Textbook Alternatives: Open Educational Resources by Subject

Gateway to the Library of Congress’s vast resources of digitized American historical materials; documents U.S. history and culture.

A "resource for students and instructors to encounter, consider, practice, and play with language choice" through "examples of various stylistic techniques at work."

A collection of videos and essays to support the study of art and cultural heritage.

Over 50 million "artworks, artifacts, books, videos and sounds from across Europe."

Large collection of Asian artworks, lessons, videos , and background information.

From the MLA, a "network for people working in the humanities" with "open-access scholarship and teaching materials", "a WordPress Web site," and a repository.

This site showcases content from cultural associations. You can explore the site by artists, mediums, art movements, historical events, historical figures, or places. Most of these resources aren't technically OER, but most are free on the web.

These open texts can be read online or downloaded. They are also available in inexpensive print form. Many include instructor resources, such as test banks and PowerPoint slides.

Lists OER for Business, Accounting, Business Ethics, Business Law, Economics, Finance, Management. You will need to use the + sign to show the lists.

This large catalog of open texts can be browsed by discipline. Inlcudes faculty reviews of materials.

Authors: Lindon Robison, Steven Hanson, and J. Roy Black. Published by the Michigan State University Library.

A peer reviewed open "textbook for financial management in the public sector."

"A comprehensive introduction to the latest forecasting methods. Examples use R with many data sets taken from the authors’ own consulting experience."

This book is a introductory survey of the legal topics required in undergraduate business law classes.

Formerly a commercial textbook, the latest edition (2020) is open access.

Open text from Prof Dennis Caplan, SUNY Albany.

Open access text created by the Marriott School of Business at Brigham Young University.

Introductory accounting text by a professor at Utah State.

Rebekah Bennetch; Corey Owen; and Zachary Keesey,
University of Saskatchewan

Lists OER for Education, Digital Education, Disabilities, Early Childhood Education, Educational Technology, K-12, Learning, Open Education & Open Pedagogy, and Pedagogy & Instructional Design. You will need to use the + sign to show the lists.

The filter by discipline links in the left column may be useful.

An Adaptation of James Paul Gee's 13 Principles of Good Learning in Games
Authors:John Martin, Karin Spader, Julie Johnson
Free online text from the University of Wisconscin Madison

This award winning open text is a students' guide for classroom and career success. This text, designed to show how to be successful in college and in career preparation focuses on study skills, time management, career exploration, health, and financial literacy.

Two Early Childhood Education OER books are now available:
Child Growth and Development
Introduction to Curriculum for Early Childhood Education
Five more texts are in development: Child, Family, and Community (by Spring 2020)
Observation and Assessment (by Spring 2020)
Teaching in a Diverse Society (by/during Spring 2020)
Principles and Practices of Teaching Young Children (during Spring 2020)
Health, Safety, and Nutrition (during Spring 2020)

This peer reviewed open text is designed for students in graduate-level nursing and education programs. From developing a research question to locating and evaluating sources to writing a sample literature review using appropriate publication guidelines, readers will be guided through the process.

This open text was written by students at the University of Saskatchewan.

Open text from New Prairie Press.

Focuses "on identifying and applying trauma-informed educator competencies needed to transform districts, schools, educators, classrooms, and the field of education itself, while also including community members such as parents and board members in these processes."

Researchers "examine the question of variability and consistency in early language through the lens of the CDI" - MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory (CDI).

The Open RN project is funded by a $2.5 million dollar grant from the Department of Education to create 5 OER Nursing Textbooks with 25 associated Virtual Reality scenarios.

Lists OER for Health & Medical, Addiction, Dentistry, Health Records & Technology, Hematology, Kinesiology, Mental Health, Dementia, Nursing, Nutrition, Pathology, Pharmacology, Physical Activity, Social Work, Speech Therapy, Surgical, Veterinary Medicine. You will need to use the + sign to show the lists.

