Digital library
Textbooks, references and open learning resources.
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A Handbook of Higher Education Leadership
Ed Ray · Oregon State University · 2024
Thirty-five experienced and accomplished higher education leaders have come together to provide twenty-five essays on twelve topics about which all leaders, aspiring leaders and students of higher education should be informed. This is a labor of love, provided for free electronically, and there are no star turns here. Each essay is focused on providing the reader with advice based on wisdom acquired from lessons learned. Some topics covered include: beginning and completing a leadership position, responding to authority, establishing accountability, budget policy, long-term planning, affordability and student success, creating a safe community, fundraising, research funding, college athletics, and crisis management.
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Efficacious Technology Management: A Guide for School Leaders
Gary Ackerman · Gary Ackerman · 2018
Dr. Gary Ackerman, an educational technology specialist with decades of experience in K-12, community college, and faculty development has released Efficacious Technology Management: A Guide for School Leaders. This is his second book, and it is available under a Creative Commons license. This book describes efficacious school technology as that which is used for educationally appropriate purposes, is properly configured to be robust and reliable, and is aligned with local expectations, so it is reasonable. This type of school IT emerges from collaborative planning including educators, IT professionals, and school leaders. This book helps educators understand IT and IT professionals understand education, so their collaboration can be efficient and effective.
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Project Management for Instructional Designers
Bobbie Sandberg; Royce Kimmons; Rebecca Zundel · David Wiley · 2018
Project Management for Instructional Designers (PM4ID) is a textbook about project management tailored specifically for instructional designers, intended for use in graduate programs in educational technology. This book is based on a pre-existing openly licensed textbook which was donated to the commons by a benefactor that desires to remain anonymous, and has been collaboratively revised and remixed by faculty and students at Brigham Young University.
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Research Data Management in the Canadian Context
Emily Carlisle-Johnston; Danielle Dennie; Émilie Fortin; Elizabeth Hill · Western University · 2023
Research Data Management is a term for all the things that researchers do to structure, organize and maintain data before, during and after doing research. RDM is also an emerging discipline that is concerned with researching and developing ways to manage research data more effectively. But what is research data? Where is the push towards formal Research Data Management coming from? What are the requirements of good data management? Research Data Management in the Canadian Context: A Guide for Practitioners and Learners looks at these questions and more, all with a focus on Canadian guidelines, regulations and infrastructure.
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Producing Open Source Software: How to Run a Successful Free Software Project
Karl Fogel · Karl Fogel · 2005
Producing Open Source Software is a book about the human side of open source development. It describes how successful projects operate, the expectations of users and developers, and the culture of free software. The book is released under an open copyright. You can buy it in bookstores, order copies from O'Reilly Media, or browse and download it here.
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Game Based and Adaptive Learning Strategies
Carrie Miller; Odbayar Batsaikhan; Elizabeth Pluskwik · Minnesota State Colleges and Universities · 2022
This book is designed to accompany a graduate-level instructional design course: Game-Based and Adaptive Learning, but could also be used for undergraduate teacher education or instructional design courses. The original texts and material for this book came from the development of a course for Brandeis University as part of their MS in Learner Experience Design program. This material can be used to teach pre-service teachers, in-service teachers, and instructional designers about game-based and adaptive learning. Assessments used in the actual Game-based and Adaptive Learning course are included in the final chapter and serve as recommendations for assessments of the learning outcomes. The material in this book pairs well with Using Game-Based Learning Online – A Cookbook of Recipes by The EGG. The Faculty Showcase materials were developed by dedicated faculty during the course of a year-long game development workshop in which faculty were introduced to GBL, developed game prototypes, played a variety of games, and finally playtested their designs. The work they continue to do in the area of GBL is part of the inspiration for this book. If you would like to contribute your own case study, please contact me at carrie.miller@mnsu.edu for consideration. Carrie Lewis Miller, Ph.D.- editor/author- Instructional Designer, Minnesota State University, Mankato
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Building Information - Representation and Management: Principles and Foundations for the Digital Era
Alexander Koutamanis · TU Delft Open · 2022
The book presents a coherent theory of building information, focusing on its representation and management in the digital era. It addresses issues such as the information explosion and the structure of analogue building representations to propose a parsimonious approach to the deployment and utilization of symbolic digital technologies like BIM. It also considers the matching representation of AECO processes in terms of tasks, so as to connect to information processing and support both information management and decision taking.
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Blueprints: Creating, Describing, and Implementing Designs for Larger-scale Software Projects
Stephen Davies · University of Mary Washington · 2024
Blueprints is a concise yet comprehensive coverage of Object-Oriented Analysis and Design concepts, suitable for a second programming course in Computer Science. It introduces and teaches application development in a command-line environment, and assumes basic expertise with the Java programming language.
