A&M-SA Research Guides: OER &amp; Affordable Learning Materials (ALM): College of Arts & Sciences

OER Samples for Department of Arts & Humanities

Introduction to Art: Design, Context and Meaning from University of North Georgia Press
"Combining the best elements of both a traditional textbook and a reader, it introduces such issues in art as its meaning and purpose; its meaning and purpose; its structure, material, and form; and its diverse effects on our lives"
Art Appreciation (an East Tennessee State University grant-supported project)
This resource adapted by Marie Porterfield Barry includes 24 lessons, and "explores the world’s visual arts, focusing on the development of visual awareness, assessment, and appreciation by examining a variety of styles from various periods and cultures while emphasizing the development of a common visual language." Each of the lessons includes a presentation, reading list and sample assignment.
Digital Foundations
"This book is a mash-up of the Bauhaus Basic Course and open source software such as Inkscape, Gimp, Firefox, and Processing. We have taken some of the visual principles and exercises from the Bauhaus Basic Course and adapted them into exercises for these applications."

Writing In College: From Competence to Excellence from Open SUNY
"Writing in College is designed for students who have largely mastered high-school level conventions of formal academic writing and are now moving beyond the five-paragraph essay to more advanced engagement with text. It is well suited to composition courses or first-year seminars and valuable as a supplemental or recommended text in other writing-intensive classes."
Technical Writing from Open Oregon
"This open textbook offers students of technical writing an introduction to the processes and products involved in professional, workplace, and technical writing."
Writing for Success from University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing
"Writing for Success is a text that provides instruction in steps, builds writing, reading, and critical thinking, and combines comprehensive grammar review with an introduction to paragraph writing and composition."
World Literature 1: Beginnings to 1600 from University of North Georgia
"This peer-reviewed World Literature I anthology includes introductory text and images before each series of readings. Sections of the text are divided by time period in three parts: the Ancient World, Middle Ages, and Renaissance, and then divided into chapters by location."
Writing the Nation: A Concise Guide to American Literature 1865 to Present from University of North Georgia
"Writing the Nation: A Concise Guide to American Literature 1865 to Present is a text that surveys key literary movements and the American authors associated with the movement. Topics include late romanticism, realism, naturalism, modernism, and modern literature."
Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing, Volume 1
Edited by C. Lowe and P. Zemlianski, "Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing, Volume 1, is a collection of Creative Commons licensed essays for use in the first year writing classroom, all written by writing teachers for students. Topics in this volume include academic writing, how to interpret writing assignments, motives for writing, rhetorical analysis, revision, invention, writing centers, argumentation, narrative, reflective writing, Wikipedia, patchwriting, collaboration, and genres."
Writing--The Boundless Writing textbook
"This textbook covers: The Practice of Writing -- The Practice of Critical Reading, The Practice of Rhetoric, The Practice of Writing Paper Execution -- Planning Your Argument, Planning Your Topic, The Practice of Drafting, The Practice of Researching, The Practice of Revising Academic Writing -- 'So What?'" and more

Merlot (Communication Studies)

Provides access to curated online learning and support materials and content creation tools, led by an international community of educators, learners and researchers.
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.
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.

Public Speaking Project: http://www.oercommons.org/courses/public-speaking-the-virtual-text/view

Stand Up Speak Out https://open.lib.umn.edu/publicspeaking/

SUNY Online Textbooks:

Business Communication: https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-geneseo-businesscommunication/
Introduction to Communication
- https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-introductiontocommunication/
Principles Of Public Speaking
- https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-publicspeakingprinciples/

Professional Communication

http://www.procomoer.org/oer-resources/professional-communication-full-etextbook/

Exploring Public Speaking 4^th edition

https://www.oercommons.org/courses/exploring-public-speaking/view

Merlot

Survey of Communication Study
- https://bit.ly/3dQmoHi
A Primer on Communication
- https://bit.ly/347I9xC

U.S. History from OpenStax
"U.S. History is designed to meet the scope and sequence requirements of most introductory courses. The text provides a balanced approach to U.S. history, considering the people, events, and ideas that have shaped the United States from both the top down (politics, economics, diplomacy) and bottom up (eyewitness accounts, lived experience). U.S. History covers key forces that form the American experience, with particular attention to issues of race, class, and gender." Additional student and instructor resources are also included.
History in the Making: A History of the People of the United States of America to 1877 from Open Textbook Library
"This textbook examines U.S. History from before European Contact through Reconstruction, while focusing on the people and their history...This book provides a strong emphasis on critical thinking about US History by providing several key features in each chapter."
World History: Cultures, States, and Societies to 1500 from University of North Georgia Press
"World History: Cultures, States, and Societies to 1500 offers a comprehensive introduction to the history of humankind from prehistory to 1500. Authored by six USG faculty members with advance degrees in History, this textbook offers up-to-date original scholarship. It covers such cultures, states, and societies as Ancient Mesopotamia, Ancient Israel, Dynastic Egypt, India's Classical Age, the Dynasties of China, Archaic Greece, the Roman Empire, Islam, Medieval Africa, the Americas, and the Khanates of Central Asia."

