Digital library
Textbooks, references and open learning resources.
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Introduction to the Law of Property, Estate Planning and Insurance
Don Mayer; Daniel Warner; George Siedel; Jethro Lieberman · Saylor Foundation · 2012
Introduction to the Law of Property, Estate Planning and Insurance is an up-to-date textbook that covers legal issues that students must understand relating to real estate (an especially important business asset), as well as estate planning and insurance. The text is organized to permit instructors to tailor the materials to their particular approach. The authors take special care to engage students by relating law to everyday events with their clear, concise and readable style. After introductory chapters covering the legal environment of business, Introduction to the Law of Property, Estate Planning and Insurance provides students with context and essential legal concepts relating to property rights and duties, estate planning, insurance, secured transactions, mortgages, and related topics. The text provides the vocabulary and legal savvy they will need when working with these concepts, which are critical to business planning and success.

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Business Law and the Legal Environment
Don Mayer; Daniel Warner; George Siedel · Saylor Foundation · 2012
Our goal is to provide students with a textbook that is up to date and comprehensive in its coverage of legal and regulatory issues—and organized to permit instructors to tailor the materials to their particular approach. This book engages students by relating law to everyday events with which they are already familiar (or with which they are familiarizing themselves in other business courses) and by its clear, concise, and readable style. (An earlier business law text by authors Lieberman and Siedel was hailed “the best written text in a very crowded field.”) This textbook provides context and essential concepts across the entire range of legal issues with which managers and business executives must grapple. The text provides the vocabulary and legal acumen necessary for businesspeople to talk in an educated way to their customers, employees, suppliers, government officials—and to their own lawyers.

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Foundations of Business Law and Legal Environment
Don Mayer · Saylor Foundation · 2012
Mayer, Warner, Siedel and Lieberman's Foundations of Business Law and the Legal Environment is an up-to-date textbook with comprehensive coverage of legal and regulatory issues for your introductory Legal Environment or Business Law course. The text is organized to permit instructors to tailor the materials to their particular approach. The authors take special care to engage students by relating law to everyday events with which they are already familiar with their clear, concise and readable style. Business Law and the Legal Environment provides students with context and essential concepts across a broad range of legal issues with which managers and business executives must grapple. The text provides the vocabulary and legal savvy necessary for business people to talk in an educated way to their customers, employees, suppliers, government officials — and to their own lawyers.

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Advanced Business Law and the Legal Environment
Don Mayer; Daniel Warner; George Siedel; Jethro Lieberman · Saylor Foundation · 2012
Mayer, Warner, Siedel and Lieberman's Advanced Business Law and the Legal Environment is an up-to-date textbook with coverage of legal and regulatory issues that are more technical than the topics in the authors' Foundations of Business Law and the Legal Environment. Appropriate for students who have already taken an introductory Legal Environment or Business Law course, the text is organized to permit instructors to tailor the materials to their particular approach. The authors take special care to engage students by relating law to everyday events with which they are already familiar with their clear, concise and readable style. Advanced Business Law and the Legal Environment provides students with context and essential legal concepts relating to the Uniform Commercial Code and various aspects of property law. The text provides the vocabulary and legal savvy necessary for business people to talk in an educated way to their customers, employees, suppliers, and other stakeholders — and to their own lawyers.

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The Mass Media Landscape
Dave Bostwick; Alyssa Riley; Dominique Valle · University of Arkansas · 2024
The Mass Media Landscape is a compilation of lessons to help audiences understand the evolution of U.S. mass media and disruptive media technologies. It includes overviews of media law, media ethics and media literacy. Chapters contain interactive exercises, review quizzes, writing assignments, and multimedia content. Following are four points of emphasis: Media literacy extends beyond the ability to identify misinformation and disinformation or follow reliable news sources. A crucial part of media literacy is understanding mass media history. Media literacy skills help both consumers and professionals create and publish reliable content, including on social media, in an ethical manner and with an understanding of long-term effects and potential consequences. All students, not just those who seek careers in the industry, benefit from learning about media history, media law, media ethics, and media literacy.

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Government Powers and Limitations
Kimberly Clairmont; Ethan Derstine; Alexandria Metzdorf; Stella Kemp · Oregon State University · 2024
This volume focuses on constitutional doctrine and law in the areas of government powers and limitations. It includes excerpts of landmark cases related to the judiciary and executive, contracts and takings clauses, and due process. The excerpts include the constitutional issues in these cases that are related to government powers and limitations with other questions of law and dicta omitted.