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Digital Circuit Projects: An Overview of Digital Circuits Through Implementing Integrated Circuits
Charles Kann · Gettysburg College · 2014
Digital circuits, often called Integrated Circuits or ICs, are the central building blocks of a Central Processing Unit (CPU). To understand how a computer works, it is essential to understand the digital circuits which make up the CPU. This text introduces the most important of these digital circuits; adders, decoders, multiplexers, D flip-flops, and simple state machines. What makes this textbook unique is that it puts the ability to understand these circuits into the hands of anyone, from hobbyists to students studying Computer Science. This text is designed to teach digital circuits using simple projects the reader can implement. But unlike most lab manuals used in classes in Digital Circuits or Computer Organization classes, this textbook is designed to remove the barrier of a laboratory infrastructure needed in a face-to-face environment at a college or university. This textbook is designed to be used by the reader to create the circuits in their own homes. The textbook is free. The cost of the kits needed to do the labs is reasonable. And the projects are well documented and can be implemented by even novices to electronic projects. This text allows professors to add laboratory projects in digital circuits to students in online classes in Computer Organization. This enhances these classes with interesting and fun exercises that reinforce the classroom topics. This text can also be used by a hobbyist who wants to learn more about digital circuits and how computers work. The material is presented at a level that someone with no experience in digital circuits and electronics can successfully complete the projects, and gain an understanding of the circuits which go into making up a computer.
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Information Systems for Business and Beyond
David Bourgeois; James Smith; Shouhong Wang; Joseph Mortati · Saylor Foundation · 2014
This book is written as an introductory text, meant for those with little or no experience with computers or information systems. While sometimes the descriptions can get a little bit technical, every effort has been made to convey the information essential to understanding a topic while not getting bogged down in detailed terminology or esoteric discussions. Information Systems for Business and Beyond was written by Dr. David Bourgeois and originally published in 2014 as part of the Open Textbook Challenge at the Saylor Foundation. Since then, it has been accessed thousands of time and used in many courses worldwide. This 2019 update to the textbook brings it up to date and adds many new topics. True to its open textbook roots, many of the updates have come from the community of instructors and practitioners who are passionate about information systems. Please note that the XML and MS Word links go to an earlier version.
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Business Information Systems: Design an App for That
Raymond Frost; Jacqueline Pike; Lauren Kenyo; Sarah Pels · Saylor Foundation · 2011
We set out to design an introductory course governed by four themes: Give students a good idea of what a career in MIS looks like by doing MIS. Enhance the professionalism of deliverables by teaching design and usability concepts. Promote creativity by assigning projects that demand it. Teach students about cloud computing by having them do cloud computing. Students in an introductory Management Information Systems (MIS) course often ask what a career in MIS looks like. Lacking a clear vision, they make their own assumptions. Often they assume the career involves programming with little human interaction. That MIS is a technical field could not be further from the truth. MIS job descriptions typically require candidates to be able to collaborate, communicate, analyze needs and gather requirements. They also list the need for excellent written and communication skills. In other words, MIS workers are constantly interacting with other people both inside and outside the organization. They are coming up with creative solutions to business problems. This course is designed to help students get a feel for what a career in MIS would be like. Our students report that they learn more about information systems from their internships than from their IS courses. Consequently, we designed a course that looks very much like an internship—an introduction to the field followed by a substantial project. Chapter 1 begins by introducing the information systems landscape. Here we discuss all the usual suspects: the information systems triangle, the systems development life cycle, transaction systems (ERP, SCM, CRM), collaboration systems, and business intelligence systems. Other aspects of the landscape such as usability, outsourcing, database concepts and so forth are introduced throughout chapter in Chapter 2 where they fit in naturally with the flow of the project. Chapter 2 is the substantial project which runs over a number of chapters. Over the course of the semester, students pl
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Introduction to Tourism and Hospitality in BC
Morgan Westcott; Wendy Anderson · BCcampus · 2021
This textbook is an introduction to the tourism and hospitality industry in British Columbia, and is written with a first year college and university audience in mind. It is a collaborative work with input from educators, industry leaders, employers, and past graduates of BC’s tourism and hospitality management programs. All chapters have been reviewed by experts in the field. Each chapter is organized thematically moving from a global, then national, and finally provincial context. Chapters contain "Spotlight On" boxes that highlight an organization, business, or other key component and "Take a Closer Look" features that encourage further reading on particular subjects. There are also interactive H5P activities throughout the book. And key terms, exercises and case studies can be found at the end of each chapter.
