservice K-12 classroom teachers and other educators.

Mouse Activity

From the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, this 30-second video compares the activity of a normal mouse to one with a mutation in a key gene controlling obesity. This page has been archived, but the content is still here.

Open Learn – Health, Sports & Psychology

Open Learn provides courses such as “Recovery strategies in sport and exercise”, “Eating to win: activity, diet and weight control”, and “The psychological aspects of sports injury.”

Orthopedic Assessment Methods

Dr. Scott Sailor (Cal State Fresno) created videos on several tests used to determine the type and extent of injuries.

Teaching PE & Health – UC Irvine Open Courseware

Includes the course: Teaching PE & Health, Elementary Education (English)

YouTube – Kinesiology Channels

A collection of educational videos posted on YouTube.

Additional Resources

The American Kinesiology Association

The American Kinesiology Association promotes and enhances kinesiology as a unified field of study and advances its many applications. AKA does this by advocating for kinesiology at national and international levels as well as by supporting its member departments by providing resource materials and leadership and educational opportunities for university administrators in kinesiology.

National Academy of Kinesiology (NAK)

The dual purpose of the Academy of Kinesiology shall be to encourage and promote the study and educational applications of the art and science of human movement and physical activity and to honor by election to its membership persons who have directly or indirectly contributed significantly to the study of and/or application of the art and science of human movement and physical activity.

PBS – Body & Brain

NOVA is the most-watched prime time science series on American television and is now in its fourth decade of production, the series remains committed to producing in-depth science programming in the form of one-hour documentaries and long-form mini-series, from the latest breakthroughs in technology to the deepest mysteries of the natural world.

License

All linked-to content adheres to its respective license.

OER | Languages

On this page you will find several open Language textbooks along with supplemental material and a few lecture videos.

Textbooks

Arabic for Global Exchange – Carnegie Mellon University

This is a mini-course for individuals with no proficiency or extremely limited knowledge of Arabic language and culture who are about to begin study or work in an Arabic-speaking context. The course will introduce learners to basic concepts and information to facilitate entry and engagement in an Arabic-speaking environment. This course costs $25 per student.

Content in this lesson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Elementary French I & II -Carnegie Mellon University

Elementary French I is a carefully sequenced and highly interactive presentation of French language and culture in a media-rich course environment including new video shot in France and Québec with young professional actors. It is designed to be used as a full course of study. To successfully use this course, you should be a motivated student with a sincere desire to learn about French language and francophone cultures, and be comfortable with computer technologies. The time commitment will typically average 6-8 hours per week.

Content in this lesson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Deutsch im Blick -University of Texas at Austin

This textbook is newly revised (Mai 2013) and includes all 10 chapters of Deutsch im Blick.Deutsch im Blick is the web-based first-year German program developed and in use at the University of Texas. It is an open access site with free and open multimedia resources, which requires neither password nor fees. -University of Texas

Primary Author:

Dr. Zsuzsanna Abrams, University of Texas at Austin, Germanic Studies

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Open Textbook Collections

Find more Languages textbooks in these collections
Open Textbook Library The Open Textbook Library is a collection of open textbooks that features reviews written by professors. A project of the University of Minnesota, The Open Textbook Library provides a review rubric for faculty to use when evaluating textbooks and displays them for the benefit of potential adopters.

BC Campus Open Ed The B.C. Open Textbook Project is funded by the BC Ministry of Advanced Education, and BCcampus is tasked with managing it. A goal of the Project is to provide flexible and affordable access to higher education resources in B.C. by making available 40 openly-licensed textbooks. These texts will be available for selection by B.C. faculty, and digital versions of the texts will be free of charge to students. For those who prefer a printed copy, this format will also be available on demand for a low cost. -BC Campus
MERLOT MERLOT is a collection of online resources curated by a community of faculty, staff, and students of higher education. This subset of the MERLOT collection features openly licensed textbooks for use by students and faculty. MERLOT allows its users to rate materials and comment on specific resources.

Supplemental Materials

Learning Resources for 46 Languages -Open Culture

This list features resources for learning 46 different languages from various providers including Carnegie Mellon, BBC, and Yale among many others. Featured content includes website-based material, audio recordings, flashcards, and Podcasts for learning Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Russian, and Thai among 39 others.

Websites linked to from this list feature various copyright policies.

Gateway to Chinese -University of Texas at Austin

This site offers a collection of free interactive language learning resources for beginning Mandarin Chinese. Students now have the option to practice pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, listening, and reading skills at their own convenience. Gateway to Chinese resources are designed to give students the valuable feedback they need to improve language skills in the critical early stages of learning. An extensive number of interactive exercises allow students to practice what they learn. With these tools, instructors can utilize valuable classroom time to do what they do best: teach!

Developer:

Wen-Hua Teng, Ph.D., University of Texas at Austin, Asian Studies

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.

Center for Open Educational Resources and Language Learning -University of Texas at Austin

COERLL’s mission is to produce and disseminate online language courses, reference grammars, and assessment tools in an open way. Each of the 17 represented languages on COERLL’s website features a list of resources each of which is tailored to its respective language.

Most of the resources found on the COERLL website are licensed under a Creative Commons license; however, their license terms vary.

Lecture Videos

LibriVox

All recordings featured on LibriVox are in the public domain.

License

Attribution: “Content from University of Oklahoma Libraries.”

All linked-to content adheres to its respective license.

OER | World Languages and Cultures

On this webpage you will find OER World Languages and Cultures textbooks along with supplemental materials and a few lecture videos

Open Textbooks

World Languages Community Portal – MERLOT
An educational resource for teaching and learning languages. Free materials for many different languages.

OER Commons
OER Commons provides a curated collection of textbooks and resources for world language studies.

Project Gutenberg – Chinese
Project Gutenberg’s list of Chinese books in the public domain is available freely online.

Project Gutenberg – French
Project Gutenberg’s list of French books in the public domain is available freely online.

Project Gutenberg – German
Project Gutenberg’s list of German books in the public domain is available freely online.

Project Gutenberg – Spanish
Project Gutenberg’s list of Spanish books in the public domain is available freely online.

Courses and Videos

Future Learn – Languages & Cultures
Learn a new language or start teaching yours to others. Join our online language and culture courses, which can be used for travel, business, or pleasure.

Language Courses – edX
Take free online language courses in English, French, Mandarin, and more. Courses include English Grammar and Essay Writing from UC Berkeley, Chinese Language: Learn Basic Mandarin from MandarinX, and Conversational English from Tsinghua University.

MIT Open Courseware – Languages
MIT Language students learn about French, Chinese, German, and Spanish.

Open Learn – Languages
Open Learn provides a variety of free language courses for Chinese, French, Gaelic, German, Italian, Spanish, and Welsh.

TED ED: Playing with Language
TED ED series on playing with language lessons.

Additional Resources

American English Dialect Recordings – Library of Congress
The Center for Applied Linguistics Collection contains 118 hours of recordings documenting North American English dialects. The recordings include speech samples, linguistic interviews, oral histories, conversations, and excerpts from public speeches.

BBC Languages
Lessons, phrases, vocabulary, tests, and links to news sources in 40 languages. The site is no longer updated, but most resources are still very useful.

The Center for Open Educational Resources & Language Learning
The Center for Open Educational Resources & Language Learning (COERLL) is one of 16 National Foreign Language Resource Centers (LRC’s) funded by the U.S. Department of Education.

Gateway to Chinese
This site offers a collection of free interactive language learning resources for beginning Mandarin Chinese. Students now have the option to practice pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, listening, and reading skills at their own convenience.

Library of Congress
The Library preserves and provides access to a rich, diverse and enduring source of knowledge to inform, inspire and engage you in your intellectual and creative endeavors. Whether you are new to the Library of Congress or an experienced researcher, we have a world-class staff ready to assist you online and in person.

LibriVox
LibriVox makes books in the public domain available, for free, in audio format on the internet.

Lingu@net World Wide
A comprehensive resource for a wide range of languages. Search by language, proficiency level, and source language. Each language has a large number of resources.

National Geographic -People & Culture
The National Geographic online website and resource.

Open Culture – Learning Resources for 48 Languages
This collection features lessons in 48 languages, including Spanish, French, English, Mandarin, Italian, Russian and more. Download audio lessons to your computer or mp3 player and you’re good to go.

World Language Resources
List of resources (for mostly French, Spanish and German) compiled as part of a federally funded grant to identify open educational resources for World Language teachers in Maine.

License

Attribution: “Content from Humboldt State University ”

All linked-to content adheres to its respective license.

OER | Mathematics

On this page you will find several open Mathematics textbooks along with supplemental material and a few lecture videos.

Textbooks

Calculus eBook – Dr. Kurt Gramoll

This Calculus eBook written by OU professor, Dr. Kurt Gramoll, features all of the main topics of Calculus. Each topic is divided into a number of sub-categories that broadens the user’s understanding as well as supports the main concepts of Calculus. Each sub-category is further divided into a case introduction, theory, case solution, and a simulation which the user can manipulate, giving the opportunity to enhance the user’s understanding of the material. Author: Dr. Kurt Gramoll, University of OklahomaThe contents of eCourses are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license.

American Institute of Mathematics Approved Textbooks

This is a collection of openly licensed Math textbooks approved by the American Institute of Mathematics. Books span Liberal Arts Math, Precalculus, Linear Algebra, Discrete Structures, and Complex Analysis among others.

“To gain our seal of approval an open source mathematics textbook must be able to serve as the primary text in a mainstream mathematics course at the undergraduate level in U.S. colleges and universities. That means that we are not evaluating instructional modules, Java applets, supplementary lecture notes, or other materials that are designed for limited use within a course. Since the minimum length of a traditional course is 10 weeks with 30 hours of class instruction, the books we evaluate must have enough material for that, and most will have more since most college courses are 14 or 15 weeks in length with at least 40 hours of class time.”

Editorial Board

David Austin, Mathematics, Grand Valley State University

George Jennings, Mathematics, California State University

Kent E. Morrison (chair), Mathematics, California Polytechnic State University

Frank Sottile, Mathematics, Texas A&M

Katherine Yoshiwara, Mathematics, Los Angeles Pierce College

Copyright rights vary within this collection; however, the American Institute of Mathematics recommend that books in the collection be openly licensed under a GNU Free Documentation License of a Creative Commons License. Check individual items for copyright status.