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International Libraries: An Open Textbook
Amanda Reed; Sarah Johnson; Heather Severson; Michael Green · The University at Buffalo · 2019
International Libraries: An Open Textbook is a reference sourcebook about the libraries and the field of librarianship in non-North American countries around the world. Each chapter in this volume includes a profile of a featured country’s variety of libraries, its library histories, its systems of library education, and its library practices, laws, and professional associations. Graduate students in the University at Buffalo’s Department of Information Science authored these chapters for the LIS 503: International Librarianship course during the summer term of 2019. The text was developed under the a Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) as an open educational resource that can be adapted for future sections of the International Librarianship course or for similar courses offered in library and information programs at other institutions.

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Conflict, War and Revolution: the problem of politics in international political thought
Paul Kelly · LSE Press · 2022
Violence and war were ubiquitous features of politics long before the emergence of the modern state system. Since the late 18th century major revolutions across the world have further challenged the idea of the state as a final arbiter of international order. This book discusses ten major thinkers who have questioned and re-shaped how we think about politics, violence and relations between states – Thucydides, Augustine, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Clausewitz, Lenin and Mao, and Schmitt. Conflict, war and revolution have generally been seen in political thought as problems to be managed by stable domestic political communities. In different ways, all the paradigmatic thinkers here acknowledge them instead as inevitable dimensions of human experience, manifested through different ways of acting politically – while yet offering radically distinct answers about how they can be handled. This book dramatically broadens the canon of political thought by considering perspectives on the international system that challenge its historical inevitability and triumph. Drawing on history, theology, and law as well as philosophy, Paul Kelly introduces thinkers who challenge fundamentally the ways in which we should think about the nature and scope of political institutions and agents. He illuminates many troubling contemporary conflicts with a critical and historical perspective. This book is primarily intended for second year and upwards undergraduate students in general political theory and international theory, and advanced international relations students. Each chapter is also downloadable on its own for use in courses considering only some of the ten theorists covered. Written in an accessible way Conflict, War and Revolution will also interest advanced general readers with interests in the historical thought underpinnings of political ideas and today’s international politics.

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Cases on Social Issues: For Class Discussion
Deirdre Maultsaid; Brianna Doyle; Celine Wai Shan Li; Gregory John · Kwantlen Polytechnic University · 2023
This Open Education resource, “Cases on Social Issues: For Class Discussion – 2nd Edition”, includes valuable cases for student use on issues of discrimination, diversity, equity, inclusion and general social issues in the workplace. Included are cases for discussion on workplace scenarios as follows: homophobia; working with Indigenous communities; oil and gas pipelines and the family ranch; invisible disabilities; employee anxiety; safety for women, transgender women and non-binary people; and the bullying of new immigrants and refugees. The critical events portrayed in the cases are realistic and emotional, and most feature the experiences of under-represented and marginalized people. These thoughtful, contemporary cases pose ethical dilemmas about social issues that encourage post-secondary students and instructors to have stimulating, inclusive, and compassionate discussions. Inspired by input from post-secondary students and authored by students and people who are usually under-represented in education material, this resource is designed for upper-level undergraduate or graduate students in the humanities, social sciences, business, healthcare, science, agriculture, environmental studies, Indigenous studies, land use studies, law and more. Each case is supplemented with modifiable discussion prompts, notes for teaching strategies, and a short reading list.

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Attenuated Democracy: A Critical Introduction to U.S. Government and Politics
David Hubert · Salt Lake Community College · 2020
The U.S. political system suffers from endemic design flaws and is notable for the way that a small subset of Americans—whose interests often don’t align with those of the vast majority of the population—wields disproportionate power. Absent organized and persistent action on the part of ordinary Americans, the system tends to serve the already powerful. That’s why this text is called Attenuated Democracy. To attenuate something is to make it weak or thin. Democracy in America has been thin from the beginning and continues to be so despite some notable progress in voting rights. As political scientists Benjamin Page and Martin Gilens wrote, “The essence of democracy is not just having reasonably satisfactory policies; the essence of democracy is popular control of government, with each citizen having an equal voice.” (1) Since this is likely to be your only college-level course on the American political system, it is important to point out the structural weaknesses of our system and the thin nature of our democracy. Whenever you get the chance—in the voting booth, in your job, perhaps if you hold elected office—I encourage you to do something about America’s attenuated democracy.