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Strategic Management and Case Analysis: An Integrated Approach
Lori Anderson; Dirk Buengel; Joseph Simpson · Virginia Tech Publishing · 2025
Strategic Management and Case Analysis: An Integrated Approach is intended for students in undergraduate business programs taking a course in strategic management. Because strategic management synthesizes many business topics and takes a holistic view of business, strategic management courses are often senior-level capstone courses. Most undergraduate business school students begin their business education with a broad introductory business course and then concentrate on courses in their major. Then they return to a broader lens of business to cap off their business education at a higher-level of learning. This textbook supports this level of comprehensive learning. If used with a senior-level capstone course, this textbook supports seniors to synthesize their business education through the lens of strategic management and helps them understand how businesses become successful by leveraging their competitive advantage. This textbook integrates strategic management and case analysis, with cases linked from an open access collection of business strategy cases, RMIT Strategic Management Case Studies. Students will get the most out of this textbook if it is used with cases that students analyze. Strategic Management and Case Analysis: An Integrated Approach, integrates strategic management as a research-led field of study and practice-informed area of business practice with an experiential learning approach to conducting a case analysis. The book explains how strategic leaders and managers analyze their firm’s organizational performance, and external and internal environments; formulate corporate level and business level strategy, and innovation, sustainability and ethics, technology, and multinational strategy, which are embedded in business level strategies; and implement strategy across an organization. Students are in an active and engaged role with the subject and practice of strategic management as they apply the theories, concepts, and analytical frameworks and t
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The Fundamentals of Healthcare Administration: Navigating Challenges and Coordinating Care
Whitney Hamilton; Dorothy Howell; Melissa Jordan · University of North Georgia Press · 2021
This book is written for those interested in acquiring a thorough knowledge base relative to the intricacies of the organizational theories, customs, and insights significant to the management of health service organizations. It examines the foundational aspects of leadership and management as they relate to establishing and maintaining the principles and practices within healthcare organizations. The book opens with a discussion on the differences between health, healthcare, and health care while providing an overview of healthcare management and organizational trends. It culminates in discussions of leadership, management, motivation, organizational behavior, and management thinking. Additionally, it discusses topics of information technology, teamwork, health disparities, organizational culture, performance, and change.
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Management Communication: Strategic Insights and Practical Skills for Modern Business Communication Leaders
Elizabeth Dixon; Lisa Thomas · The Marriott School at Brigham Young University · 2025
This comprehensive resource covers the full spectrum of business communication: personal branding and employment communication, communicating with generative AI, navigating the writing process, developing information and data literacy skills, professionally formatting documents and presentation media, giving and receiving feedback, delivering difficult messages, communicating collaboratively, and delivering world-class business presentations. Focusing on practical application to real-world scenarios, the content prepares future business leaders to clearly, concisely, concretely, and confidently communicate with diverse audiences. This textbook is an indispensable guide for those seeking to master the art of business communication. For any questions or suggestions, please contact BYUMCOM@byu.edu
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Critical Employment, Ethical, and Legal Scenarios in Human Resource Development
Claretha Hughes · University of Arkansas · 2020
This book provides mini-cases for HRD and other disciplines to use for engaging students in incident discussions. Exploring ways to solve problems and make decisions about situations that occur at work.
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Business Ethics and Social Responsibility
Caroline Burns; Grant Rozeboom; Sarah Vital · Saint Mary's College of California · 2024
Business Ethics and Social Responsibility introduces students to ethical decision-making and the role of social responsibility in contemporary organizational life. The text explores foundational concepts in ethical reasoning, organizational culture, stakeholder theory, corporate governance, and the intersections between business actions and environmental and social issues. Through real concepts such as conflicts of interest, corporate social responsibility, and fiduciary accountability, the book supports learners in understanding how ethical frameworks inform responsible practice in business contexts. Through applied concepts such as conflicts of interest, corporate social responsibility, and fiduciary accountability, and guided engagement with real-world cases the book supports learners in understanding how ethical frameworks inform responsible practice in business contexts.
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Data Analytics with Applications in Business
Elbert Hearon · Aurora University · 2026
In today’s data-driven world, businesses constantly ask: How can we make optimal decisions? How can we predict what will happen next? Data analytics answers these questions and many other by transforming raw data into meaningful insights.
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Entrepreneurship
Michael Laverty; Chris Littel · OpenStax · 2020
This textbook is intended for use in introductory Entrepreneurship classes at the undergraduate level. Due to the wide range of audiences and course approaches, the book is designed to be as flexible as possible. Theoretical and practical aspects are presented in a balanced manner, and specific components such as the business plan are provided in multiple formats. Entrepreneurship aims to drive students toward active participation in entrepreneurial roles, and exposes them to a wide range of companies and scenarios.
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Fundamentals of Business Math
Lisa Koster; Tracey Chase · Conestoga College · 2023
This text will provide students with learning tools to develop fundamental mathematic skills and help them to improve basic arithmetic skills and develop reasoning and problem-solving skills.