Digital library
Textbooks, references and open learning resources.
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First-Year Arabic
Ragy Mikhaeel · Northwestern University Libraries · 2024
First-Year Arabic focuses on Egyptian Colloquial Arabic, the most widespread spoken Arabic variety which is perceived as the lingua franca in the Arab world. The material of the book covers about 15-16 weeks of study for classes meeting twice a week (80 minutes/session). This material can be modified according to the teacher’s plan and speed. Students with only one introductory course of Arabic can use the book for self education. The learner can tell easily from the introductory chapter, the quality of the grammatical notes, verb conjugations and exercises spread all over the book that the book is written for both regular language class purpose at the university level and for self education. The book has recordings that are essential for learners.
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Polyphony: Reader and Explorations for First-Year Writing
Jennie Snow; Elise Takehana; Diego Ubiera · ROTEL · 2024
Polyphony is a functional, creative, and radical resource for facilitating critical conversations about multilingualism, the politics of language, and linguistic justice in the first-year writing classroom. Texts and activities explore diverse perspectives on themes like silencing/voicing, language extinction and reclamation, (in)visibility, translation, agency, and validation, among others. Designed for use by both instructors and students, this book is meant to be used in a variety of combinations and highlights multiple modes of writing, including personal narrative, textual analysis, argumentation, reflection, and research. Embracing a “polyphonic” approach to first-year writing, this book presents connections between texts, authors, and ideas that actively engage students and instructors in critical conversations about language, education, and the institutionalization of both.
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D'accordo! Intermediate Italian at The University of Iowa
Cinzia Blum; Lucia Gemmani · University of Iowa · 2024
D’accordo! is an intermediate Italian open-access textbook authored by the Italian faculty of The University of Iowa. A no-cost, user-friendly e-textbook, which may be fully integrated with educational platforms, D’Accordo! will support students’ acquisition of the grammar and vocabulary necessary for meaningful communication, enhance students’ familiarity with Italian culture through a variety of cultural artifacts, and, for majors and minors, create a bridge to upper-level courses.
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Institutional Racism in the United States Revisited
Carmichael Peters; Louis Knowles; Rodè Cramer; Glennan Keldin · Chapman University · 2024
This book aims to examine the current state of systemic racism in the United States as compared to baseline data collected in 1969. Using recent findings in the fields of history, economics, education, political science and public health, the work reveals the ways in which systemic racism in the US has and has not been addressed in the past five decades.
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Green Tea Intermediate English Communication OER
Eric Dodson; Luciana Diniz; Nanci Leiton · Open Oregon Educational Resources · 2020
This set of multimedia materials incorporates interesting topics and real-world language in an accessible way for adult English language learners at the low-to-mid intermediate level, using eclectic methods (communicative activities, content-based instruction lite, focus on form), all while maintaining a connection to our learners’ lives. Each unit has handouts, presentation slides, key vocabulary lists, informative speeches recorded by ESOL teachers at PCC, dialogs, extension activities, and additional videos or materials for assessment. The videos can be linked to directly, embedded in a class page or Learning Management System (LMS, such as Canvas), or downloaded. Closed captioned versions of the videos are also available. Teachers can incorporate everything here, or take an a la carte approach with their existing activities and curricula. To make it easier to navigate these materials, we are gathering them in a pressbooks site as well. That site may make it easier for teachers to navigate and share links with students. Like any set of classroom materials, this OER is not a “class in a box.” We anticipate that teachers will have their own approach to in-class (or synchronous online) activities, out-of-class work, assessments, and speeches, so we’re not offering a one-size-fits-all solution. These materials are openly shared (with the exception of youtube videos, where noted), which means you have all the permission you need to use, adapt, and re-share them. All we ask is to attribute the materials to “Green Tea Communication OER,” and, if you have a moment, let us know if you found the materials helpful. Please let us know if you have feedback, questions, or additional contributions to this project: eric.dodson@pcc.edu, luciana.diniz@pcc.edu and nleiton@pcc.edu
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Western Civilization: A Concise History
Christopher Brooks · Portland Community College · 2024
Western Civilization: A Concise History is an Open Educational Resource textbook covering the history of Western Civilization from approximately 8000 BCE to the recent past. The textbook is divided into three volumes. The core narrative of the textbook is a political history of the greater Mediterranean region in the ancient period in Volume 1, Europe and European empires in the medieval and early modern periods in Volume 2, and both European and world history in the modern period in Volume 3. Elements of intellectual, cultural, social, and religious history are present throughout, but the main focus of the text is politics over time.