Understanding Music: Past and Present from University of West Georgia
"Understanding Music: Past and Present is an open Music Appreciation textbook co-authored by music faculty across Georgia. The text covers the fundamentals of music and the physics of sound, an exploration of music from the Middle Ages to the present day, and a final chapter on popular music in the United States."
Understanding Basic Music Theory
Created using OpenStax's open authoring tool by Catherine Schmidt-Jones, "the main purpose of the course, however, is to explore basic music theory so thoroughly that the interested student will then be able to easily pick up whatever further theory is wanted. Music history and the physics of sound are included to the extent that they shed light on music theory."

An Introduction to Philosophy from BC Campus
"Over the course of the text, the author has tried to outline the continuity of thought that leads from the historical roots of philosophy to a few of the diverse areas of inquiry that continue to make significant contributions to our understanding of ourselves and the world we live in."
BC Campus Open Ed (Philosophy)
A collection of OER philosophy textbooks.
Introduction to Philosophy: Philosophy of Mind
Part of a planned larger series of books, this OER text edited by Heather Salazar "surveys the central themes in philosophy of mind and places them in a historical and contemporary context intended to engage first-time readers in the field. It focuses on debates about the status and character of the mind and its seemingly subjective nature in an apparently more objective world."

Merlot (Spanish)
Provides access to curated online learning and support materials and content creation tools, led by an international community of educators, learners and researchers.
Center for Open Educational Resources and Language Learning (COERLL) at University of Texas, Austin
An online and physical site dedicated to providing access to open language learning materials and helping others create materials to be made freely available to the world. Languages covered include Spanish & Portuguese plus many others such as Chinese, Persian, Yoruba, etc.
Espanol Abierto--Recorridos
"COERLL has partnered with Rose Potter and Betsy Arnold to publish Recorridos-Don Quijote, a pair of openly-licensed books for the study of Cervantes’ Don Quijote in upper level Spanish courses, including AP." COERLL has partnered with Rose Potter and Betsy Arnold to publish Recorridos-Don Quijote, a pair of openly-licensed books for the study of Cervantes’ Don Quijote in upper level Spanish courses, including AP. The pdf versions of the student text can be downloaded for free, while a printed version can be purchased from Amazon.
Antologia Abierta De Literatura Hispana
A great example of how students can participate in the creation of OER, the "anthology was put together by Dr. Julie Ward and the students in her Introduction to Hispanic Literature course." The anthology authors/editors make an intentional effort to include Spanish voices that have been marginalized.
LibreTexts Espanol
Spanish language texts across various disciplines--Biology, Physics, Math, Engineering, Social sciences, and Humanities.
Open Language Resource Center at the University of Kansas
University of Kansas' OLRC was established in 2018 as one of 16 federally-funded language learning centers in the U.S. It focuses on development of OER for secondary and post-secondary language learners.

Open Textbooks (Humanities Collection)
Open textbooks are textbooks that have been funded, published, and licensed to be freely used, adapted, and distributed. These books have been reviewed by faculty from a variety of colleges and universities to assess their quality. These books can be downloaded for no cost, or printed at low cost.
OER Commons (Humanities)
"In OER Commons, you can search, browse, and evaluate resources in OER Commons' growing collection of over 50,000 high-quality OER." Collections include textbooks, full courses, activities and lesson plans. Use the filters on the side to limit the results by subject, material type, etc.
Orange Grove (Humanities)
Florida's digital repository, it provides access to hundreds of open resources organized by subject area. Includes both a higher education and a k-12 education category.
MERLOT (Humanities)
A free and open resource designed primarily for faculty and students of higher education. The materials included have undergone a structured review process with reviews and comments posted on the site. Resources are available across a broad range of subject areas and material types (whole courses to textbooks).
BC Campus Open Ed
Links to almost 300 subject-organized open textbooks

OER Samples for Department of Science & Mathematics

Merlot (Biology)

Provides access to curated online learning and support materials and content creation tools, led by an international community of educators, learners and researchers.
The National Academies Press (NAP)

Biology and Life Sciences resources. Sign up for a free account which gives you access to free downloads. Note: While free, the resources provided cannot be modified so they aren't pure OER.
OER Commons - Biology

OER Commons provides a curated collection of textbooks and resources for biological studies including zoology, botany and ecology.
OpenStax CNX - Biology

Over thirty open textbooks covering Biology
Open Textbook Library - Biology Textbooks

Browse a wide selection of textbooks on biological science topics.