Anatomy texts and multimedia learning resources from the University of Michigan Medical School.

Pieters RS, Bishop-Jodoin M, Liebmann J. Introduction to Cancer Concepts: A Guidebook for the Non-Oncologist. In: Pieters RS, Liebmann J, eds. Cancer Concepts: A Guidebook for the Non-Oncologist. Worcester, MA: University of Massachusetts Medical School; 2014.

by Autumn Mist Belk at North Carolina State

from Oregon State University

Includes quality medical textbooks underwritten by foundations and societies.

Provides an overview of physical activity & fitness, benefits of physical activity, and nutrition for health and physical activity.

Book shared by Professor via Google Drive.

Reflection and documentation activities are included in each chapter. These exercises are created in a way not only to improve note writing proficiency, but clinical reasoning as well.

This peer reviewed open text is designed for students in graduate-level nursing and education programs. From developing a research question to locating and evaluating sources to writing a sample literature review using appropriate publication guidelines, readers will be guided through the process.

Iowa State University

A public health researcher "examines the harm caused by tobacco use and offers solutions for successful tobacco control." From Georgia State University.

Bookshelf provides free online access to books and documents in life science and healthcare.

Alice Callahan, PhD; Heather Leonard, MEd, RDN; and Tamberly Powell, MS, RDN
Designed as an undergraduate nutrition text.

UCL Press

Open texts on biology, microbiology, human biology, environmental science, cell biology, animal physiology, biology of aging, and more.

Lists OER for Fine Arts, Design, Film and Video, Graphics and Animation, Music, Photography, Theatre, Visual Arts. You will need to use the + sign to show the lists.

Lists OER for Humanities, Art History, Asian Literature, English Literature & Writing, Greek & Roman Studies, History, Indigenous Studies, Language Learning, Linguistics, Philosophy, Religion & Theology. You will need to use the + sign to show the lists.

This large catalog of open texts can be browsed by discipline. Inlcudes faculty reviews of materials.

This large catalog of open texts can be browsed by discipline. Inlcudes faculty reviews of materials.

Florida State College at Jacksonville and Scott Matthews

An introduction to one of several sacred West African spiritual traditions, commonly known as “Ifa.”

Jenifer Kurtz

Collaborative online American History text. List of authors includes faculty at many good colleges.

Textbook for undergraduate brass methods course focusing on brass instrument techniques and pedagogy.

World literature from 1700 thru contemporary. Faculty resources available.

Uses formal exercises of the Bauhaus to teach the Adobe Creative Suite. Updated for use with Adobe Creative Cloud 2017.

by Derek Turner, Professor of Philosophy, Connecticut College

by Dr. Jenifer Schneider, PhD, University of South Florida

This multimedia series offers "a passport to this rich heritage via thirteen works from a range of eras," This Annenberg Learner project was advised by Prof David Damrosch, Harvard University.

An openly–licensed online four–semester college music theory textbook.

Complete text of numerous titles available in PDF--mostly literary and other humanities topics.

A "free, scholar-produced volume of introductory essays for first-time readers of Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales."

Anthology includes many works from Native American works thru Walt Whitman and Mark Twain.

"The Open Logic Project is a collection of teaching materials on mathematical logic aimed at a non-mathematical audience, intended for use in advanced logic courses as taught in many philosophy departments."

"Open Music Theory is an open-source, interactive, online “text”book for college-level music theory courses."

Download books for the study of ancient Near Eastern civilizations, including Anatolian studies, archaeology, Egypt, epigraphic survey, Hittite civilization, Islamic studies, language and text studies, Mesopotamian civilization, Nubian civilization, Iranian civilization, prehistoric Near East, Syro/Palestine.

This small collection of public domain excerpts from first hand accounts of epidemics throughout history is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Open access text from a community college instructor.

Teaches guitar players from all musical backgrounds to understand, read and play modern staff notation in real-time.