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Western Civilization: A Concise History
Christopher Brooks · Portland Community College · 2024
Western Civilization: A Concise History is an Open Educational Resource textbook covering the history of Western Civilization from approximately 8000 BCE to the recent past. The textbook is divided into three volumes. The core narrative of the textbook is a political history of the greater Mediterranean region in the ancient period in Volume 1, Europe and European empires in the medieval and early modern periods in Volume 2, and both European and world history in the modern period in Volume 3. Elements of intellectual, cultural, social, and religious history are present throughout, but the main focus of the text is politics over time.
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Western Civilization: A Concise History
Christopher Brooks · Portland Community College · 2024
Western Civilization: A Concise History is an Open Educational Resource textbook covering the history of Western Civilization from approximately 8000 BCE to the recent past. The textbook is divided into three volumes. The core narrative of the textbook is a political history of the greater Mediterranean region in the ancient period in Volume 1, Europe and European empires in the medieval and early modern periods in Volume 2, and both European and world history in the modern period in Volume 3. Elements of intellectual, cultural, social, and religious history are present throughout, but the main focus of the text is politics over time.
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#OnYGo
Géraldine Blattner; Amanda Dalola; Stéphanie Roulon · G. Blattner, A. Dalola, and S. Roulon · 2023
#OnYGo is an innovative first-year French language e-textbook, designed as Open Educational Resource (OER), for learning beginning French (equivalent to one year at an American university). It is inspired by a remix of task-based, multiliteracies and communicative approaches, which provides students with opportunities to engage with French language and culture in a variety of contexts and situations, across a range of modalities. Through a wide range of activities, students develop and practice their language skills, and reflect on their cross-cultural knowledge and positionality in their understanding of the vast francophone landscape. #OnYGo is a first-year textbook that takes a DEI-forward approach to the depiction of people, contexts, and concepts. It views language learners, instructors and a wide range of individuals interacting in French as belonging to a large multilingual and francophone community. It recognizes multilingualism and multiculturalism in all its forms, and showcases French speakers with a variety of backgrounds and relationships to the French language. The cultural and pedagogical materials in this collection have been selected for their authenticity and diverse representation of French speakers on the five continents, and are thus purposely inclusive of gender, sexual orientation, race, and ethnicity.
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Building Bridges: Establishing a Foundation for Interprofessional Collaboration in Healthcare (Revised)
Andrea Nelson; Katherine Greene; Katie Cavnar · University of West Florida Pressbooks · 2025
Building Bridges: Establishing a Foundation for Interprofessional Collaboration in Healthcare (Revised) is an Open Educational Resource (OER) that focuses on teaching interprofessional collaboration in healthcare to students entering their respective health profession's program. This book will help students achieve success not only in their educational program, but as they experience various healthcare settings through internships and employment. This resource is targeted for students in healthcare professions.
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Leading in Health and Social Care
Sheree Lloyd; Richard Olley; Eleanor Milligan · Griffith University · 2023
This comprehensive textbook captures best international practice and is focused on the practical needs of leaders in health and social care. The text includes chapters that address evolving and innovative practices in leadership, ethics, leading people and human resource management, cultural safety for First Nations peoples, innovation, digital health, finance and resource management, systems thinking, change, evaluation and safety and quality. As an open educational resource, leaders, managers, students, policymakers and all readers interested in improving healthcare systems can access the book. The choice to publish on an open platform demonstrates our commitment to building a strong, transparent, and connected community of practice for health service leaders across many disciplines and across the world. We hope this pragmatic and contemporary textbook will reach a broad audience with an interest in strengthening the discipline of health service leadership and building fit-for-purpose healthcare systems that meet the needs of the diverse communities we serve. To achieve this we want the text to be free and widely available. To achieve the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals, health and quality education are key and this open educational resource (OER) is available for all to use to guide their practice and the strengthening of health and social care systems.
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Surface and Subtext: Literature, Research, Writing
James Francis, Jr.; Claire Carly-Miles; Kimberly Clough; R. Paul Cooper · Texas A&M University · 2024
Open-educational resource textbook created by the TAMU English 203 OER Committee.
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¡Voy en camino!
Constanza Rojas-Primus; Ana Robles · Kwantlen Polytechnic University · 2023
¡Voy en camino! means “I’m on my way” in Spanish. Since learning an additional language and the culture is a journey in itself, ¡Voy en camino! captures the voyage to get there. ¡Voy en camino! has been created to serve the first two introductory Spanish language courses at Kwantlen Polytechnic University (KPU) and to solidify our commitment to Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC). All units of study are designed to be interactive with embedded audio, videos and links for learners to practice the material along the way. Learners can self-pace and self-test their knowledge both individually and with the assistance of an instructor. ¡Voy en camino! has plenty of opportunities to practice writing and speaking with downloadable capabilities becoming a Spanish teaching and learning tool that promotes and supports sustainable renewable learning. With its digital format and open publication ¡Voy en camino! is also meant to join the Spanish teaching open education community and provide access to learning to interested users along the way.