Open Source Mathematics – Carl Stitz and Jeff Zeager

The material [in these books] is presented at a level that de
finitely prepares a student for Calculus while giving them relevant Mathematics which can be used in other classes as well. Graphing calculators are used sparingly and only as a tool to enhance the Mathematics, not to replace it. The answers to nearly all of the computational homework exercises are given in the text and we have gone to great lengths to write some very thought provoking discussion questions whose answers are not given. As a contribution to the open-source community, all LaTeX files used to compile this book are available for free under a Creative Commons license at the author’s website. -Stitz Zeager

In addition to our own two schools, we learned that 26 institutions across the US (and some abroad!) have taken our materials, put in their own hard work, and made it into something for their students to use! We’ve helped roughly 7500 students save a collective $780,000! (If the stats from our own schools are included, those numbers soar to roughly 13,000 students and $1.2 million!)

College Algebra book reviews are available via Open Textbook Library.

Textbooks written by Stitz and Zeager are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported Licenses.

Calculus – Gilbert Strang

Published in 1991, this book is a resource for educators and self-learners alike. It is well organized, covers single variable and multivariable Calculus in depth, and is rich with applications. There is also an online Instructor’s Manual and a student Study Guide. In addition to these text-based materials, Strang has developed a video playlist, the Big Picture of Calculus in which he explains the conceptual highlights of Calculus.

Instructor:

Gilbert Strang, Ph. D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Mathematics

Use of the MIT OpenCourseWare site and materials is subject to their Creative Commons License and other terms of use.

Elementary Differential Equations with Boundary Value Problems – William F. Trench

Elementary Differential Equations with Boundary Value Problems is written for students in science, engineering, and mathematics who have completed calculus through partial differentiation. This text includes 1695 numbered exercises, many with several parts ranging in difficulty from routine to very challenging. Written informally, this book is mathematically accurate and is illustrated by appropriate graphics. This text is accompanied by its solution manual.

Author:

William F. Trench, Ph. D., Trinity University, Mathematics

This text is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Street-Fighting Mathematics -Sanjoy Mahajan

Street-Fighting Mathematics — the title refers to the fact that in a street fight, it’s better to have a quick and dirty answer than to stand there thinking about the right thing to do — is based on the premise that we can and should use rapid estimation techniques to get rough answers to difficult problems. There are good reasons for preferring estimation over rigorous methods: the answer is arrived at quickly, the full set of input data may not be needed, and messy calculus-based or numerical techniques can often be avoided. Perhaps more important, by avoiding a descent into difficult symbol pushing, a greater understanding of the problem’s essentials can sometimes be gained and a valuable independent check on rigorous — and often more error prone — methods is obtained.

Author: Sanjoy Mahajan, Applied Science and Engineering, MIT

Use of the MIT OpenCourseWare site and materials is subject to their Use of the MIT OpenCourseWare site and materials is subject to their Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License and other terms of use.

Elementary Differential Equations -Dr. Andrew Bennett

This is an online textbook by Dr. Andrew Bennett of the Kansas State Mathematics department. This text was developed specifically for Dr. Bennett’s class and is therefore a little more direct than a traditional textbook.

Dr. Andrew Bennett has not CC licensed the content, but it is publicly available.

Linear Algebra – Jim Hefferon

This textbook takes a developmental approach to the standard topics of Linear Algebra, Gaussian reduction, vector spaces, linear maps, determinants, and eigenvalues and eigenvectors. This text can be downloaded in PDF form for viewing and TeX form for editing.

Author: Jim Hefferon, Mathematics, Saint Michael’s College

This material is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 US License.

Historical Math Monographs – Cornell University

The Cornell University Library Historical Mathematics Monographs is a collection of selected monographs with expired copyrights chosen from the mathematics field. These were monographs that were brittle and decaying and in need of rescue.

Also check out the University of Michigan Historical Mathematics Collection, a growing library of books selected from the University of Michigan mathematics collection that have been digitized to improve access and to preserve the content of these books. All of the books in this collection were published in the 19th or early 20th century.

Abstract Algebra: Theory and Applications – Thomas Judson

This text was originally published by PWS Publishing Company in 1994; however, since then the copyright has been transferred back to its author who actively develops the book. The book is formatted with MathBook XML whose full source is available for download and modification. Periodically, PDF versions of thet including the most recent revisions are made available.

Author: Thomas Judson, Stephen F. Austin State University

This textbook is licensed under a GNU Free Documentation License

Abstract Algebra: The Basic Graduate Year

This is a complete Abstract Algebra textbook that contains exercises and solutions. Each chapter is downloadable individually.

Author: Robert B. Ash, University of Illinois

This textbook may be copied both digitally or physically; however, all other rights are reserved by its author.

Open Textbook Collections

Find more Mathematics textbooks in these collections


OpenTextBookStore The OpenTextBookStore is a collection of Math textbooks that includes books that span topics from Arithmetic for College Student to Linear Algebra and Differential Equations. If you’re looking for an open mathematics textbook, chances are that you will find what you are looking for here.
Open Textbook Library The Open Textbook Library is a collection of open textbooks that features reviews written by professors. A project of the University of Minnesota, The Open Textbook Library provides a review rubric for faculty to use when evaluating textbooks and displays them for the benefit of potential adopters.

BC Campus Open Ed The B.C. Open Textbook Project is funded by the BC Ministry of Advanced Education, and BCcampus is tasked with managing it. A goal of the Project is to provide flexible and affordable access to higher education resources in B.C. by making available 40 openly-licensed textbooks. These texts will be available for selection by B.C. faculty, and digital versions of the texts will be free of charge to students. For those who prefer a printed copy, this format will also be available on demand for a low cost. -BC Campus
MERLOT MERLOT is a collection of online resources curated by a community of faculty, staff, and students of higher education. This subset of the MERLOT collection features openly licensed textbooks for use by students and faculty. MERLOT allows its users to rate materials and comment on specific resources.
MIT OCW Bookshelf This is a collection complete textbooks and textbook-like notes that can be found within all of the open courseware featured in MIT’s open courseware site. As one might expect from MIT, many of the textbooks featured here focus on Mathematics, Computer Science, and Engineering. Lecture Videos
Khan Academy Khan Academy offers a number of video tutorials spanning, Algebra Trigonometry, Calculus, Differential Equations, Linear Algebra, and Statistics. Most videos are on the order of a few minutes long and are primarily example and intuition-based rather than proof-based. Unless otherwise indicated, this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Mathematics Courseware -Massachusetts Institute of Technology MIT has provided many Math classes complete with video lectures, homework problems, and lecture notes. Use of the MIT OpenCourseWare site and materials is subject to their Creative Commons License and other terms of use.
Vi Hart Unconventional from an instructional perspective, Vi Hart’s videos are more inspiring and attention-grabbing than they are formally educational. These videos put math concepts in terms of silly characters and put topics such as Fibonacci numbers, fractals and pi in a recreational light.

License

Attribution: “Content from University of Oklahoma Libraries.”

All linked-to content adheres to its respective license.

OER | Physics

On this page you will find several open Physics textbooks along with supplemental material and a few lecture videos.

Textbooks

Simple Nature -Benjamin CrowellThis is a calculus-based physics textbook meant for the type of freshman survey course taken by engineering and physical science majors, or for AP Physics C. It uses a nontraditional order of topics, with energy coming before force. For instructors who prefer the traditional sequence, there is a drop-in replacement for ch. 0-4, Mechanics, that covers force before energy. -Light and Matter…Dr. Bruce Mason of the OU Physics Department has made this one of his optional textbooks in his Physics classes.This text is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 US License.

Physics – OpenStax

This introductory, algebra-based, two-semester college physics book is grounded with real-world examples, illustrations, and explanations to help students grasp key, fundamental physics concepts. College Physics can be can be downloaded now by clicking on the “Get this book” button below. This online, fully editable and customizable title includes learning objectives, concept questions, links to labs and simulations, and ample practice opportunities to solve traditional physics application problems.

Authors:

Dr. Paul Peter Urone, California State University Sacramento

Dr. Roger Hinrichs, State University of New York, College at Oswego

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Motion Mountain – Dr. Christopher Schiller

This textbook is excellently produced. It is full of images and figures that do a wonderful job of supplementing the text. Its 1800 pages can be viewed online or in the format of six separate PDFs. This text covers topics including mechanics, thermodynamics, relativity, electromagnetism, quantum physics, physics as it applies to biology, technology and astrophysics, and a section on the strand model.

This text is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 Germany License.

Open Textbook Collections

Find more Physics textbooks in these collections
Open Textbook Library The Open Textbook Library is a collection of open textbooks that features reviews written by professors. A project of the University of Minnesota, The Open Textbook Library provides a review rubric for faculty to use when evaluating textbooks and displays them for the benefit of potential adopters.

BC Campus Open Ed The B.C. Open Textbook Project is funded by the BC Ministry of Advanced Education, and BCcampus is tasked with managing it. A goal of the Project is to provide flexible and affordable access to higher education resources in B.C. by making available 40 openly-licensed textbooks. These texts will be available for selection by B.C. faculty, and digital versions of the texts will be free of charge to students. For those who prefer a printed copy, this format will also be available on demand for a low cost. -BC Campus
MERLOT MERLOT is a collection of online resources curated by a community of faculty, staff, and students of higher education. This subset of the MERLOT collection features openly licensed textbooks for use by students and faculty. MERLOT allows its users to rate materials and comment on specific resources.

Supplemental Materials

comPADRE
ComPADRE is a collection of resources that cater to both Physics instructors and learners. It is a platform through which learners and instructors are given the ability to publish and search for high quality resources created for their specific needs. The comPADRE collections are a specialilzed place that reduces duplication, provides interoperability and facilitates resource sharing. The collections at comPADRE offer document hosting for Physics education related material. It organizes news, events, and forums of the Physics community as well as jobs, research, and opportunity databases.Dr. Bruce Mason of the OU Physics Department is the Principal Investigator of comPADRE.

Archive – Symmetry Magazine

Symmetry magazine covers the world of particle physics. It’s archive is home to many diagrams and illustrations that might be useful when teaching particle physics as well as many images related to the field and study of particle physics.

Images from the symmetry image bank may be downloaded, reproduced and published free of charge for use in presentations, reports, educational materials and websites, newspapers, online news sites and other not-for-profit educational outlets… A credit line that recognizes “symmetry magazine” must accompany each published image.

