New and Noteworthy is the City Tech Library OER Team’s biweekly 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.
Arts & Sciences
- Survey of Native American Literature, by Josh Dickinson, Jefferson Community College (2018). License: CC BY
“Survey of Native American Literature offers a multi-genre approach to the field of Native American literature. Each section contains several representative voices, with more recent writings linked and older ones included either in full or as excerpts. Texts are organized with major sections on creation myths, fiction, poetry, and nonfiction/memoir. Standing Bear’s Land of the Spotted Eagle is included, along with a scattering of non-Native writers for contrast. The text also focuses on experiencing Native literature through Western lenses, since that is the viewpoint through which students necessarily approach the topic.” - Answering questions with data: Introductory Statistics for Psychology Students, by Matthew J. C. Crump (2018). License: CC BY-SA
“This is a mildly opinionated, non-traditional introduction to statistics. It acknowledges some of the major ideas from traditional frequentist approaches, and some Bayesian approaches. Much of the conceptual foundation is rooted in simulations that can be conducted in R. We use some formulas, but mostly explain things without formulas. The textbook was written with math-phobia in mind, and attempts to reduce the phobia associated with arithmetic computations. There are many things missing that should probably be added. We will do our best to add necessary things as we update the textbook.”
Professional Studies
- Open RN: Open Resources for Nursing, Chippewa Valley Technical College (2020-2022). License: CC BY
“The OER Nursing textbooks are written based on the State Nursing curriculum established by the Wisconsin Technical College System, and include: Pharmacology, Skills, Nursing Fundamentals, Mental Health & Community Concepts, and Management & Professional Concepts. Open RN textbooks will be published in Pressbooks where they are free and accessible in online or downloadable formats. The textbooks will be stored in the online repository, LibreTexts, where they can easily be “remixed” by faculty and aligned to their curriculum. The project is led by Chippewa Valley Technical College, and the textbooks are being collaboratively written with faculty from Wisconsin technical colleges. The books will be reviewed by statewide nursing faculty, deans, healthcare alliance members, and other industry representatives to ensure the content is current and accurate.” - Radiation Safety, by Jason S. Ballard, Linn Benton Community College, Open Oregon Educational Resources (2020). License: CC BY
A comprehensive textbook aligned with “a course designed to meet the training requirements for formal certification in Radiation Safety for both X-ray and gamma Radiographers. This course exceeds the recommendations and training outline set forth by the NRC training manual. It covers personal safety and protection, controlling radiation dose, personal monitoring, survey instruments, biological effects of radiation, exposure devices, emergency procedures, and storage and shipment of devices and sources.”
Technology & Design
- Basic Blueprint Reading, by Ric Costin, Open Oregon Educational Resources (2019). License: CC BY
“This is an entry level blueprint reading book written for the first year welding student. The book will be used in the first term of a two year welding program to familiarize the student to sketching and reading blueprints.” - Basic HVAC, by Aaron Lee, BCcampus (2021). License: CC BY
“This readily accessible online introductory resource was developed for anyone who has interest in, or works with, HVAC controls and equipment. Designed for electrical and HVAC apprentices learning about the subject in school, you will find the descriptive text and original diagrams easy to navigate through, while the question bank will help students review the subject matter covered in each section.”