Merlot (Chemistry)

Provides access to curated online learning and support materials and content creation tools, led by an international community of educators, learners and researchers.
The National Academies Press (NAP)

Math, chemistry and physics resources.
BC Open Textbooks

The B.C. Open Textbook Project provides textbooks including Analytical chemistry, Organic Chemistry With a Biological Emphasis, and Chemistry - Atoms First.
LibreTexts Chemistry

The LibreText Project offers campus courses, a list of books, and ancillary materials.
OER Commons - Chemistry

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

Merlot (Earth Sciences)

Provides access to curated online learning and support materials and content creation tools, led by an international community of educators, learners and researchers.
Merlot (Geography)
The National Academies Press (NAP)

Earth Sciences resources
OER Commons - Geography

OER Commons provides a curated collection of textbooks and resources for geography.
Open Geography Education

This website is dedicated to providing free or open curriculum and resources to anybody who is interested in our geographic world. Includes many textbooks on geography and geospatial technology.

Merlot (Engineering)
Provides access to curated online learning and support materials and content creation tools, led by an international community of educators, learners and researchers.
Fundamentals of Electrical Engineering I
Don Johnson, main author of the course, describes it as focusing on "the representation, manipulation, transmission, and reception of information by electrical means. This course describes what information is, how engineers quantify information, and how electrical signals represent information."
Environmental Engineering Chemistry
This text from LibreText and created for a course at Bucknell University and covers "the principles of aquatic chemistry and applications with emphasis on acid-base reactions, metal speciation and solubility, and oxidation-reduction reactions in water."

Beginning and Intermediate Algebra

Free Online Textbook
OpenStax Math Textbooks

Open textbooks for introductory statistics, calculus, algebra, pre-algebra, and trigonometry. Open textbooks by Rice University. Faculty can download supplementary materials.
Open Textbook Library

Another wide selection of textbooks on mathematics topics, includes some peer-reviewed content.
OpenTextBookStore

OpenTextBookStore was created by educators frustrated with the time involved in finding adoptable open textbooks, with the hope to make open textbook adoption easier for other faculty...This is just a listing site for publicly available open textbooks, maintained by a teacher. Print copies are made available through third party print-on-demand companies. Many of the courses have course packages available through MyOpenMath.com, which provides free online homework for several open math textbooks.
Merlot (Math/Statistics)

Provides access to curated online learning and support materials and content creation tools, led by an international community of educators, learners and researchers.
The National Academies Press (NAP)

Math, chemistry and physics resources.

Merlot (Physics)

Provides access to curated online learning and support materials and content creation tools, led by an international community of educators, learners and researchers.
The National Academies Press (NAP)

Math, chemistry and physics resources.
BC Campus Open Ed

Several open textbooks on a variety of physics topics.
LibreTexts Physics Library

Explore courses, textbooks, homework exercises and ancillary materials. Topics include: Optics TextMaps, Quantum Mechanics, and Relativity.
Lumen Learning - Physics

Lumen Learning provides a textbook on Physics with various chapters such as Two-Dimensional Kinematics, Magnetism, and Geometric Optics.
OER Commons

OER Commons provides a curated collection of physics and astronomy resources and textbooks.
Open Stax College

Published by Rice University's OpenStax, these free College Physics textbooks can be read online, in PDF, or on an iPad

Merlot (Psychology)

Provides access to curated online learning and support materials and content creation tools, led by an international community of educators, learners and researchers.
BC Open Textbooks

A collection of open textbooks from British Columbia, this site provides access to a variety of Psychology titles such as "Research Methods in Psychology" and "Together: The Science of Social Psychology."
Lumen Learning

Lumen Learning provides a Psychology textbook that includes various chapters such as Biological Foundations of Psychology and Psychological Disorders.
The National Academies Press (NAP)

This resource provides textbooks on various behavioral and social science topics.
Noba

Noba is an online platform that provides open, ready-made psychology textbooks and the opportunity to build a textbook from freely available chapters. Users must create an account to use Noba.
OpenStax College

Psychology is designed to meet scope and sequence requirements for the single-semester introduction to psychology course. The book offers a comprehensive treatment of core concepts, grounded in both classic studies and current and emerging research.

Concise Hydrology by Prof. Dawei Han

Bookbon provides students with free textbooks written by professors from the world’s top universities, covering topics from Engineering and IT to Economics and Business.
Water Resource Management by Walter Lükenga

Bookbon provides students with free textbooks written by professors from the world’s top universities, covering topics from Engineering and IT to Economics and Business.
Merlot (Water Resources)

Provides access to curated online learning and support materials and content creation tools, led by an international community of educators, learners and researchers

Environmental Engineering Chemistry
This text from LibreText and created for a course at Bucknell University and covers "the principles of aquatic chemistry and applications with emphasis on acid-base reactions, metal speciation and solubility, and oxidation-reduction reactions in water."