Lecture Videos

Physics Lectures -MIT

MIT offers a host of course lectures on various topics in Physics. Physics I: Classical Mechanics, Physics II: Electricity and Magnetism, Optics, and Nuclear physics are all available in video lecture format.

Use of the MIT OpenCourseWare site and materials is subject to their Creative Commons License and other terms of use.

Physics I & Physics II Lectures -Yale

These lectures cover Newtonian mechanics, special relativity, gravitation, thermodynamics, waves, electricity, magnetism, optics, and quantum mechanics.

Authors: Ramamurti Shankar, Yale University, Physics

Lectures and course material within Open Yale Courses are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 US License.

Physics -Khan Academy

Video lectures covering topics seen in a first and second year college Physics course including one and two dimensional motion, work and energy, gravitation, thermodynamics, and electricity and magnetism.

The use of Khan Academy and materials is subject to their Terms of Service.

Attribution: “Content from University of Oklahoma Libraries.”

All linked-to content adheres to its respective license.

OER | Sociology

On this page, you will find several open Sociology textbooks along with supplemental material and a few lecture videos.

Textbooks

Introduction to Sociology 3e -OpenStax

Introduction to Sociology is intended for a one-semester introductory sociology course. Conceived of and developed by active sociology instructors, this up-to-date title and can be downloaded now by clicking on the “Get this book” button below. This online, fully editable and customizable title includes sociology theory and research; real-world applications; simplify and debate features; and learning objectives for each chapter. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Intro to Sociology -Ron Hammond Ph.D.

This is a free, online textbook that was developed by the author to engage his students in the course. The text is complete with diagrams and photographs. There is even a place where faculty members can request test banks that the authors have developed. -Merlot

Author: Ron Hammond Ph. D., Utah Valley University, Sociology

This ebook is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license.

Sociological Landscape -Theories, Realities and Trends -Dr. Dennis Erasga

More than the usual academic textbook, the present volume presents sociology as terrain that one can virtually traverse and experience. Each version of the sociological imagination captured by the chapter essays takes the readers to the realm of the taken-for-granted (such as zoological collections, food, education, entrepreneurship, religious participation, etc.) and the extraordinary (the likes of organizational fraud, climate change, labor relations, multiple modernities, etc.) – altogether presumed to be problematic and yet possible. Using the sociological perspective as the frame of reference, the readers are invited to interrogate the realities and trends which their social worlds relentlessly create for them, allowing them in return, to discover their unique locations in their cultures’ social map. -intech

Editor: Dr. Dennis Erasga, De La Salle University

This text is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license.

Sociology of the Family -Ron Hammond, Ph. D.

This ebook is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license.

Sociology: Understanding and Changing the Social World by Steve Barkan

This text presents a sociological understanding of society but also a sociological perspective on how to change society while maintaining the structure and contents of the best mainstream texts. Several pedagogical features of the book convey the sociological perspective and change theme: Social Issues in the News, Sociology Making a Difference, Learning from Other Societies, and Theory Snapshots are just a few topics discussed in the text. -Open Textbook Library

Author:

Dr. Steve Barkan, University of Maine, Sociology

This text is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License.

Social Problems: Continuity and Change -Steve Barkan

It is easy for students to read a social problems textbook and come away feeling frustrated by the enormity of the many social problems facing us today. Social Problems: Continuity and Change certainly do not minimize the persistence of social problems, but neither does it overlook the possibilities for change offered by social research and by the activities of everyday citizens working to make a difference. Readers of Steve Barkan’s book will find many examples of how social problems have been improved and of strategies that hold great potential for solving them today and in the future.

Author:

Dr. Steve Barkan, University of Maine, Sociology

This text is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Open Textbook Collections

Find more Sociology textbooks in these collections
Open Textbook Library The Open Textbook Library is a collection of open textbooks that features reviews written by professors. A project of the University of Minnesota, The Open Textbook Library provides a review rubric for faculty to use when evaluating textbooks and displays them for the benefit of potential adopters.

BC Campus Open Ed The B.C. Open Textbook Project is funded by the BC Ministry of Advanced Education, and BCcampus is tasked with managing it. The goal of the Project is to provide flexible and affordable access to higher education resources in B.C. by making available 40 openly licensed textbooks. These texts will be available for selection by B.C. faculty, and digital versions of the texts will be free of charge to students. For those who prefer a printed copy, this format will also be available on-demand for a low cost. -BC Campus
MERLOT MERLOT is a collection of online resources curated by a community of faculty, staff, and students of higher education. This subset of the MERLOT collection features openly licensed textbooks for use by students and faculty. MERLOT allows its users to rate materials and comment on specific resources.

Supplemental Materials

OER Commons

The OER Commons is a single search source that pulls from multiple OER collections, including MERLOT and Connexions. It is a great first step in an OER search, but often more results can be found by searching the specific collection. The most valuable part is probably the open course content from some partner universities. Some do not provide anywhere near enough information about authorship.

MERLOT

Merlot is a free and open peer-reviewed collection of online teaching and learning materials and faculty-developed services contributed and used by an international education community. MERLOT was opened in 1997 and is supported by the California State University System. This collection is recommended for OER searches for Sociology Molly Strothmann, Social and Behavioral Sciences Librarian. There are a lot of links to other complete sites, which clutter the results somewhat. However, Merlot also has a decent collection of complete courses in sociology (several from MIT Open) and a few textbooks. Read more about MERLOT.

The Sociological Cinema

The Sociological Cinema is an online resource to help sociology instructors incorporate videos into their classes. The centerpiece of the site is a searchable database of video clips. Each clip is tagged with sociological themes, year, and includes a summary of the clip with suggestions of how to use it in the classroom. The focus of the site is on short video clips
The Sociological Cinema from Michael Koliska on Vimeo.

Developers:

Valerie Chepp, University of Maryland, Sociology

Lester Andrist, University of Maryland, Sociology

Paul Deen, Ohio Wesleyan University, Sociology

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license; however, each video is subject to its individual license.

Introduction to Sociology -WikiBooks

Because of its complexity, the discipline of Sociology has been subdivided over time into specialty areas. The first section of this book covers the foundations of sociology including an introduction to the discipline, the methods of study, and some of the dominant theoretical perspectives. The remaining chapters focus on the different areas of study in Sociology. -WikiBooks

This text is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license.

Lecture Videos

Foundations of Modern Social Theory -Yale

This course provides an overview of major works of social thought from the beginning of the modern era through the 1920s. Attention is paid to social and intellectual contexts, conceptual frameworks and methods, and contributions to contemporary social analysis. Writers include Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Montesquieu, Adam Smith, Marx, Weber, and Durkheim. -Yale

Instructor:

Iván Szelényi, Yale University, Sociology

Lectures and course material within Open Yale Courses are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

Intro to Sociology – New York University

This course provides a sampling of problems and methods used by sociologists, with concrete examples from everyday life, history, and contemporary events. – New York University

This course is easily accessible from Youtube.

Instructor:

Harvey Molotch, New York University, Sociology

The content in this course is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.

License

Attribution: “Content from University of Oklahoma Libraries.”

All linked-to content adheres to its respective license.

OER | Statistics

On this page you will find several open Statistics textbooks along with supplemental material and a few lecture videos.

Textbooks

Statistics -OpenStax College

Introductory Statistics follows the scope and sequence of a one-semester, introduction to statistics course and is geared toward students majoring in fields other than math or engineering. This text assumes students have been exposed to intermediate algebra, and it focuses on the applications of statistical knowledge rather than the theory behind it. The foundation of this textbook is Collaborative Statistics, by Barbara Illowsky and Susan Dean, which has been widely adopted. Introductory Statistics includes innovations in art, terminology, and practical applications, all with a goal of increasing relevance and accessibility for students. We strove to make the discipline meaningful and memorable, so that students can draw a working knowledge from it that will enrich their future studies and help them make sense of the world around them. The text also includes Collaborative Exercises, integration with TI-83,83+,84+ Calculators, technology integration problems, and statistics labs. -OpenStax

Senior Contributors:

Barbara Illowsky, De Anza College

Susan Dean, De Anza College

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

Statistics -OpenIntro

This textbook has been adopted by OU faculty member, Dr. Claude Miller.

Authors:

David M. Diez, Google/YouTube, Quantitative Analyst

Christopher D. Barr, Harvard School of Public Health, Biostatistics

Mine Çetinkaya-Rundel, Duke University, Statistics

This text is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.

Combinatorics Through Guided Discovery -Open Textbook Library

This book is an introduction to combinatorial mathematics, also known as combinatorics. The book focuses especially but not exclusively on the part of combinatorics that mathematicians refer to as “counting.” The book consists almost entirely of problems. Some of the problems are designed to lead you to think about a concept, others are designed to help you figure out a concept and state a theorem about it, while still others ask you to prove the theorem. Other problems give you a chance to use a theorem you have proved. From time to time there is a discussion that pulls together some of the things you have learned or introduces a new idea for you to work with. Many of the problems are designed to build up your intuition for how combinatorial mathematics works. -Open Textbook Library

Author:

Kenneth Bogart, Dartmouth College, Mathematics

This text is licensed under a GNU Free Documentation License.

Online Stats Book -David Lane

Online Statistics: An Interactive Multimedia Course of Study is a resource for learning and teaching introductory statistics. It contains material presented in textbook format and as video presentations. This resource features interactive demonstrations and simulations, case studies, and an analysis lab. -David Lane

Lead Developer:

David Lane, Rice University, Statistics

This text is in the Public Domain.

Think Bayes 2e: Bayesian Statistics in Python -Allen B. Downey

Think Bayes is an introduction to Bayesian statistics using computational methods. Most books on Bayesian statistics use mathematical notation and present ideas in terms of mathematical concepts like calculus. This book uses Python code instead of math, and discrete approximations instead of continuous mathematics. As a result, what would be an integral in a math book becomes a summation, and most operations on probability distributions are simple loops. -Allen B. Downey

Author:

Allen B. Downey, Ph.D., Computer Science, Olin College

This text is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Think Stats 2e: Probability and Statistics for Programmers -Allen B. Downey

Author: Allen B. Downey, Ph.D., Computer Science, Olin College

This text is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Open Textbook Collections

Find more Statistics textbooks in these collections
Open Textbook Library The Open Textbook Library is a collection of open textbooks that features reviews written by professors. A project of the University of Minnesota, The Open Textbook Library provides a review rubric for faculty to use when evaluating textbooks and displays them for the benefit of potential adopters.