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Foundations of Aural Skills
Timothy Chenette · Utah Education Network Digital Press with Pressbooks · 2022
Foundations of Aural Skills is a research-based, accessible, relevant, creative, inclusive, empowering textbook for teaching introductory aural skills. The first seven chapters provide thorough instruction in aural fundamentals, allowing students to build their foundations from a variety of starting points. The following chapters address the traditional tasks of sight-reading and dictation, but also improvisation, mimicking music you hear (“playback”), transcription, and ensemble skills. The final two chapters add some basic form- and chord-listening skills. Every section includes creative activities that learners can try out on their own or do in class. Embedded playlists for practicing listening skills include a diverse range of music that will connect with students’ preferences and allow them to experience music they haven’t worked with before. While the text is primarily designed for a first semester or year of instruction, it also includes some instruction on modulation, chromaticism, and mixed meter, and future additions/development will make these advanced applications more robust.
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A History of the Middle East
Robert Flynn · Portland Community College · 2026
A History of the Middle East 2.0 is an Open Educational Resource textbook on the history of the Middle East from the time of Muhammad to the end of the Arab Spring in 2017. It is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike International 4.0 license and is licensed by Portland Community College. It is available as a single volume PDF. I am happy to provide the Microsoft Word source files on request.
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Trayectos 2: Más sobre mí
Gabriela Zapata · Center for Open Educational Resources and Language Learning (COERLL) · 2022
Trayectos is an open curriculum for beginning second language (L2) learners of Spanish. The textbook offers the following features to L2 Spanish students and instructors: Learner-centered fresh, multimodal content, based on Learning by Design, a pedagogy inspired by the Multiliteracies movement (Kalantzis et al., 2005, 2016, 2019; Zapata, 2022). The four modules in Volume I connect the life worlds of learners with the life worlds of diverse Spanish speakers. Instruction incorporating the following features: Multimodal texts (e.g., readings, videos, posters) based on a variety of textual genres that contextualize topics about the lives of real university students; Communicative activities that bind language form to cultural meaning within real-life contexts, and offer students opportunities to discover how to use new Spanish vocabulary and grammar in diverse sociocultural situations; Critical thinking and language awareness tasks that showcase different varieties of Spanish, including those spoken in the United States, and help learners explore the Spanish-speaking world, including local Hispanic/Latinx communities; and Culminating tasks that oblige learners to synthesize their new linguistic and cultural knowledge into a personal, multimodal text. Supplementary digital resources that provide students with opportunities to practice the content learned through self-correcting activities (Práctica individual) and to use Spanish to broaden their knowledge of and critically analyze issues related to diversity, equity, and inclusion in the Spanish-speaking world (Voces de nuestro mundo; available at http://bit.ly/VocesMundo). An open copyright license (Creative Commons license) that gives all users the right to adapt the textbook and to share their new content with others, and digital how-to sections for instructors to answer their students’ unique needs.
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Trayectos 1: Mi vida en la universidad
Gabriela Zapata · Center for Open Educational Resources and Language Learning (COERLL) · 2021
Trayectos is an open curriculum for beginning second language (L2) learners of Spanish. The textbook offers the following features to L2 Spanish students and instructors: Learner-centered fresh, multimodal content, based on Learning by Design, a pedagogy inspired by the Multiliteracies movement (Kalantzis et al., 2005, 2016, 2019; Zapata, 2022). The four modules in Volume I connect the life worlds of learners with the life worlds of diverse Spanish speakers. Instruction incorporating the following features: Multimodal texts (e.g., readings, videos, posters) based on a variety of textual genres that contextualize topics about the lives of real university students; Communicative activities that bind language form to cultural meaning within real-life contexts, and offer students opportunities to discover how to use new Spanish vocabulary and grammar in diverse sociocultural situations; Critical thinking and language awareness tasks that showcase different varieties of Spanish, including those spoken in the United States, and help learners explore the Spanish-speaking world, including local Hispanic/Latinx communities; and Culminating tasks that oblige learners to synthesize their new linguistic and cultural knowledge into a personal, multimodal text. Supplementary digital resources that provide students with opportunities to practice the content learned through self-correcting activities (Práctica individual) and to use Spanish to broaden their knowledge of and critically analyze issues related to diversity, equity, and inclusion in the Spanish-speaking world (Voces de nuestro mundo; available at http://bit.ly/VocesMundo). An open copyright license (Creative Commons license) that gives all users the right to adapt the textbook and to share their new content with others, and digital how-to sections for instructors to answer their students’ unique needs.