OER Samples for the Department of Social Sciences

Introduction to Sociology (2nd ed) from OpenStax
"Introduction to Sociology 2e adheres to the scope and sequence of a typical, one-semester introductory sociology course. It offers comprehensive coverage of core concepts, foundational scholars, and emerging theories. The textbook presents section reviews with rich questions, discussions that help students apply their knowledge, and features that draw learners into the discipline in meaningful ways." Additional instructor and student resources are also included.
Sociology: Understanding and Changing the Social World from University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing
"Sociology: Understanding and Changing the Social World makes sociology relevant for today's students by balancing traditional coverage with a fresh approach that ironically takes them back to sociology's American roots in the use of sociological knowledge for social reform."
Social Problems: Continuity and Change from University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing
"Social Problems: Continuity and Change is grounded in this vision by offering a sociological understanding of today's social problems and of possible solutions to these problems"

Introduction to the American Criminal Justice System from Open Oregon
This textbook "surveys the functional areas of criminal justice in the United States. This OER covers law enforcement, criminal courts, sentencing, penal institutions, and community-based sanctions. It also includes historical and contemporary perspectives on components of the criminal justice system, as well as the legal and constitutional frameworks in which they operate."
Criminal Law from University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing
"Criminal Law uses a two-step process to augment learning, called the applied approach. First, after building a strong foundation from scratch, Criminal Law introduces you to crimes and defenses that have been broken down into separate components...The second step of the applied approach is reviewing examples of the application of law to facts after dissecting and analyzing each legal concept."

American Government 2nd ed from OpenStax
"American Government 2e is designed to meet the scope and sequence requirements of the single-semester American Government course. This title includes innovative features designed to enhance student learning, including Insider Perspective features and a Get Connected module that shows students how they can get engaged in the political process. The book provides an important opportunity for students to learn the core concepts of American Government and understand how those concepts apply to their lives and the world around them." Additional student and instructor resources are also available.
American Government from Orange Grove
"From Florida Atlantic university Department of Political Science comes an exciting new book that explores the role of government, politics, and policy ion American lives. Full of real life applications and scenarios, Lenz and Holmans provide a text intended to encourage and enable political thinking (a reflective stance toward the world that helps a person to critically consider and participate in politics). Numerous hyperlinks send students into real world websites for illumination and exploration"

Global Women's Issues: Women in the World Today from BC Campus
"This book is based on the twelve critical areas of concern identified in the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action at the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995: The burden of poverty on women, unequal access to education and training, inequalities and inadequacies in and unequal access to health care and related services, violence against women, the effects of armed or other kinds of conflict on women, including those living under foreign occupation, inequality in economic structures and policies, inequality between men and women in the sharing of power and decision-making at all levels, insufficient mechanisms at all levels to promote the advancement of women, lack of respect for and inadequate promotion and protection of the human rights of women, stereotyping of women and inequality in women’s access to and participation in all communication systems, especially in the media, gender inequalities in the management of natural resources and in the safeguarding of the environment, and persistent discrimination against and violation of the rights of the girl child. "
OER Commons (Women's Studies)
A collection of over 67 high-quality OER materials related to Women's Studies. Collections include textbooks, full courses, activities and lesson plans. Use the filters on the side to limit the results by subject, material type, etc.

Open Textbook Library (Social Sciences)
"Open textbooks are textbooks that have been funded, published, and licensed to be freely used, adapted, and distributed. These books have been reviewed by faculty from a variety of colleges and universities to assess their quality. These books can be downloaded for no cost, or printed at low cost."
OER Commons (Social Sciences)
"In OER Commons, you can search, browse, and evaluate resources in OER Commons' growing collection of over 50,000 high-quality OER." Collections include textbooks, full courses, activities and lesson plans. Use the filters on the side to limit the results by subject, material type, etc.
Orange Grove (Social Sciences)
Florida's digital repository, it provides access to hundreds of open resources organized by subject area. Includes both a higher education and a k-12 education category.
Merlot (Social Sciences)
Provides access to curated online learning and support materials and content creation tools, led by an international community of educators, learners and researchers.
BC Campus Open Ed
Links to almost 300 subject-organized open textbooks

OER & Affordable Learning Materials (ALM)

Highlighted Open Resource Center

Explore the Open Language Resource Center (OLRC) at the University of Kansas

Featured OERs (Compressed List)

Featured Open Educational Resources (OERs)

OER Samples for Department of Arts & Humanities

OER Samples for Department of Science & Mathematics

OER Samples for the Department of Social Sciences