BC Campus Open Ed The B.C. Open Textbook Project is funded by the BC Ministry of Advanced Education, and BCcampus is tasked with managing it. A goal of the Project is to provide flexible and affordable access to higher education resources in B.C. by making available 40 openly-licensed textbooks. These texts will be available for selection by B.C. faculty, and digital versions of the texts will be free of charge to students. For those who prefer a printed copy, this format will also be available on demand for a low cost. -BC Campus
MERLOT MERLOT is a collection of online resources curated by a community of faculty, staff, and students of higher education. This subset of the MERLOT collection features openly licensed textbooks for use by students and faculty. MERLOT allows its users to rate materials and comment on specific resources.

Supplemental Materials

Flowing Data -Nathan Yau

FlowingData explores how designers, statisticians, and computer scientists are using data to understand ourselves better — mainly through data visualization. -Nathan Yau

Developer:

Nathan Yau, Ph. D., University of California, Los Angeles, Statistics

Unless otherwise noted, graphics and text on this site are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License. Original authors should be contacted regarding their work.

Probability and Statistics Videos -Khan Academy

Khan Academy features a collection of tutorial videos on the subject of Probability and Statistics. This collection features multiple videos on each of the following topics: independent and dependent events, probability and combinatorics, descriptive statistics, random variables and probability distributions, regression, and inferential statistics.

Unless otherwise indicated, this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Khan Academy Terms of Service

Statistical Reasoning – Carnegie Mellon University

Statistical Reasoning introduces students to the basic concepts and logic of statistical reasoning and gives the students introductory-level practical ability to choose, generate, and properly interpret appropriate descriptive and inferential methods. In addition, the course helps students gain an appreciation for the diverse applications of statistics and its relevance to their lives and fields of study. The course does not assume any prior knowledge in statistics and its only prerequisite is basic algebra. -Carnegie Mellon University

This site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Lecture Videos

Probabilistic Systems Analysis and Applied Probability -MIT OpenCourseware

This course focuses on the modeling and analysis of random phenomena and processes, including the basics of statistical inference. Nowadays, there is broad consensus that the ability to think probabilistically is a fundamental component of scientific literacy. -MIT Open CourseWare

Instructor:

Prof. John Tsitsiklis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Electrical Engineering

Use of the MIT OpenCourseWare site and materials is subject to their Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Internation License and other terms of use.

License

Attribution: “Content from University of Oklahoma Libraries.”

All linked-to content adheres to its respective license.

OER | Social Sciences

On this page you will Social Science textbooks along with supplemental material and a few lecture videos.

Social Sciences

Open Stax > Subject > Social Sciences

Free Social Science Books

Global Research Reports | ScienceWatch | Thomson Reuters

Open Access Journals Search Engine (OAJSE)

Open Journal of Social Sciences_Business & Economics | Social Sciences & Humanities_Journals_SCIRP

Social and Human Sciences | UNESCO

Social Science Online Books

Social Science Research Network (SSRN)

Social Sciences Courses – Open Learn Create

Social Sciences – VideoLectures.NET

Social Sciences Research Network – SSRN

Social Sciences | OER Commons

SocArXiv (Open Archive for Social Sciences)

OER | Social Work

On this page you will find Social Work textbooks along with supplemental material and a few lecture videos.

Social Work

Academic Resources – School of Social Work – University of Texas

Directory of Open Access Journals (search Social Work)

JSWVE – Journal of Social Work Values and Ethics

OA resources for Social Workers

Open Access – Staying Informed in Social Work Practice – Research & Technology Guides at University of Michigan Library

Open Access Journals Search Engine (OAJSE) : Social and Public Welfare

Peer-Reviewed Journals – Open Access and Other Resources Available after Graduation (Social Work) – Subject Guides at Syracuse University Library

Social Sciences – OER Academic Practice – LabSpace – The Open University

Social Work Action Network

Social Work in Africa: Exploring Culturally Relevant Education and Practice in Ghana (e-book)

Social work | OER Commons

License

Attribution: “Content from Humboldt State University Library.”

All linked-to content adheres to its respective license.

OER | Art

On this webpage you will find OER ART textbooks along with supplemental materials and a few lecture videos

Open Textbook Collections

Lumen Learning – Art History
Online open textbook covering prehistoric to 20th-century art across the world.

MERLOT
MERLOT is a curated collection of free and open online teaching, learning, and faculty development services contributed and used by an international education community.

OER Commons
OER Commons provides a curated collection of Art History, Graphic Arts, Performing Arts, and Visual Arts.

Open Textbook Library
Browse a wide selection of textbooks on topics related to art.

Project Gutenberg
This list highlights selected art books and books about artists, including practical methods and specialties, as well as general works on art and art history, plus visitor guides to art expos, galleries, and museums.

Courses and Videos

Architecture Courses – edX
Learn about urban design, vernacular architecture, the history of building and more from the best universities and institutions around the world.

Art & Culture Courses – edX
Find free online courses in poetry, art history, world cultures, classical art, modern art and European painting from top universities worldwide. Learn the Cultural Geography of the World from Peking University or immerse yourself in Harvard University’s popular Poetry in America series.

Coursera
Every course on Coursera is taught by top instructors from the world’s best universities and educational institutions. Courses include recorded video lectures, auto-graded and peer-reviewed assignments, and community discussion forums.

Design Courses – edX
Learn about design and more from the best universities and institutions around the world.

Future Learn – Creative Arts & Media Courses
Explore film, music, journalism, photography or theatre. Join online art courses from renowned film schools, universities, cultural institutions. Learn from the experts in creative arts and media.

Open Learn – History & the Arts
Explore culture, conflict, and the things that make us human. Art courses include “Visions of protest: Graffiti,” “Art in Renaissance Venice,” and “Dutch painting of the Golden Age.”

Open Yale – History of Art
The Department of the History of Art at Yale offers a wide range of undergraduate and graduate courses in art, architecture, and visual culture in their social and historical contexts

Additional Resources

Digital Library: Art and Design
Browse through the Smithsonian Libraries digital collections of images, books, exhibits, and find research tools.

Google Arts & Culture
Explore collections from around the world with Google Arts & Culture, created by Google Cultural Institute.

The Guggenheim Museum
Featuring over 1,700 artworks by more than 625 artists, the Collection Online presents a searchable database of selected artworks from the Guggenheim’s permanent collection of more than 7,000 artworks.

HathiTrust
HathiTrust is a partnership of academic & research institutions, offering a collection of millions of titles digitized from libraries around the world.

Internet Archive: Digital Library
Internet Archive is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more.

Memrise – Art
Memrise uses images and audio to help memorize vocabulary. The interactive site saves individual progress.

Metropolitan Museum of Art Image Gallery
The Met presents over 5,000 years of art from around the world for everyone to experience and enjoy.

Stage Two Creative Strategies
These 14 videos contain examples of tendencies and patterns in way ideas are developed in art practice.

License

Attribution: “Content from Humboldt State University ”

All linked-to content adheres to its respective license.

OER | Theatre and dance

On this webpage you will find OER Theatre and Dance textbooks along with supplemental materials and a few lecture videos

Future Learn – Performing Arts
Find specific courses on screenwriting, theater performance and film studies.

Google Arts & Culture
Explore collections from around the world with Google Arts & Culture, created by Google Cultural Institute.

Digital Library – Internet Archive
Internet Archive is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more

MERLOT
MERLOT is a curated collection of free and open online teaching, learning, and faculty development services contributed and used by an international education community.

MIT Open Courseware – Music, and Theater Arts
MIT Open Courseware offers an extensive series of online courses, such as playwriting and philosophy in film. Course format generally includes lecture videos, interactive concept quizzes (solution key), problem sets, terms and definitions, suggested topics and links, and exams (with solution key).

OER Commons – Performing Arts
OER Commons provides a curated collection of textbooks and resources for the performing arts.

Open Textbook Library
Browse a selection of textbooks on theater and film studies.

Performing Arts Encyclopedia
Library of Congress Performing Arts Encyclopedia.

Theatre Studies

American Theatre Wing
This site offers collections of videos on Working in the Theatre and Career Guides.

The American Variety Stage
The American Variety Stage is a multimedia anthology selected from various Library of Congress holdings. Included are English and Yiddish playscripts.

Shakespeare’s Hamlet: Text, Performance and Culture
Experts from the Shakespeare Institute guide an exploration of the most famous play ever staged.

DPLA Exhibit – The Show Must Go On! American Theater in the Great Depression
The Great Depression had an enormous impact on theatre across the United States.

Classrooms Full of Stars: Theater Games in the Social Sciences
Step-by-step instructions for teaching basic theater game techniques.

Journey of the Voice: Anatomy, Physiology and Care of the Voice
This study of the production of articulate sound can be thought of as a journey through a series of processes.

Project Gutenberg
Project Gutenberg’s book list of One Act Plays.

Memrise – Theatre
Uses images and audio to help memorize vocabulary. Interactive site that saves individual progress.

Dance Studies

American Ballet Theatre – Dictionary
The American Ballet Theatre’s Online Ballet Dictionary is a unique interactive resource designed to bring dance to the Web and make it accessible to everyone. Dover Publications has graciously allowed the use of 170 terms from the Technical Manual and Dictionary of Classical Ballet, which are then demonstrated by ABT Company dancers.

Contemporary Dance
This resource provides tools, information and experience about the subject of Contemporary dance.

Dance Heritage Treasures
America’s Irreplaceable Dance Treasures: provides information on the full range of American dance artistry, forms, and traditions. Includes some videos.

Dance Notation
Contains links to everything to do with dance notation.

PBS – Dance
PBS and our member stations are America’s largest classroom, the nation’s largest stage for the arts and a trusted window to the world.

License

Attribution: “Content from Humboldt State University ”

All linked-to content adheres to its respective license.

OER | Education

On this webpage you will find OER Education textbooks along with supplemental materials and a few lecture videos

Open Textbook Collections

BC Open Textbooks
The B.C. Open Textbook Project provides the textbook, “Complexities, Capacities, Communities: Changing Development Narratives in Early Childhood Education, Care and Development.”

MERLOT
MERLOT is a curated collection of free and open online teaching, learning, and faculty development services contributed and used by an international education community.