This open text can be read online or downloaded. It's also available in inexpensive print form. Includes instructor resources, such as test banks and PowerPoint slides.

Free online versions of out-of-print monographs published by the University of Pittsburgh Press between 1938 and 2004. This large collection is especially strong for history and area studies (Latin America, Russia, and East Europe).

Collection of open texts on history topics, including U.S. history, ancient history, world history, western civilization, African American history, Canadian history, Japanese history, and more.

Lists OER for English as a Second Language. You will need to use the + sign to show the lists.

Open texts for French, Arabic, & Hindi.

"publishes high quality, peer reviewed open access books in the field of linguistics." Includes atext on grammatical theory, linguistics methodology, and a text for introduction to semantics & pragmatics. Rather than look through the full alphabetical list of titles, it may help to browser by series using the menu on the lower left of the page.

an open-access, digital learning environment designed to promote the acquisition of Spanish and the development of cultural understanding of the varied groups of people who share Spanish as a common language.

Erik W. Willis

For an Introduction to Hispanic Literature course.

Designed for upper division Spanish writing courses. Includes peer review training sessions, classroom activities, handouts to guide students’ writing processes, and peer review guidelines.

from PennState

Spanish learning materials from the University of Texas at Austin, includes beginning language materials as well as Spanish literature texts.

This interactive open text developed at the University of Texas at Austin also offers a homework set using Google Sites and Forms.

an open online curriculum for beginning German

Business Spanish text

A free textbook for introductory Spanish from Spokane Community College. Reports are that other colleges using this text are very happy with it.

La historia cultural del mundo hispanohablante a través de textos primarios

Italian 101 text from Muhlenberg College

French, German, and Spanish conversation activity books developed by Boise State University.

The AMS publishes a wide range of textbooks, from advanced graduate-level research, to collegiate mathematics, to resources for high school educators and students.

"IMS Textbooks give introductory accounts of topics of current concern suitable for advanced courses at master's level, for doctoral students and for individual study. They are typically shorter than for a fully developed textbook, often arising from material created for a topical course. Lengths of 100-290 pages are envisaged. The books typically contain exercises."

Reasonably priced texts published by an association.

This "build-your-own" open acess psychology textbook project allows instructors to choose chapters. It also offers a few "ready-made" texts and there are print options. Founded by emeritus faculty from the University of Illinois with authors from many reputable universities, including Harvard and Yale.

Free online texts on site supported by fairly unobtrusive ads, includes: Psychology 101, Statistics Primer, Personality Synopsis, & Research Methods (for education, psychology, and the social sciences).

Florida State College at Jacksonville and Troianne T. Grayson

Interactive psychology textbook by by Mississippi State University professor, Gary L. Bradshaw.

From professors at Washington State University.

by Professor Gordon E. Sarty, University of Saskatchewan Open Press

By Michael R. W. Dawson, psychology professor, University of Alberta. Site offers a free PDF and it's also available as an inexpensive paperback.

Free online text by a Professor Emeritus of the Psychology Department at Shippensburg University.

Textbook on the OER Commons

Revised in 2017, this psych text is in a simple web format.

Includes many open texts for intro to psych, abnormal psych, research methods & statistics, behavior analysis and modification, community psych, theories of personality, sensation and perception, interpersonal relations, lifespan development, industrial psychology, gender, and more.

These open texts can be read online or downloaded. They are also available in inexpensive print form. Many include instructor resources, such as test banks and PowerPoint slides.

This large catalog of open texts can be browsed by discipline. Inlcudes faculty reviews of materials.

Elizabeth Johnson and Juhong Christie Liu

Utah Tech University - 2021

Chemistry professors at Michigan State University wrote an introductory Chemistry text based on learnng theory that will "increase student interactions and activity and lead to equal or better performance on standardized exams, greater conceptual understanding, and improved problem-solving skills."

Lists OER for Earth & Ocean Sciences, Climate Change, Environmental Studies, Forestry, Geography, Geology, Meteorology, Oceanography. You will need to use the + sign to show the lists.

