New and Noteworthy is the City Tech Library OER Team’s weekly roundup of new and noteworthy OER. 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 OER initiatives at City Tech. 

COVID-19 Related

1. The COVID-19 Comprehensive Resource for Education, Health, and Administrative Services, by Jose Nanin, CUNY Kingsborough Community College (2020). License: CC BY-NC-SA
   “This resource provides access to credible, evidence-based COVID-19 medical and technical information (including epidemiological data updates and peer-reviewed publications); prevention and treatment information; course syllabi and lessons; policy “white papers;” research- and practice-based “grey literature;” and local community resources. Dr. Nanin encourages users to interact with the resource through Hypothes.is and will update the resource as new information becomes available.”

Arts & Sciences 

1. Human Biology: Human Anatomy and Physiology, by Christine Miller, Thompson Rivers University (2020). License: CC BY-NC
   “This textbook is ideal for an introductory-level human biology course. It is aligned with the British Columbia Adult Basic Education learning outcomes for Provincial Level Biology, which is the equivalent of Grade 12 Anatomy and Physiology. This textbook begins with an introduction to sciences and the scientific method, and then addresses the human body in increasing scale: from biological molecules, to cells and tissues, to organs and all eleven organ systems, all with an overarching focus on health. The text employs clear writing, case studies for each chapter, interactive self-marking study activities, highlights of Indigenous knowledge and examples, a pop-up glossary, and links to resources for extending learning.”
   
   
2. Student Success, by Mary Shier, College of the Rockies (2020). License: CC BY
   “This book offers study skills and practices for college and university students to help them make a positive transition to post-secondary education, learn how to be a successful student, and make the most of their learning experience. This textbook was created to provide a resource for the ABE provincial level course, Student Success, and it provides resources to meet all the required and optional learning outcomes. The course can be used an elective course towards the BC Adult Graduation Diploma. Students don’t need to be taking a Student Success course to benefit from this text. Post-secondary students can use this material to help them become better, more successful students. Faculty can use any parts of it to give to their students in any of their courses as applicable. Others (anyone) can use applicable life skills chapters. The book is written so each chapter stands on its own as an independent topic and doesn’t require knowledge of previous chapters, so students and instructors can use only the sections they need.”

Professional Studies

1. Essential Skills Companion Kit for Culinary Arts Trades Training, by Marlin Ratch, et al., BCcampus Open Textbook (2019). License: CC BY
   “The Essential Skills Companion Kit to Culinary Arts Trades Training was developed to complement technical Culinary Arts Trades Training. The various activity sets are designed to reinforce academic information that students are required to know during their training. The Content Experts provided the Curriculum Development Team with themes and the curriculum was created to practice Essential Skills such as Reading Text, Document Use, Thinking Skills, Oral Communication and Working with Others.”
   
   
2. Medical Math & Dosage Calculations for the Health Care Worker, Part 1,  by Carol Yoder, Norwalk Community College (2016). License: CC BY
   “In this module you will learn the basics of Medical Math and how to calculate basic medication dosages. These files are SCORM packages and can be easily uploaded to your Learning Management System (LMS), such as Blackboard or Desire2Learn. If you want to view or use the files without an LMS, download the files to your computer, extract (unzip) the file, open the extracted folder, and click to open the story.html file. The booster or test will open in your browser window. If used on your LMS, for the booster, the user will be given a score of complete or incomplete; for the pre and post-tests, the user will be given a numerical score. This scoring functionality and completion data is only available if used on an LMS. The SCORM packages are complete and not available for editing. If you would like to include additional information, consider adding the content before or after the booster on your LMS.”

Technology & Design

1. Information Systems, by Shaidy Ruiz, Lumen Learning (2020). License: varied CC licenses
   Learning modules about Information Systems topics that include hardware, software, networking, databases, security, business, and development. Most content in modules are Open Educational Resources with varied licensing.
   
   
2. Sim Labs for Thermodynamics and Thermal Power Plant Simulator, by Serhat Beyenir and Sanja Boskovic, British Columbia Institute of Technology (2019). License: CC BY
   “This Simulator laboratory (SIMLAB) book was created to provide ancillary resources for Thermodynamics and Thermal Power Plant Simulator courses. It is intended to act as a collection of exercises to help our students merge the theory covered in the classroom with the practice performed in the labs.”
   
   

Cailean Cooney, Assistant Professor, OER Librarian: ccooney@citytech.cuny.edu
Joshua Peach, Adjunct Reference & OER Librarian: jpeach@citytech.cuny.edu
Joanna Thompson, Adjunct OER Librarian: jthompson@citytech.cuny.edu