The National Academies Press (NAP)
This resource provides textbooks on various education studies topics.

OER Commons
OER Commons provides a curated collection of textbooks and resources for studies in Education.

Open Textbook Library
Browse a wide selection of textbooks on educational studies.

Courses and Videos

Early Education and Care: Core Competencies
From the University of Massachusetts, this course is designed to provide early childhood education professionals with the knowledge and skills to assess their own level in terms of the eight core competencies, across the infant-toddler, preschool and out-of-school age range.

Education & Teacher Training Courses – edX
EdX offers online education courses covering a broad range of topics from educational policy and history to curriculum design and teaching techniques. Explore case studies in teaching and learn about how technology is increasing access to quality education on an unprecedented scale.

Edutopia: Education Video Library
Videos about K-12 teaching methods and strategies from the George Lucas Educational Foundation.

First Year Teacher Program
The 10 modules include video segments featuring teachers using effective strategies and techniques in the classroom on subjects such as phonemic awareness, phonics, speech sounds, and text comprehension.

Future Learn – Education
Take a course to learn how teachers can help close the gender gap and get guidance on helping girls achieve their potential with this free online course or take a course and learn how to be professionally involved in teaching, support and governing of higher education institutions.

Future Learn – Teaching Courses
Join online teaching courses to support teachers’ professional learning and development. Enhance how you teach subjects such as English as a foreign language or STEM, or try new approaches to assessment, behavior management, or special needs provision.

OpenLearn
Open Learn provides courses on education and development such as “Looking globally: the future of education”, “Facilitating group discussions”, “Play, learning and the brain”, “Enhancing pupil learning on museum visits”, and “Using visualisation in maths teaching.”

Signing Savvy
Signing Savvy is a sign language dictionary containing several thousand high resolution videos of American Sign Language (ASL) signs, fingerspelled words, and other common signs.

TED ED: Lessons Worth Sharing – Education
Create and share lessons around any TED-Ed original, TED Talk or YouTube Video

UC Irvine Open Courses
Help in preparing for the CSET subject tests. Also offered is a ”four-part webinar series specifically designed to help participants better understand and more effectively support gifted students both at home and in the classroom.”

YouTube EDU – Education
A collection of educational videos posted on YouTube.

Special Education

Future Learn – Special Education
Discover ways to make education more inclusive, especially in areas where resources are limited or take a course to understand more about autism, including diagnosis, the autistic spectrum and life with autism, with this online course.

HathiTrust
HathiTrust is a partnership of academic & research institutions, offering a collection of millions of titles digitized from libraries around the world.

Internet Archive: Digital Library
Internet Archive is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more.

License

Attribution: “Content from Humboldt State University ”

All linked-to content adheres to its respective license.

OER | Film & Video

On this webpage you will find OER Film textbooks along with supplemental materials and a few lecture videos

Film Studies

British Film Institute

The BFI was founded in 1933. We are a charity governed by a Royal Charter. We combine cultural, creative and industrial roles, bringing together the BFI National Archive and BFI Reuben Library, film distribution, exhibition and education at BFI Southbank and BFI IMAX, publishing and festivals.

Crash Course Series – Film: History, Production and Criticism
Join Craig Benzine for 16 weeks of Film History right here on Crash Course. He’ll look at the history of one of our most powerful mediums. Film has the ability to communicate with images, entertain, move us, frighten us, and so much more. From A Trip to the Moon to Captain America: Civil War, the history of film is really a history of humanity and Craig will do his best to lead us all through it.

Future Learn – Film Studies
Future Learn provides courses such as “Teaching Literacy Through Film”, “Hispanic Film and Culture”, “Filmmaking and Animation in the Classroom”, “Explore Filmmaking: from Script to Screen”, and “An Introduction to Screenwriting.”

Project Gutenberg
Project Gutenberg’s list of Movie Books.

Sound Effect Library
A collection of free sound effects for download.

Western Movies: Myth, Ideology, Genre
This series of podcasts from iTunes surveys the development of the Western film genre and sets it in historical and cultural context.

Memrise – Film
Uses images and audio to help memorize vocabulary. Interactive site that saves individual progress.

Open Videos

Search Open & Free Videos:

American Memory Collection
Several hundred early motion pictures are viewable in the Library of Congress’s American Memory collections. Most of these early films are documentaries.

British Pathe
With a unique combination of information and entertainment, all 85,000 documentaries, newsreels, serials and films searchable and viewable on YouTube.

CSPAN Video Library
Includes almost every program that has aired on C-SPAN, including more than 170,000 hours of content, going back to 1987, including author interviews, political rallies, interviews with newsmakers and journalists.

Documentary Heaven
Browse films by category options such as activist, celebrity, conspiracy, mystery, war, technology, and more.

Fandor
Over 2000 streaming indie movies. It also includes international movies and documentaries covering various categories such as comedy, drama, action and science fiction.

Fedflix
Movies from the United States Government, from training films to history and national parks.

Folkstreams
A national preserve of documentary films about American roots cultures.

Free Documentaries
Run by a non-profit organization that offers a wide variety of documentaries by independent film makers from around the world.

iTunes U
Free lectures, videos, films, etc. from hundreds of colleges and universities. Search by specific institution or by subject. Opens in your iTunes account, but can be integrated into your Blackboard course.

Event Videos – Library of Congress
Webcasts from the Library of Congress covering Biography, History, Culture, Performing Arts, Education, Government, Poetry, Literature, Religion, Science, and Technology.

Moving Image Internet Archive
Over 1.5 million digitized videos and clips, including cartoons, commercials and classic films, many public domain or available via Creative Commons license.

National Film Board of Canada
The National Film Board of Canada’s online Screening Room, offering documentaries, animated film and more from around the world. They also have channels for topics like history, biography and the arts.

PBS Video
Offers a wide variety of its films, documentaries and TV shows for streaming online.

Prelinger Archives
Holds approx 11,000 digitized videos, primarily home movies and amateur films. There is free access to many (but not all) films from the collection on the Internet Archive site.

Public Domain Project
Thousands of audio, image, and video files in the public domain from the collection of the Pond5 stock footage company.

RTVE.es A la Carta
The Spanish public broadcasting company, providing free online streaming for a wide variety of its films, documentaries and television programming.

SlideShare
Search thousands of videos through this content sharing program. Click on the “Education” tab for highlighted finds.

SnagFilms
The broadest collection of independent movies you can watch right now, on demand, for free, and share with others.

TED Talks
Search the TED Talks library of videos filmed at TED conferences, TEDx events, and other events. Try narrowing your search to TED-Ed and view animated video lessons targeted to educators to use for customizing lessons.

The Travel Film Archive
A collection of travelogues and educational and industrial films that show the world the way it was between 1900 and 1970. Its holdings include archives of the renowned travel filmmakers Burton Holmes, Andre de la Varre, and James A. FitzPatrick.

Vimeo Creative Commons
Browse videos with a Creative Commons license. The site has a clear explanation of the different licenses and how you can or cannot use the videos.

DVD, Blu-Ray, VHS, and Films in the Libraries

You may search for films in a number of formats owned by the UMass Amherst Library or Amherst, Hampshire, Mt. Holyoke and Smith Colleges, in the 5 College Library Catalog. You can search by title, subject, or author (the director is listed as the author). Use the advanced search to limit the format to “DVDs, VIDEOS, FILMS, & SLIDES.” Students may borrow the library’s films for three days or view them in the Media area on the 6th floor whenever the Library is open. If your instructor has placed his or her own copy of a film on Reserve, ask for it at the circulation desk in the Learning Commons.

UMass Amherst students can also borrow films in person from the Four Colleges for three days. Staff and faculty can borrow films for five days.

Streaming Video & Films

Film & Video Reference Collection

The Reference Collection in the Learning Commons (aka Lower Level) of Du Bois Library includes many guides to film genres and national cinema in the Reference collection around call numbers PN 1992-1998. Some examples are listed below.

Films by Genre (Ref. PN 1998 L63 1993)
Starting point for research into film genres.
Encyclopedia of Indian Cinema (Ref. PN 1993.4 I8 R277 1999)
A good example of guides to national cinema. Reference Sources for Film Criticism Film criticism is usually published as articles in film journals. Thoughtful reviews in popular magazines also provide critical insights. Film Literature Index (Ref. Z5784.M9F45)
Covers international scholarly and trade film journals from 1973 to present. Film Review Index (Ref. Z5784.M9 F513 1986+)
Provides citations to reviews in popular magazines 1882-1985.
Reference Books for the Industry
Also in Reference are various media industry directories. Gale Directory of Media and Markets Ref Desk Z 6951 N11 )
Find print and broadcast media in each town. Also online.
Kemp’s Film TV and Video Yearbook Ref PN1998 A1 K391)
International directory of production facilities.

License

Attribution: “Content from Humboldt State University ”

Attribution: “Content from University of Massachusetts Amherst ”

Attribution: “Content from Northern Virginia Community College ”

All linked-to content adheres to its respective license.

OER | Journalism and Mass Communications

On this webpage you will find OER Journalism and Mass Communications textbooks along with supplemental materials and a few lecture videos

Open Textbook Collections

BC Open Textbooks – Art, Media and Design
A collection of textbooks such as “Media Studies 101” and “Understanding Media and Culture.”

BC Open Textbooks – Communication
A collection of five textbooks such “Web Literacy for Student Fact-Checkers”, “Communication Theory”, and “Writing for Strategic Communication Industries.”

Data Journalism Handbook
This book is intended to be a useful resource for anyone who thinks that they might be interested in becoming a data journalist, or dabbling in data journalism.

Journalism 2.0: How to Survive and Thrive
A digital literacy guide for the information age by Mark Briggs.

Lumen Learning – Communication
Lumen Learning provides a Communication text that covers various chapters such as Public Speaking Ethics, Analyzing the Audience and Informative Speaking.

MERLOT
MERLOT is a curated collection of free and open online teaching, learning, and faculty development services contributed and used by an international education community.

Open Textbook Library
Browse a wide selection of textbooks on Journalism, Media Studies & Communications.

Story-Based Inquiry -UNESCO
This manual provides a guide to basic methods and techniques of investigative journalism, and it consciously fills a gap in the literature of the profession.

Verification Handbook
The Verification Handbook is a resource for journalists and aid responders, which provides step-by-step guidelines for using user-generated content (UGC) during emergencies. In a crisis situation, social networks are overloaded with situational updates, calls for relief, reports of new developments, and rescue information.