Andrea Bierema - Michigan State University

This text was reviewed by geology profs at multiple universities and includes gorgeous photos.

Physics texts offered in free PDF by a physics professor (PhD Yale). Very inexpensive print versions also available. Supplementary materials for verified faculty.

Lists open access texts by physics topics.

A collection of open texts, lab manuals, and other resources for teaching Geography, including geography, geology, GIS, and more.

This is a very innovative type of open ed resource that could be used as a text or as supplementary material. See this instructor page for a helpful explanation of the site.

"created by Lisa Nichols (chemistry faculty at Butte Community College in Northern California) as a result of an academic sabbatical leave"

Authored by Roland Stoll, published by University of British Columbia. Easy to use specific chapters in PDF.

Creative Commons licensed set of PDF lab manuals.

Lists OER for Science, Anatomy & Physiology, Astronomy, Biochemistry, Biology, Botany, Chemistry, Histology, Microbiology, Neuroanatomy, Physics. You will need to use the + sign to show the lists.

"These workbooks, designed for use in an active learning environment, arrange topics such that students receive repeated exposure to concepts over an extended time interval, each time with
an incremental increase in complexity."

Search a collection of over 900 open access books from Springer, including books in Computer Science, Engineering, Energy, & Materials Science.

"a text in applied statistics for hydrology, environmental science, environmental engineering, geology, or biology that addresses distinctive features of environmental data."

"an introduction to the nature of the universe. Use it to research or review our solar system, stars, galaxies, and the history of the universe. Each chapter has a set of corresponding homework questions."

Prof. Douglas Cline, Physics, University of Rochester. Free PDF or purchase inexpensive print.

By Prof William Reusch at Michigan State University. Includes interactive practice problems.

These open texts can be read online or downloaded. They are also available in inexpensive print form. Many include instructor resources, such as test banks and PowerPoint slides.

Lists OER for Social Sciences, Anthropology & Archaeology, International Relations, Political Science, Psychology, Sociology. You will need to use the + sign to show the lists.

Lists OER for Geography. You will need to use the + sign to show the lists.

This large catalog of open texts can be browsed by discipline. Inlcudes faculty reviews of materials.

"A free alternative to expensive Introduction to Cultural Anthropology textbooks." Includes original videos, podcasts, and curated digital materials, as well as instructor resources.

A Palomar College professor offers two award-winning "tutorials" which can substitute for a textbook to teach cultural anthropology or biological anthropology.

Free text for an ANTH 101 course in PDF and also available as inexpensive paperback. Site also offers videos for the course and other materials.

Intro to U.S. political system with a critical perspective.

This SUNY project provides lists of open texts for several social science areas: Anthropology, Criminal Justice, Economics, Women's Studies, Geography, Political Science, Sociology, . . .

A "non-profit consortium of mostly US law schools that conducts applied research and development in the area of computer-mediated legal education. The organization is best known in law schools for CALI Lessons, online interactive tutorials in legal subjects. . ." CALI also has a number of law related textbooks that can be downloaded for free.

Authored by faculty at the New York University School of Law. Available in free PDF or low cost print. Instructors can register for access to related faculty materials.

Texts on international relations topics, free to download. Project of a UK nonprofit, funded by advertising on the site.

text for non-Economics majors that focuses on the real world and data

A "comprehensive, peer-reviewed open access textbook for biological anthropology courses." Includes instructor resources.

Published by the Library of Congress, this public domain work has been recently updated.

Written by a Sociology professor Ron J. Hammond & revised in cooperation with Sociology faculty at other institutions. Available in both html and PDF. Test bank available to instructors. Includes Intro to Sociology, & Sociology of the Family.

Trinity University. On Digital Commons. Simple to download.