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Research Methods in Psychology
Rajiv Jhangiani; I-Chant Chiang · BCcampus · 2015
The present adaptation constitutes the second Canadian edition and was co-authored by Rajiv S. Jhangiani (Kwantlen Polytechnic University) and I-Chant A. Chiang (Quest University Canada) and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Revisions include the following: Chapter 1: Added a description of the “Many Labs Replication Project,” added a reference to the Neurobonkers website, and embedded videos about open access publishing, driver distraction, two types of empirical studies, and the use of evidence to evaluate the world around us.Chapter 2: Updated the exemplar study in the chapter overview, added relevant examples and descriptions of contemporary studies, provided a link to an interactive visualization for correlations, added a description of double-blind peer review, added a figure to illustrate a spurious correlation, and embedded videos about how to develop a good research topic, searching the PsycINFO database, using Google Scholar, and how to read an academic paper.Chapter 3: Added in LaCour ethical violation. Revised chapter headings and order to reflect TCPS-2 moral principles.Chapter 4: Added in difference between laws and effects and theoretical framework.Chapter 5: Added fuller descriptions of the levels of measurement, added a table to summarize the levels of measurement, added a fuller description of the MMPI, removed the discussion of the IAT, and added descriptions of concurrent, predictive, and convergent validity.Chapter 6: Added in construct validity, statistical validity, mundane realism, psychological realism, Latin Square Design. Updated references.Chapter 7: Added in mixed-design studies and fuller discussion of qualitative-quantitative debate.Chapter 8: Added an exercise to sketch the 8 possible results of a 2 x 2 factorial experiment.Chapter 9: Added information about Canadian Election Studies, more references, specific guidelines about order and open-ended questions, and rating

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American Government and Politics in the Information Age
University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing · 2016
This text is a comprehensive introduction to the vital subject of American government and politics. Governments decide who gets what, when, how (See Harold D. Lasswell, Politics: Who Gets What, When, How, [New York: McGraw-Hill, 1936]); they make policies and pass laws that are binding on all a society's members; they decide about taxation and spending, benefits and costs, even life and death. Governments possess power—the ability to gain compliance and to get people under their jurisdiction to obey them—and they may exercise their power by using the police and military to enforce their decisions. However, power need not involve the exercise of force or compulsion; people often obey because they think it is in their interest to do so, they have no reason to disobey, or they fear punishment. Above all, people obey their government because it has authority; its power is seen by people as rightfully held, as legitimate. People can grant their government legitimacy because they have been socialized to do so; because there are processes, such as elections, that enable them to choose and change their rulers; and because they believe that their governing institutions operate justly. Politics is the process by which leaders are selected and policy decisions are made and executed. It involves people and groups, both inside and outside of government, engaged in deliberation and debate, disagreement and conflict, cooperation and consensus, and power struggles. In covering American government and politics, our text introduces the intricacies of the Constitution, the complexities of federalism, the meanings of civil liberties, and the conflicts over civil rights;explains how people are socialized to politics, acquire and express opinions, and participate in political life; describes interest groups, political parties, and elections—the intermediaries that link people to government and politics; details the branches of government and how they operate; and shows how policies are m

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Introduction to Psychology
University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing · 2015
When you teach Introduction to Psychology, do you find it difficult — much harder than teaching classes in statistics or research methods? Do you easily give a lecture on the sympathetic nervous system, a lecture on Piaget, and a lecture on social cognition, but struggle with linking these topics together for the student? Do you feel like you are presenting a laundry list of research findings rather than an integrated set of principles and knowledge? Have you wondered how to ensure your course is relevant to your students? Introduction to Psychology utilizes the dual theme of behavior and empiricism to make psychology relevant to intro students. The author wrote this book to help students organize their thinking about psychology at a conceptual level. Five or ten years from now, he does not expect his students to remember the details of most of what he teaches them. However, he does hope that they will remember that psychology matters because it helps us understand behavior and that our knowledge of psychology is based on empirical study. This book is designed to facilitate these learning outcomes, and he has used three techniques to help focus students on behavior: Chapter Openers: Each chapter opens showcasing an interesting real world example of people who dealing with behavioral questions and who can use psychology to help them answer them. The opener is designed to draw the student into the chapter and create an interesting in learning about the topic. Psychology in Everyday Life: Each chapter contains one or two features designed to link the principles from the chapter to real-world applications in business, environment, health, law, learning, and other relevant domains. For instance, the application in Chapter 7 on Development, ”What makes good parents“ applies the concepts of parenting styles in a mini-handbook about parenting, and the application in Chapter 3 is about the difficulties that left-handed people face performing everyday tasks in a right-handed