Courses and Videos

COMM 330: Basic Photography for Mass Media
This class for beginning mass media photographers and photojournalists includes illustrated exercises, practical principles, videos, readings and portfolios. Also available is a nine-part self-guided Photoshop tutorial, and downloadable photos for practice.

COMM 421: History of Journalism and Mass Media
This class-based tutorial takes you through American history through the vision of the nation’s mass media. It includes videos, a gallery of photos and publications from the past, as well as readings and exercises.

Communication Courses – edX
Effective communication skills are essential for success in the digital age. Learn the principles of public speaking and the keys to creating powerful messages with online courses and MOOCs taught by leading professors at Harvard, MIT, Berkeley and other top institutions.

Future Learn – Communication Courses
Understand how to communicate complex information to lay audiences and develop your professional communication skills.

Future Learn – Journalism Courses
Learn about the key principles and debates in journalism and enact the role of a journalist in the context of an escalating story or gain practical skills and insights into hyper-local journalism, and use digital and social media to create your own news website.

Comparative Media Studies/Writing – MIT Open Courseware
MIT Comparative Media Studies/Writing offers an innovative program that applies critical analysis, collaborative research, and design across a variety of media arts, forms, and practices.

MIT Open Courseware – Media Arts and Sciences
At MIT, the phrase Media Arts and Sciences signifies the study, invention and creative use of enabling technologies for understanding and expression by people and machines.

Additional Resources

CIMA
The Center for International Media Assistance (CIMA) is dedicated to improving U.S. efforts to promote independent media in developing countries around the world.

DPLA – Activism in the US
The United States has a long history of activists seeking social, political, economic, and other changes to America—along with a history of other activists trying to prevent such changes.

DPLA – Golden Age of Radio in the US
The radio emerged at the turn of the twentieth century, the result of decades of scientific experimentation with the theory that information could be transmitted over long distances.

Films For Action
Films For Action is a community-powered learning library for people who want to change the world. Films For Action has cataloged over 1,500 of the best films and videos that can be watched free online. These films address social, environmental, and media-related issues.

HathiTrust
HathiTrust is a partnership of academic & research institutions, offering a collection of millions of titles digitized from libraries around the world.

In Focus: The Evolution of the Personal Camera
Looking to the early cameras of the 1800’s to today’s cell phones and social networking apps, this exhibition explores how the personal camera has shaped American consciousness and culture over the course of its development.

Internet Archive: Digital Library
Internet Archive is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more.

J-Lab: The Institute
J-Lab is a journalism catalyst. As the news and journalism space is re-imagined, J-Lab helps increase the rate and spectrum of change.

Journalism Lectures and Podcasts – Oxford
A collection of lectures such as “What’s Happening to our Media?”, and
“The evolution of digital journalism and tapping into tech for story-telling.”

The Media Co-op
The Media Co-op is reader-funded and member-run. This means that we rely on the participation of hundreds of people through discussions of coverage, photography, written accounts, videos and other forms of participatory journalism.

Snag Films
Snag Films has over 2,000 movies, TV show episodes, and eye-opening documentaries.

Statistics – Open Intro
A college-level textbook covering data basics, probability (optional), distributions, inference for means and proportions, and regression, including multiple and the basics of logistic regression.

License

Attribution: “Content from Humboldt State University ”

All linked-to content adheres to its respective license.

OER | Marketing

On this webpage you will find OER Marketing textbooks along with supplemental materials and a few lecture videos

Open Textbook Collections

BC Open Textbooks
The B.C. Open Textbook Project provides textbooks including: eMarketing: The Essential Guide to Online Marketing and Principles of Marketing.

Lumen Learning
Lumen Learning provides a Marketing text that covers various chapters such as Consumer Marketing and Social Responsibility and Ethics in Marketing.

MERLOT
MERLOT is a curated collection of free and open online teaching, learning, and faculty development services contributed and used by an international education community.

OER Commons
OER Commons provides a curated collection of textbooks and resources for Marketing studies.

Open Stax
Open Stax provides textbooks, such as
“Effective Article Marketing For Promotion and Profit” and “Marketing Plan.”

Open Textbook Library
Open Textbook Library provides a list of textbooks, such as “Media Innovation and Entrepreneurship”, “Legal Aspects of Marketing and Sales”, and “Launch! Advertising and Promotion in Real Time.”

Courses and Videos

Future Learn – Marketing
Future Learn Provides two to six week courses such as “Digital Skills: Digital Marketing” and “Marketing Analytics.”

Open Learn – Money & Business
Take a course that provides you with a short introduction to innovation and entrepreneurship, clarifying some key themes and terminology and helping you to examine your own views about these important subjects or gain an insight into facilitating meetings and discussions in the workplace.

University Videos
This Digital Library portal contains the metadata of the YouTube Channels of the world’s Top Universities.

YouTube – Marketing
A collection of educational videos posted on YouTube.

Additional Resources

American Business Association
The American Business Association (ABA) is a non-profit organization serving the goals and needs of small businesses, the self-employed, independent contractors, and entrepreneurs from across the nation.

Internet Archive: Digital Library
Internet Archive is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more.

License

Attribution: “Content from University of Oklahoma Libraries.”

All linked-to content adheres to its respective license.

OER | Music

On this webpage you will find OER Music textbooks along with supplemental materials and a few lecture videos

Open Textbook Collections

MERLOT
MERLOT is a curated collection of free and open online teaching, learning, and faculty development services contributed and used by an international education community.

OER Commons – Music
OER Commons provides a curated collection of textbooks and resources for instrumental and music studies.

The Physical Basis Of Music
The main purpose of this book is to explain certain physical considerations useful not only to a beginner learning how to play a musical instrument but also to an accomplished musician trying to gain full technical mastery of an instrument.

Project Gutenberg
Project Gutenberg’s list of Music books in the public domain that is available freely online.

Courses and Videos

Future Learn – Music
Travel through the history of musical notation and learn how to decode medieval music manuscripts or learn about the psychology of music and movement, and how researchers study music-related movements, with this free online course.

Khan Academy – Music
Course videos covering the basics of music, classical masterpieces and orchestral instruments.

MIT Open Courseware – Music and Theater Arts
MIT Open Courseware offers an extensive series of online courses. Course format generally includes lecture videos, interactive concept quizzes (solution key), problem sets, terms and definitions, suggested topics and links, and exams (with solution key).

Music – edX
Find online courses in jazz appreciation and hip hop culture from the University of Austin and Rice University or get an introduction to the music business from the Berklee College of Music.

Open Learn – History & the Arts (Music)
Open Learn provides eight courses such as “An introduction to music research”, “Reception of music in cross-cultural perspective”, and “Voice-leading analysis of music 1-3.”

University Videos
This Digital Library portal contains the metadata of the YouTube Channels of the world’s Top Universities.

Scores

List of Musical Scores – Library of Congress
List of scores and books available online.

IMSLP: Petrucci Music Library
Sharing the world’s public domain music. The contents include searchable scores and recordings.

Internet Archive – Open Library
Electronically available musical scores and more.

Mutopia Project – Free Scores
Free Sheet Music for Everyone. 2,097 pieces of music – free to download, modify, print, copy, distribute, perform, and record – all in the Public Domain or under Creative Commons licenses, in PDF, MIDI, and editable LilyPond file formats.

RISM – Répertoire International des Sources Musicales
These primary sources are manuscripts or printed music, writings on music theory, and libretti. They are housed in libraries, archives, monasteries, schools and private collections.

Sheet Music Consortium – UCLA
The Sheet Music Consortium provides tools and services that promote access to and use of online sheet music collections by scholars, students, and the general public.

Additional Resources for Music and Scores

American Folklife Center
History and audio of American folk music curated by the Library of Congress.

HathiTrust
HathiTrust is a partnership of academic & research institutions, offering a collection of millions of titles digitized from libraries around the world.

Historic American Sheet Music
Provides access to digital images for over 3,000 pieces from the collection, published in the United States between 1850 and 1920.

Internet Archive: Digital Library
Search for composers or musical scores. Internet Archive is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more.

Memrise – Music
Uses images and audio to help memorize vocabulary. Interactive site that saves individual progress.

Performing Arts Encyclopedia
Library of Congress Performing Arts Encyclopedia.

Traditional Music and Spoken Word Catalog
This searchable database provides bibliographic information on approximately 34,000 ethnographic sound recordings. Most were recorded between 1933 and 1950.

License

Attribution: “Content from University of Oklahoma Libraries.”

All linked-to content adheres to its respective license.

OER | Environmental Science & Management

On this webpage you will find OER Environmental Science & Management textbooks along with supplemental materials and a few lecture videos

Open Textbooks

Introduction to Environmental Sciences – Book
This book is intended for all students taking an introductory level of environmental sciences and its allied courses. The book may also appeal to all the undergraduate students, in both technical and general streams, for their compulsory course work in environmental studies.

MERLOT
MERLOT is a curated collection of free and open online teaching, learning, and faculty development services contributed and used by an international education community.

OER Commons
OER Commons provides a curated collection of textbooks and resources for Environmental Science.

Courses and Videos

Coursera – Energy
Every course on Coursera is taught by top instructors from the world’s best universities and educational institutions. Courses include recorded video lectures, auto-graded and peer-reviewed assignments, and community discussion forums.

Coursera – Geospatial Science
Take courses on geospatial science offered at Coursera.

Future Learn – Climate
Learn how to apply climate change leadership in your business, municipality or organization, with this free online course or explore some of the key issues in sustainability, tackling the big questions with examples from around the world.

Future Learn – Energy
Explore the development of new energy technologies and discover key energy challenges with this online course or understand the basic thermodynamic principles widely used in many engineering fields: temperature, free energy and entropy.

MIT Open Courseware – Urban Studies and Planning
From declining fisheries to acute urban pollution to record-breaking global temperatures, the evidence of human impact on the environment continues to mount. And at the same time, the environment shapes us, as human society and institutions are built upon our connection to the weather, land, water, and other species.

Open.ED – Penn State
Courses offered by Penn State’s College of EMS include: “Advanced Analytic Methods in Geospatial Intelligence (GEOG 885),” Alternative Fuels from Biomass Sources (EGEE 439),” and “Coastal Processes, Hazards and Society (EARTH 107).”

Open Learn
Explore courses offered by Open Learn directed at Nature and Environment studies.

