New and Noteworthy is the City Tech Library OER Team’s monthly roundup of new and noteworthy open educational resources. We try to include at least one OER relevant to each school at City Tech in every post. At the end of the month, these resources will be compiled and distributed by the library liaison for your department. Please contact us if you know of new or particularly interesting OER to share with our colleagues or would like more information about open educational resources initiatives at City Tech.
Computer Systems Technology
- Data Science: A First Introduction with R, by Tiffany Timbers, Trevor Campbell, and Melissa Lee (2024). License: CC BY-NC-SA
“[In this book] you will learn how to use the R programming language (R Core Team 2021) to perform all the tasks associated with data analysis. You will spend the first four chapters learning how to use R to load, clean, wrangle (i.e., restructure the data into a usable format) and visualize data while answering descriptive and exploratory data analysis questions. In the next six chapters, you will learn how to answer predictive, exploratory, and inferential data analysis questions with common methods in data science, including classification, regression, clustering, and estimation. In the final chapters (11–13), you will learn how to combine R code, formatted text, and images in a single coherent document with Jupyter, use version control for collaboration, and install and configure the software needed for data science on your own computer.”  - Data Science: A First Introduction with Python, by Tiffany Timbers, Trevor Campbell, Melissa Lee, Joel Ostblom, Lindsey Heagy (2024). License: CC BY-NC-SA
“[In this book] you will learn how to use the Python programming language to perform all the tasks associated with data analysis. You will spend the first four chapters learning how to use Python to load, clean, wrangle (i.e., restructure the data into a usable format) and visualize data while answering descriptive and exploratory data analysis questions. In the next six chapters, you will learn how to answer predictive, exploratory, and inferential data analysis questions with common methods in data science, including classification, regression, clustering, and estimation. In the final chapters you will learn how to combine Python code, formatted text, and images in a single coherent document with Jupyter, use version control for collaboration, and install and configure the software needed for data science on your own computer.”
Dental Hygiene
- Dental Hygiene collection, by various authors, Wisc-Online. License: CC BY-NC
A collection of resources including interactive activities, videos, and case studies exploring various dental hygiene topics. - Impact of COVID-19 on the Dental Community, edited by Hans-Peter Howaldt and Sameh Attia (2023). License: CC BY-NC-ND
“The COVID-19 pandemic is considered to be a global public health emergency. Due to its route of transmission via contact with droplets and aerosols, dentists are at high risk of acquiring an infection while treating patients. The impact of the coronavirus on the dental community is eminent, and the greatest challenge is how we can offer dental treatment despite the outbreak. This topical collection offers many perspectives on the management of the COVID-19 crisis within the dental community.”
English
- Reading and Writing Successfully in College: A Guide for Students, by Patricia Lynne, Fitchburg State University / ROTEL Project (2023). License: CC BY-SA
“This textbook provides students with guidelines for understanding writing tasks as intellectual work using Bloom’s Taxonomy and for treating the writing process as a set of variable activities that move along a trajectory from idea or assignment to a finished product. The book also includes chapters on strengthening reading strategies and on finding, evaluating, and using sources effectively.
Health Sciences & Health Services Administration
- Health Care in the Information Society, by David Ingram, Cambridge (2023). License: CC BY-NC.
“The book is distinctive in its broad scope and coverage and as the eyewitness account of an author who became the first UK professor appointed with the mission to bridge information technology with everyday medicine, health, and care. In this role, he has been a co-founder and leader of two rapidly growing initiatives, openEHR and OpenEyes, which stem from international collaborations of universities, health services and industries. These open source and open platform technologies have struck a widely resonant chord worldwide through their focus on community interest endeavours and open access to their methods and outputs.”
Mathematics
- Statistical Problem Sets in WeBWorK, by Peter Staab and Rachael Norton, Fitchburg State University / ROTEL Project (2023). License: CC BY-NC-SA
“The authors of this book adapted homework problems to improve accessibility and promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in the introductory statistics course they teach at Fitchburg State University. The problems are showcased in this book, but we have also incorporated them into our existing problem sets on an open-source online homework platform called WeBWorK. The problems can be used as a companion to the OpenStax textbook “Introductory Statistics” by Barbara Illowsky and Susan Dean or any other textbook for a semester-long introductory statistics course. - Statistics Through an Equity Lens, by Yvonne Anthony, Fitchburg State University / ROTEL Project (2023). License: CC BY-SA
“This Open Educational Resource (OER) carries a significant responsibility by presenting statistics through an equity lens. The book encourages further inspection of the ways in which data is collected, interpreted, and analyzed on a variety of social justice issues, such as health disparities, hunger and food insecurity, homelessness, behavioral health (mental health and substance use), and incarceration of males of color. It also attempts to reveal how the misuse of data can reinforce inequities, for example, by stigmatizing people and labeling neighborhoods as high poverty, violent, and having poor educational opportunities. Whether an intended or unintended consequence, irresponsible data use can contribute to racist impressions of people and communities.”
Psychology
- Biological Psychology, by Michael J. Hove and Steven A. Martinez, Fitchburg State University / ROTEL Project (2023). License: CC BY-NC-SA
“Biological psychology is the study of the biological bases of behavior and mental processes. It explores how biological factors like genes, hormones, neurotransmitters, and brain structures influence psychological components like thoughts, emotions, memories, and actions. This free and open textbook provides a wide ranging and up-to-date introduction to the main topics and methods of biological psychology.”
Restorative Dentistry
- 3D Printed Materials Dentistry, edited by Kathrin Becker (2022). License: CC BY-NC-ND
“The Special Issue reprint covers a wide range of applications of 3D-printing in dentistry. Five out of eleven research papers deal with applications of 3D printing in orthodontics, one study presents a 3D-printed fitting system for the FFP2 that were applied during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the others address applications in prosthodontics and restorative dentistry.”
Sciences
- Virtual Lab and Science Resource Directory, by Arianna Cheveldave (Editor), BCcampus (2020). License: CC BY
“The BCcampus Open Education Virtual Lab and Science Resource Directory lists free science resources designed to support remote science education. This directory is updated as new resources are identified. Note that, while all resources in this directory are free, not all are open. Resources that carry Creative Commons or otherwise open licenses are clearly labeled.”
OER Team:
Cailean Cooney, Associate Professor, OER Librarian: ccooney@citytech.cuny.edu
Joshua Peach, Adjunct Reference & OER Librarian: jpeach@citytech.cuny.edu
Jo Thompson, Adjunct Reference & OER Librarian: jthompson@citytech.cuny.edu