Miliann Kang, Donovan Lessard, and Laura Heston
From UMass Amherst

Provides a foundational understanding of key concepts such as legal personhood, jurisdiction, and precedent, and by introducing students to legal research and writing skills. Examples of cases, statutes, and other legal materials support these concepts. Available as free PDF or inexpesive paperback.

A collection of open texts, lab manuals, and other resources for teaching Geography, including geography, geology, GIS, and more.

Free PDF text from US AID.

"a comprehensive web-based textbook that addresses all of the topics in a typical introductory undergraduate or graduate course in social research methods. "

This website by Trinity University professor Michael Kearl offers readings and other resources to support a sociology course on death.

A "peer-reviewed open access textbook for cultural anthropology courses." Includes instructor resources.

articles from NIJ’s lead scholars.

A "collection of instructor-authored background readings" for use in a cross-cultural perspectives course.

Along with the text, the author also provides an open Canvas course.

Lists free science resources designed to support remote science education.

An online database of animal natural history, distribution, classification, and conservation biology at the University of Michigan.

Offers "multimedia resources, including apps, animations, videos, interactives, and virtual labs" on biology, chemistry of life, ecology, environment, evolution, genetics, and scientific process.

"The ChemCollective is a collection of virtual labs, scenario-based learning activities, tutorials, and concept tests."

A coloring book exploring cellular biology from the journal Cell. Free.

Many interactive resources for Biology, Chemistry, Earth & Space Science, Engineering, Mathematics, and Physics.

Offers assignments related to digital storytelling, in categories such as video, audio, web, visual, mashup, design, coding, animated GIFS, and more. Each assignment links to examples of the work that people have done in response to it.

"The Encyclopedia of Life brings together information about all life on Earth—one web page for each species. But EOL is much more than 1.9 million species pages. It's an incredible resource for text, images, video, sounds, maps, classifications and more, all freely available online."

Free manuals and educational materials about free software.

A large very well organized directory of computing related materials, which also includes mathematics, other STEM areas, and business. Many items are are not actually books--but could be lecture notes, syllabi, etc. No evidence that content is vetted, but authors are often affiliated with universities.

Online courses on engineering related topics, Many of these are only temporarily available and have end dates.

"MyOpenMath is designed for mathematics, providing delivery of homework, quizzes, and tests with rich mathematical content. Students can receive immediate feedback on algorithmically generated questions with numerical or algebraic expression answers. And it can do so much more, providing a full course management system, including file posting, discussion forums, and a full gradebook, all designed with mathematics in mind."

Search for STEM related OER.
Tip: The Advanced Search allows you narrow by subject area, material type, and educational use (assessment, instructional, etc.)

A collection of micro and macro imagery describing forms in nature including landforms, minerals, aquatic and terrestrial animal and plant life, insects, cellular structures and skeletal segments.

Open Access Biomedical Image Search Engine

Links to OER from a prof at St Olaf College.

"Founded in 2002 by Nobel Laureate Carl Wieman, the PhET Interactive Simulations project at the University of Colorado Boulder creates free interactive math and science simulations. PhET sims are based on extensive education research and engage students through an intuitive, game-like environment where students learn through exploration and discovery."

A free collection of physics simulations with changeable parameters and real-time animation.

Focusing on the life sciences, The QUBES platform hosts hundreds of teaching materials, reference materials, and cloud-based software free to use and adapts using open Creative Commons licenses.

The American Chemical Society provides links to a number of sites where you can find free online resources for teaching chemistry.

A public-domain library of cross-sectional cryosection, CT, and MRI images obtained from one male cadaver and one female cadaver.

"high-quality, accessible, educational content in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines at the introductory undergraduate level."

"WeBWorK is an open-source online homework system for math and sciences courses. WeBWorK is supported by the MAA and the NSF and comes with a National Problem Library (NPL) of over 20,000 homework problems."

Simulations useful for teaching Law of Large Numbers, Central Limit Theorem, Joint Distributions, Least Squares Regression, Omitted Variable Bias

A listing of open textbooks organized by engineering discipline created by the Engineering Library Division of the American Society for Engineering Education.