Open Yale Courses
The Department of Environmental Studies: Environmental Politics and Law.

Penn State’s College of EMS
College of EMS offers Environmental Management and Science courses, such as “Advanced Analytic Methods in Geospatial Intelligence”, “Alternative Fuels from Biomass Sources”, and “Challenges in Global Geospatial Analytics.”

TED Talks
TED will link you with 5-25 min talks on Environmental Science. You can browse by subject, length, or rating to inspire your students to learn more.

Top University Videos
This Digital Library portal contains the metadata of the YouTube Channels of the world’s Top Universities.

UMass Boston Open Course Ware – Environmental, Earth, and Ocean Sciences
The Environmental, Earth and Ocean Sciences Department (EEOS) integrates the natural and social sciences to generate and apply new knowledge about the quality of our environment and the sustainable use of its resources.

Additional Resources

Appropedia
Appropedia is for collaborative solutions
in sustainability, appropriate technology, poverty reduction, and permaculture.

Environmental Science Organization

EnvironmentalScience.org is the ultimate guide to everything you need to know about starting your career as an Environmental Scientist. We offer information on all aspects of becoming and working as an Environmental Scientist.

Environment Management Group – Sustainability Management

The Environment Management Group (EMG) is a United Nations (UN) System-wide coordination body.

Hippo Campus – Earth Science

Browse topics, find presentations and simulations and easily create a playlist on Hippo Campus’ website.

Journal of Management for Global Sustainability

The primary purpose of this journal is to help all of us move more rapidly toward a sustainable and socially just world.

The National Academies Press – Environment

The National Academies Press (NAP) publishes the reports of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. The NAP publishes more than 200 books a year on a wide range of topics in science, engineering, and medicine, providing authoritative, independently-researched information on important matters in science and health policy.

UN Environment

The United Nations Environment Programme (UN Environment) is the leading global environmental authority that sets the global environmental agenda, promotes the coherent implementation of the environmental dimension of sustainable development within the United Nations system, and serves as an authoritative advocate for the global environment.

License

Attribution: “Content from University of Oklahoma Libraries.”

All linked-to content adheres to its respective license.

OER | Economics

On this webpage you will find OER-Economics textbooks along with supplemental materials and a few lecture videos

Open Textbook Collections

CoreEcon
Teaching economics as if the last three decades had happened. Open Access introductory text for undergraduates. Registration is required but it is easy to do. Text is available as printable PDFs or as an Inkling app for the IPad.

Lumen Learning
Lumen Learning provides a textbook on Economics that covers various chapters such as Economic Growth, Challenges to Efficient Outcomes, and Unemployment.

MERLOT
MERLOT is a curated collection of free and open online teaching, learning, and faculty development services contributed and used by an international education community.

OER Commons
OER Commons provides a curated collection of textbooks and resources for Economic studies.

OpenStax College
Open Stax provides a collection of textbooks on Principles of Economics, Principles of Microeconomics and Principles of Macroeconomics.

Open Textbook Library
From the University of Minnesota, this collection of e-textbooks includes books on economic analysis, microeconomics, and more. The books are openly licensed, complete, and suitable for adoption. There is also a paid option for students who want to get a print edition.

Courses and Videos

Crash Course Series: Economics
This YouTube crash course series with Jacob Clifford and Adriene Hill starts out by discussing what economics is and is not.

Economics & Finance – edX
Learn the key macroeconomic and microeconomic indicators and how they drive economic policy and financial decision-making. Explore topics in risk management, pricing models, globalization and more with courses from Caltech, MIT, TsinghuaX and other top institutions worldwide.

Future Learn – Economics
Future learn provides courses on economics such as “The Politics of Economics and the Economics of Politicians”, “Economics of Crime”, and “Exploring Economics: Will the Next Generation Be Worse Off?”

Khan Academy – Economics and finance
Videos and lessons that define Economics and introduce some of the fundamental tools and perspectives economists use to understand the world around us.

MIT Open Courseware
MIT’s Economics department offers an extensive series of online courses. Courses generally include lecture videos, assignments, exams, and more.

Snag Films
Film offers us a powerful tool to raise awareness of important issues not covered by the mainstream news. Our goal is to provide citizens with the information and perspectives essential to creating a more just, sustainable, and democratic society.

Open Yale – Economics Studies
The Department of Economics at Yale offers a wide spectrum of courses for both specialists and non-specialists alike. For undergraduate majors, a core of courses in macro- and microeconomics, mathematics, and econometrics is required. Advanced courses offer training in economic history, finance, theory, international and developmental economics, market organization, human resources, and the public sector.

TED ED: Lessons Worth Sharing – Economics
Create and share lessons around any TED-Ed original, TED Talk or YouTube Video.

Additional Resources

Economics Network
We aim to enhance the quality of learning and teaching throughout the Higher Education economics community.

HathiTrust
HathiTrust is a partnership of academic & research institutions, offering a collection of millions of titles digitized from libraries around the world.

Macro Think Institute
Macrothink encourages the publication of research papers in the fields of operations management, production management, strategic management, marketing, economics, financial, information technology management, business analysis, business strategy, business development, enterprise management, human resource management and relevant subjects.

Open Economics Resource
The Open Economics Working Group is run by the Open Knowledge Foundation in association with the Centre for Intellectual and Property Law (CIPIL) at the University of Cambridge.

License

Attribution: “Content from University of Oklahoma Libraries.”

All linked-to content adheres to its respective license.

OER | International Studies

On this webpage you will find OER International Studies textbooks along with supplemental materials and a few lecture videos

Open Textbook Collections

MERLOT
MERLOT is a curated collection of free and open online teaching, learning, and faculty development services contributed and used by an international education community.

OER Commons
OER Commons provides a curated collection of textbooks and resources for International Studies.

Courses and Videos

Future Learn – International Studies
Future learn provides comprehensive courses, such as “What Works: Promising Practices in International Development”, “Global Studies: International Relations and World Politics”, “International Franchise Law: the World is Yours”, “International Affairs: Global Governance”, “International Affairs: Globalisation”, and “Intercultural Communication.”

MIT Open Courseware: International Relations
MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW) is a web-based publication of virtually all MIT course content. OCW is open and available to the world and is a permanent MIT activity.

International Studies – edX
Find online courses in the humanities relating to international studies including the study of International Humanitarian Law, International Human Rights Law, and Communicating in a Global Context.

Additional Resources

Amnesty International
Amnesty International is a global movement of more than 7 million people who take injustice personally. We are campaigning for a world where human rights are enjoyed by all.

The European Union
The European Union is a unique economic and political union between 28 European countries that together cover much of the continent.

Foreign Policy: A Trusted Source When the Stakes are High
Over the course of almost half a century of award-winning journalism, design, and the presentation of important new ideas from the world’s leading thinkers, Foreign Policy has established itself at the forefront of media organizations devoted to the coverage of global affairs.

Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch is a nonprofit, nongovernmental human rights organization made up of roughly 400 staff members around the globe. Its staff consists of human rights professionals including country experts, lawyers, journalists, and academics of diverse backgrounds and nationalities.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ)
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations (UN). It was established in June 1945 by the Charter of the United Nations and began work in April 1946.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC)
The world’s largest humanitarian network that reaches 150 million people in 190 National Societies through the work of over 17 million volunteers.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF)
The IMF’s primary purpose is to ensure the stability of the international monetary system—the system of exchange rates and international payments that enables countries (and their citizens) to transact with each other.

The International Trade Administration (ITA)
The International Trade Administration (ITA) strengthens the competitiveness of U.S. industry, promotes trade and investment, and ensures fair trade through the rigorous enforcement of our trade laws and agreements. ITA works to improve the global business environment and helps U.S. organizations compete at home and abroad.

Oxford International Studies Encyclopedia
Browse subjects by topics including Foreign Policy, Human Rights, and International Relations Theory.

This WWW Virtual Library
International Affairs Resources is an Internet directory of over 2000 annotated links to high-quality English-language sources of information and analysis in many international and global studies topics.

U.S. Department of State – Diplomacy in Action
The U.S. Department of State advances the interests of the American people, their safety and economic prosperity, by leading America’s foreign policy through diplomacy, advocacy, and assistance.

The World Bank
The World Bank is a vital source of financial and technical assistance to developing countries around the world. We are not a bank in the ordinary sense but a unique partnership to reduce poverty and support development.

The World Trade Organization (WTO)
The World Trade Organization (WTO) deals with the global rules of trade between nations. Its main function is to ensure that trade flows as smoothly, predictably and freely as possible.

The International Criminal Court (ICC)
The International Criminal Court (ICC) investigates and, where warranted, tries individuals charged with the gravest crimes of concern to the international community: genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and the crime of aggression.

License

Attribution: “Content from University of Oklahoma Libraries.”

All linked-to content adheres to its respective license.

open-textbook resources

The Open Textbook movement focuses on the creation of books that are built specifically for use as free or low-cost options for education. Many of the collections will have links to the same books, but each repository has a particular focus, and items you can’t find in other collections.

What makes a textbook open? A textbook becomes “open” when its copyright-holder grants usage rights to the public through an “open license,” which typically includes the right to access, reformat, and customize it at no additional cost.

What do open textbooks look like? Hard copies of open textbooks look much like traditional texts. The primary differences are that open textbooks are also accessible online at no cost and the hard copies are optional and affordably priced.

How many open textbooks are there? Thousands of open textbooks already exist and more are on the way.

Who pays open textbook authors? Open publishing models are still evolving, so author payment varies. Some are paid royalties on print sales, some receive grant support, and others choose to write on their own time.

Are open textbooks high quality? Many open textbooks are developed through traditional peer review, others are vetted by experts. As with any textbook, you are the final judge of whether an open textbook meets the needs of your course.

What do open textbooks look like? Open textbooks are similar to traditional texts but much more flexible. If desired, you can create a custom version by editing it yourself to match your classroom instruction. They are available in both print and digital formats:

Online, at no cost.
Downloadable PDF, at no cost.

Adopting Open-Textbook Network / OER Resources Into a Class

Adopting OER or an Open Textbook for your course can be approached in a number of different ways. However, there is a basic process that can serve as a guide as you get started.