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Principles of Microeconomics
David Shapiro; Steven Greenlaw; Daniel MacDonald · OpenStax · 2014
Principles of Microeconomics 3e covers the scope and sequence of most one semester introductory microeconomics courses. The third edition takes a balanced approach to the theory and application of microeconomics concepts. The text uses conversational language and ample illustrations to explore economic theories, and provides a wide array of examples using both fictional and real-world applications. The third edition has been carefully and thoroughly updated to reflect recent developments, as well as to provide a deeper background in diverse contributors and their impacts on economic thought and analysis. For example, the third edition highlights the research and views of a broader group of economists.

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Principles of Macroeconomics for AP® Courses 2e
Steven Greenlaw; David Shapiro · OpenStax · 2017
Principles of Macroeconomics 3e covers the scope and sequence of most one semester introductory macroeconomics courses. The third edition takes a balanced approach to the theory and application of macroeconomics concepts. The text uses conversational language and ample illustrations to explore economic theories, and provides a wide array of examples using both fictional and real-world scenarios. The third edition has been carefully and thoroughly updated to reflect current data and understanding, as well as to provide a deeper background in diverse contributors and their impacts on economic thought and analysis. For example, the third edition highlights the research and views of a broader group of economists. Brief references and deeply explored socio-political examples have also been updated to showcase the critical – and sometimes unnoticed – ties between economic developments and topics relevant to students. A fuller list of changes made in Principles of Macroeconomics 3e are described in the preface and the transition guide to help instructors transition to the third edition.

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Principles of Economics
Steven Greenlaw; David Shapiro; Daniel MacDonald · OpenStax · 2022
Principles of Economics 3e covers the scope and sequence of most introductory economics courses. The third edition takes a balanced approach to the theory and application of economics concepts. The text uses conversational language and ample illustrations to explore economic theories, and provides a wide array of examples using both fictional and real-world scenarios. The third edition has been carefully and thoroughly updated to reflect current data and understanding, as well as to provide a deeper background in diverse contributors and their impacts on economic thought and analysis. For example, the third edition highlights the research and views of a broader group of economists. Brief references and deeply explored socio-political examples have been updated to showcase the critical – and sometimes unnoticed – ties between economic developments and topics relevant to students. A fuller list of changes made in Principles of Economics 3e are described in the preface and the transition guide to help instructors transition to the third edition.

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Laboratory Manual for Introductory Geology
Bradley Deline; Randa Harris; Karen Tefend · University of North Georgia Press · 2015
This textbook is a comprehensive lab manual for the core curriculum Introductory Geosciences classes with both informational content and laboratory exercises. Topics include basic laws and theories in Geology, the Earth's interior and plate tectonics, water and climate change, igneous rocks and volcanoes, and earthquakes.

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University Physics I: Classical Mechanics
Julio Gea-Banacloche · University of Arkansas · 2019
This is a “minimalist” textbook for a first semester of university, calculus-based physics, covering classical mechanics (including one chapter on mechanical waves, but excluding fluids), plus a brief introduction to thermodynamics. The presentation owes much to Mazur’s The Principles and Practice of Physics: conservation laws, momentum and energy, are introduced before forces, and one-dimensional setups are thoroughly explored before two-dimensional systems are considered. It contains both problems and worked-out examples.

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Body Physics: Motion to Metabolism
Lawrence Davis · Open Oregon Educational Resources · 2018
Body Physics sticks to the basic functioning of the human body, from motion to metabolism, as a common theme through which fundamental physics topics are introduced. Related practice, reinforcement and Lab activities are included. See the front matter for more details. Additional supplementary material, activities, and information can be found at: https://openoregon.pressbooks.pub/bpsupmat/

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Conservation Biology in Sub-Saharan Africa
John Wilson; Richard Primack · Open Book Publishers · 2019
Conservation Biology in Sub-Saharan Africa comprehensively explores the challenges and potential solutions to key conservation issues in Sub-Saharan Africa. Easy to read, this lucid and accessible textbook includes fifteen chapters that cover a full range of conservation topics, including threats to biodiversity, environmental laws, and protected areas management, as well as related topics such as sustainability, poverty, and human-wildlife conflict. This rich resource also includes a background discussion of what conservation biology is, a wide range of theoretical approaches to the subject, and concrete examples of conservation practice in specific African contexts. Strategies are outlined to protect biodiversity whilst promoting economic development in the region.