Lists OER for Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, History of Computer Science, Information Systems, Programming, Software and Hardware. You will need to use the + sign to show the lists.

Lists OER for Engineering, Biosystems Engineering, Civil Engineering, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Industrial Engineering, Materials, Mechanical Engineering, Thermodynamics/Thermal Power Plant. You will need to use the + sign to show the lists.

This large catalog of open texts can be browsed by discipline. Inlcudes faculty reviews of materials.

Search a collection of over 900 open access books from Springer, including books in Computer Science, Engineering, Energy, & Materials Science.

This lab manual provides students with the theory, practical applications, objectives, and laboratory procedure of ten experiments. The manual also includes educational videos showing how student should run each experiment and a workbook for organizing data collected in the lab and preparing result tables and charts.

Iowa State University Digital Press

Introductory text from Chemeketa Community College.

by Stewart H. Bartholomew - 2022

Uses formal exercises of the Bauhaus to teach the Adobe Creative Suite. Updated for use with Adobe Creative Cloud 2017.

2018 Springer open access book

2016 Springer open access book

Free online tutorials on many basic technology topics can be used in place of textbooks. Tutorials cover basic computer skills, Microsoft & Google applications, internet skills, graphic design, and more.

FreeO'Reilly books by Allen B. Downey, Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering.

An introduction to the MATLAB programming language for first-year mechanical engineering students, understandable to a student with no experience coding.

Virginia Tech

An introduction to the field of data structures and algorithms. Offered in free PDF or inexpensive paperback form.

"no-cost openly-licensed textbooks for courses in undergraduate engineering electromagnetics"

John Messner - Pennsylvania State University

The specially commissioned and peer-reviewed cases are brief and intended to be effective for undergraduate instruction across a range of classes and fields of study.

Open access engineering texts--includes Basics of Fluid Mechanics, Fundamentals of Compressible Flow, and Potto Gas Dynamics Calculator.
Not yet added to custom search.

2016 Springer Open Access Book

2016 Springer open access book

an introductory textbook for a first course in discrete-event simulation modeling and analysis for upper-level undergraduate students as well as entering graduate students.

"a text in applied statistics for hydrology, environmental science, environmental engineering, geology, or biology that addresses distinctive features of environmental data."

Free book from a Professor of Engineering at the University of Cambridge

From the University of Wisconsin, this easy to download text was written by Engineering faculty and an industry professional.

Multiple tutorials to teach three computer graphic applications, AutoCAD, Revit, and Enscape for beginning interior design students.

Step-by-step tutorials for interior design students who have in-depth knowledge and skills with computer-aided visualization software.

2017 Springer open access book

"A free, comprehensive, peer-reviewed, award-winning Open Text for students and faculty in college-level courses that require writing and research." Uses an interesting model that allows for collaborative authorship and an editorial board.

Open access writing texts vetted by an editorial board of professors from multiple colleges. Site hosted at Colorado State University.

Peer reviewed open access books related to writing across the curriculum.

Free PDF writing textbook under a Creative Commons license from a prof at University of Texas at Arlington.

Free text from an experienced technical writer and instructor at Austin Community College.

By a prof at Eastern Michigan University.

A writing e-textbook for first year university students created by professors and librarians at Ryerson University. Also includes videos posted on YouTube.

Provided by University of Minnesota Libraries

"a collection of Creative Commons licensed essays for use in the first year writing classroom, all written by writing teachers for students."

This writer’s reference condenses and covers everything a beginning writing student needs to successfully compose college-level work, including the basics of composition, grammar, and research.

Covers typical writing situations for developing academic writers, from prewriting and research through expressing themselves online. Developmental work in different types of paragraphs—descriptive, narrative, expository, persuasive—allows students to build capacity for longer essays.

An interactive, multimedia text that introduces students to reading and writing at the college level.