Define your need: Do you want to piece together a variety of resources, or find a whole textbook replacement? Using a backwards design approach and working from your course learning objectives can be a great way to keep your search organized and on track.
Search: This step is often messy and may feel never-ending! However it is the nature of the process that different resources search differently, are indexed differently, and index different content. So try several different sources and keep track of the search terms you’ve tried and the sites you’ve searched. **Also, don’t forget to consult your discipline colleagues.
Identify & Evaluate: There are many considerations when evaluating OER, some the same as where adopting a traditional textbook, some unique to OER.

Peer review of material available
Reputation of author or institution
Pedagogical approach
Accuracy of content
Alignment with course objectives or learning outcomes
Technical quality (clear visuals, production value)
Clear licensing declaration: Creative Commons license, public domain, or your own fair use determination for copyrighted works. **This might be a good time to create an attribution statement as your decide on resources you know you’ll want to use.

Adoption: There are often multiple stakeholders in your choice of course materials, including your discipline colleagues, your dean, and the bookstore. In fact, this could be step one, because these are the same people who could potentially be great allies in your changeover to open resources.
Use: How will students access and use these resources? Will you post a link to these materials? Will students need paper copies, such as for a lab book or readings to be used in class? There are many options for having materials printed, and because of the open licensing of OER, a whole book can be printed for students at a very low cost.

Additional resources for new OER adopters:

Blended Learning Toolkit

This site helps you organize learning objectives, resources and assignments for your course. Great downloadable forms and worksheets.

Adopting Open Educational Resources in the Classroom

A faculty resource for adopting, using and re-purposing openly licensed educational resources. This course provides faculty with an introduction to the laws that influence the use, re-use, and distribution of content they may want to use in a course. Activities include finding openly licensed content for use in a class and publishing openly licensed works created by faculty. At the end of the course, students will have openly licensed content that will be ready for use in a course.

How to Use Open Educational Resources: a self-paced workshop

“This course walks you through techniques to incorporate Open Educational Resources (OER) into your teaching practice. The course will cover the fundamental aspects of OER including open licensing and public domain. It focuses on providing practical guidance in locating and applying openly available resources.”

License

Attribution: “Content from Kirkwood Community College, Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52404”

All linked-to content adheres to its respective license.

Open Textbook Collections

Faculty are invited to consider the open-source textbook collections presented below.

Open Textbook Library (https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/) – OTL, with over 350 books, is a clearinghouse of links to books in various locations, including OpenStax, Saylor and others. Books in the OTL have been peer reviewed for quality, and the Open Textbook Library has multiple criteria for inclusion in the Library.

OpenStax (https://openstax.org/) – These books were developed following traditional textbook publishing methods, including peer review, editorial support, and creation of ancillary content. Books are available in multiple formats (PDF, print on demand, on the Web) and are licensed to be revised and remixed by faculty who want create a custom solution for a course.

Note: Several faculty members at OU have adopted or adapted OpenStax books, including Dean Kelly Damphousse, Glen Kurtz, Heather Ketchum, and others.

BC Campus OpenEd (open.bccampus.ca/find-open-textbooks) – This site includes texts written specifically for the BC OpenTextbook initiative, as well as books from other sources.

Lumen Learning (https://lumenlearning.com/courses?) – Lumen provides open courses in a variety of high-demand subjects and disciplines. These courses are collections of high-quality OER, not necessarily as a traditional textbook. You can use them as-is or modify them to fit your instructional style and students’ needs.

HathiTrust (http://www.hathitrust.org) – HathiTrust is a partnership of academic & research institutions, offering a collection of millions of titles digitized from libraries around the world. HathiTrust materials can be searched through the OU Libraries.

The Directory of OpenAccess Books (http://www.doabooks.org/doab) – This site is a clearinghouse of links to books hosted in various locations, and includes a large selection of international textbooks.

Saylor.org Bookshelf (http://www.saylor.org/books/) – This collection includes books written specifically for Saylor.org as well as the original editions of the FlatWorldKnowledge textbooks (subsequent editions are only offered for purchase). You can view all their resources by subject area in their library.

Open Access Publishing in European Networks (http://www.oapen.org/home) – The OAPEN Library contains freely accessible academic books, mainly in the area of Humanities and Social Sciences. OAPEN has books in multiple languages and covering a large variety of topics. There is a range of licensing for the books, but each book is clearly marked with the license.

Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page) – A volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works. Most items in this collection are digitized works from the public domain, making it a rich source for those in the Humanities

The National Academies Press (http://www.nap.edu) – Unlike some of the open textbook initiatives these books are publicly available but not openly licensed. You can link to the content, and even link directly to specific pages. However, you cannot remix and redistribute the content.

Boundless – Affordable textbooks curated from online content.

Connexions –Supported by the Hewlett Foundation, Gates Foundation, Rice University, and others.

Flat World – “100+ textbooks written by the industry’s top authors.”

NCBI Bookshelf Books in life science and health care from the National Center for Biotechnology Information.

MERLOT

Tutorials, labs, text and multimedia materials and courseware which has been peer-reviewed

OPEN: Open Professionals Education Network – Find OER

Lists various searchable resources which contain OER including General Education Search; Recorded Lectures & Video Tutorials Search; Open Textbook Search; Simulation and Animation Search; Modular Course Components Search
Complete Courses Search. Resources include: General Search
Photo/Image Search; Video Search; Audio/Music Search

OpenStax College

A new project from Rice University’s Connexions project, this site offers a growing body of open-source and free peer-reviewed textbooks for popular college courses in the sciences, math, and social sciences particularly. “Our free textbooks are developed and peer-reviewed by educators to ensure they are readable, accurate, and meet the scope and sequence requirements of your course.”

Orange Grove: Florida’s Digital Repository

Collection of open textbooks, web-books, and Orange Grove Text Plus resources from this Florida repository

PhET

Interactive simulations of physical phenomena from the U. of Colorado at Boulder. The focus is on science, math, and computer science. Simulations are extensively tested.

USG Share

From University System of Georgia’s Digital Instructional Resources Exchange. Login as a guest.

Wisc-Online Great content for most Technical and Vocational programs (ex. Automotive, Welding, Cabinet Making, Electronics) plus Science, Math, Computer Science. Choose “Learning Objects” to find modules you can embed in your instructional tool. Create an account to make custom lists of favorites. Free for educational use. Content added constantly. From the Wisconsin Technical College System.

License

Attribution: “Content from University of Oklahoma Libraries.”

All linked-to content adheres to its respective license.

Other Open Textbook Information

Tools for choosing open books for courses

Open Textbook Library Search or browse by subject; many titles include reviews written by faculty
Mason OER Metafinder Search Simultaneously search several OER repositories
MERLOT II Curated collection of free and open teaching, learning, and faculty development services contributed and used by an international education community.
OER Commons Browse or search. Advanced search allows Level (e.g. post-secondary), conditions of use and other limits.
OpenStax CNX Content is reusable, designed to encourage the sharing and reuse of educational content
Wikibooks
Coursesource: Evidence-based teaching resources for undergraduate biology education Sponsored by American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, American Society for Microbiology, American Society of Cell Biology, Botanical Society of America, American Society of Plant Biologists, Ecological Society of America, Society for Developmental Biology, Genetics Society of America, International Society for Computational Biology, Society for the Study of Evolution, & Science Process Skills.
Open Textbook Initiative (American Institute of Mathematics) Evaluated, approved textbooks
BC Campus Open Ed – Find Open Textbooks
Teaching Commons
MIT Open Courseware – Online Textbooks page
Open SUNY Textbooks
200 free textbooks (Open Culture.com)
UC Davis STEMWiki Hyperlibrary
Teaching Commons Textbooks, course materials, lesson plans, multimedia, lectures, and more from the colleges and universities using BePress

Lists of discovery tools at other locations

Explore free (open access) books and textbooks from Textbook Affordability Project, University of South Florida
Find OER Tips and links compiled by Open Professionals Education Network (OPEN); see especially Open Textbook Search

More information

Open Education (SPARC)
Open 101: An Action Plan for Affordable Textbooks (Jan. 2018)
24 page report from Student PIRGs (Public Interest Research Groups)
Open Textbooks: More Information (Student PIRGs)
Education (Creative Commons)
Open Educational Resources: A Catalyst for Innovation, Educational Research and Innovation 2015 book from OECD Publishing
List of North American OER Policies & Projects Not comprehensive but useful; compiled by SPARC Open

Locating, Creating, Licensing and Utilizing OERs

OER-101: Locating, Creating, Licensing and Utilizing OERs Open-access, self-paced online “Community Course” from SUNY that has been built to demonstrate how to find, adapt, and develop OERs step-by-step
login USask Open Textbook Authoring Guide – Ver.1.0
Modifying an Open Textbook: What You Need to Know a five-step guide for faculty, and those who support faculty, who want to modify an open textbook. Step-by-step instructions for importing and editing common open textbook file and platform types are included.
Creative Commons Search
Authoring Open Textbooks, by Melissa Falldin and Karen Lauritsen guide for faculty authors, librarians, project managers and others who are involved in the production of open textbooks in higher education and K-12. Content includes a checklist for getting started, publishing program case studies, textbook organization and elements, writing resources and an overview of useful tools.
Creating and Publishing OER from Center for Open Educational Resources & Language Learning (COERLL); part of a series of freely available modules hosted at Univ. of Texas Libraries
Seven Platforms You Should Know About: Share, Find, Author, or Adapt Creative Commons-Licensed Resources 2 hour webcast from March 2017; 1st hour is Find and Share; 2nd hour is Create and Adapt; includes links to handouts, etc. 2 of the platforms are Virginia Tech specific; others are available to all.
Guide to making open textbooks with students
BCcampus Open Education Self-Publishing Guide Reference for individuals or groups wanting to write and self-publish an open textbook; 2018 by Lauri Aesoph; CC-BY
Adopting Open Educational Resources in the Classroom 6-module course from Lumen Learning; provides an introduction to the laws that influence the use, re-use, and distribution of course content. Activities include finding openly licensed content for use in a class and publishing openly licensed works created by faculty. At the end of the course, students will have openly licensed content that will be ready for use in a course. CC-BY-SA

License

“Some Content from University of Oklahoma Libraries.”

All linked-to content adheres to its respective license.

Articles about Open-Textbooks

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We have worked to locate some articles that may help you better understand why Avila and the Library/Learning Commons are advocating for the use of Open Educational Resources (OERs), open textbooks, and the use of the Open Textbook Network and Library.

New articles will be added periodically, so please check back!