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Processes: Writing Across Academic Careers
Christopher Iverson; Dan Ehrenfeld · Milne Open Textbooks · 2023
Processes: Writing Across Academic Careers is an edited collection featuring writing from students, faculty, and staff at Farmingdale State College, a State University of New York (SUNY) campus on Long Island. Each contributor reflects on their own writing as well as writing in their fields/disciplines. Namely, they reflect on their writing processes, hence the name of the book. The FSC Writing in the Disciplines committee curated excerpts of published or unpublished work from faculty, students, and administrators across departments and offices. The result is Processes: Writing Across Academic Careers, a collection of writing samples and reflections on the processes that made those pieces of writing possible. This book shows that, while writing looks and functions differently in different disciplines, college communities center on writing. From the college president to the faculty to the students, each member of the community grapples with writing, even in disciplines not considered to be writing-intensive. The text features compositions from nursing, STEM and health sciences, education, and history and culture. The examples span from reflections on the role of writing in one’s academic career, examples of professional writing in the sciences, research papers, conference proposals, to laboratory reports. The examples of published or works-in-progress are accompanied by thoughtful reflections on how the author crafted their work. The collection presents an opportunity for scholars to acknowledge the centrality of writing in their everyday work. Students learning how to write in college and about writing conventions in their specific disciplines will gain an overview of writing they will encounter in their academic career and an appreciation for the multitudes of ways writers work. Perfect for introductory writing courses, and useful modularly for any class that touches on writing or information literacy, this text is a unique, honest, and practical resource for any u
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The European Experience: A Multi-Perspective History of Modern Europe, 1500–2000
Jan Hansen; Jochen Hung; Jaroslav Ira · Open Book Publishers
The European Experience brings together the expertise of nearly a hundred historians from eight European universities to internationalise and diversify the study of modern European history, exploring a grand sweep of time from 1500 to 2000. Offering a valuable corrective to the Anglocentric narratives of previous English-language textbooks, scholars from all over Europe have pooled their knowledge on comparative themes such as identities, cultural encounters, power and citizenship, and economic development to reflect the complexity and heterogeneous nature of the European experience. Rather than another grand narrative, the international author teams offer a multifaceted and rich perspective on the history of the continent of the past 500 years. Each major theme is dissected through three chronological sub-chapters, revealing how major social, political and historical trends manifested themselves in different European settings during the early modern (1500–1800), modern (1800–1900) and contemporary period (1900–2000). This resource is of utmost relevance to today’s history students in the light of ongoing internationalisation strategies for higher education curricula, as it delivers one of the first multi-perspective and truly ‘European’ analyses of the continent’s past. Beyond the provision of historical content, this textbook equips students with the intellectual tools to interrogate prevailing accounts of European history, and enables them to seek out additional perspectives in a bid to further enrich the discipline
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It’s About Them: Public Speaking in the 21st Century
Sara Kim; Douglas Marshall; June Pulliam · LOUIS: The Louisiana Library Network
In addition to original material this book is an adaptation of Introduction to Speech Communication authored by Sarah E. Hollingsworth, Kathryn Weinland, Sasha Hanrahan, and Mary Walker with a CC BY-NC-SA license. Introduction to Speech Communication includes original work as well as adapted and remixed material from Exploring Public Speaking: 4th Edition licensed CC BY-NC-SA, Stand Up, Speak Out licensed CC BY-NC-SA, and Fundamentals of Public Speaking licensed CC BY. It’s About Them: Public Speaking in the 21st Century also adapted a chapter from Speak Out, Call In: Public Speaking as Advocacy authored by Meggie Mapes that is licensed CC BY-NC-SA. The information on “What is an Open Textbook?” is adapted from Introduction to Philosophy: Epistemology by Christina Hendricks with a CC-BY license. See the Adaptations section for specific changes. This textbook was created as part of the Interactive OER for Dual Enrollment project, facilitated by LOUIS: The Louisiana Library Network and funded by a $2 million Open Textbooks Pilot Program grant from the Department of Education. This project supports the extension of access to high-quality post-secondary opportunities to high school students across Louisiana and beyond. This project features a collaboration between educational systems in Louisiana, the library community, Pressbooks technology partner, and workforce representatives. It will enable and enhance the delivery of open educational resources (OER) and interactive quiz and assessment elements for priority dual enrollment courses in Louisiana and nationally. Developed OER course materials will be released under a license that permits their free use, reuse, modification and sharing with others.The target audience for this project and this textbook are dual enrollment students. Dual enrollment is the opportunity for a student to be enrolled in high school and college at the same time. A dual enrollment student receives credit on both their high school and college tr