Sean McAleer - Author
2026 · Book · Open Access
This book is a lucid and accessible companion to Plato’s Republic, throwing light upon the text’s arguments and main themes, placing them in the wider context of the text’s structure. In its illumination of the philosophical ideas underpinning the work, it provides readers with an understanding and appreciation of the complexity and literary artistry of Plato’s Republic. McAleer not only unpacks the key overarching questions of the text – What is justice? And Is a just life happier than an unjust life? – but also highlights some fascinating, overlooked passages which contribute to our understanding of Plato’s philosophical thought. Plato’s 'Republic': An Introduction offers a rigorous and thought-provoking analysis of the text, helping readers navigate one of the world’s most influential works of philosophy and political theory. With its approachable tone and clear presentation, it constitutes a welcome contribution to the field, and will be an indispensable resource for philosophy students and teachers, as well as general readers new to, or returning to, the text.
Walter Suza - Editor / Faizo Kasule - Author / Philip W. Becraft - Author / Thomas Lübberstedt - Author / Madan K. Bhattacharyya - Author
2026 · Book · Open Access
This edited book presents an overview of the fundamental principles and applied methodologies used in the genetic improvement of crop plants. It covers the structure and function of genes controlling traits of agronomic importance, the regulation of gene expression and genetic pathways, and the role of mutations as a primary source of genetic variation underlying trait improvement. Additional topics include an introduction to molecular markers, recombinant DNA technology, plant transformation, and gene editing technologies. Learning activities are included to facilitate self-study.
Nathan Shepley - Author
2026 · Book · Open Access
In Placing the History of College Writing, Nathan Shepley argues that pre-1950s composition history, if analyzed with the right conceptual tools, can pluralize and clarify our understanding of the relationship between the writing of college students and the writing's physical, social, and discursive surroundings. Even if the immediate outcome of student writing is to generate academic credit, Shepley shows, the writing does more complex rhetorical work. It gives students chances to uphold or adjust institutional codes for student behavior, allows students and their literacy sponsors to respond to sociopolitical issues in a city or state, enables faculty and administrators to create strategic representations of institutional or program identities, and connects people across disciplines, occupations, and geographic locations. Shepley argues that even if many of today's composition scholars and instructors work at institutions that lack extensive historical records of the kind usually preferred by composition historians, those scholars and teachers can mine their institutional collections for signs of the various contexts with which student writing dealt.
Allen Downey - Author
2026 · Book · Open Access
Modeling and simulation are powerful tools for explaining the world, making predictions, designing things that work, and making them work better. Learning to use these tools can be difficult; this book is my attempt to make the experience as enjoyable and productive as possible. By reading this book — and working on the exercises — you will learn some programming, some modeling, and some simulation: With basic programming skills, you can create models for a wide range of physical systems. My goal is to help you develop these skills in a way you can apply immediately to real-world problems. This book presents the entire modeling process, including model selection, analysis, simulation, and validation. I explain this process in Chapter 1, and there are examples throughout the book. Simulation is an approach to modeling that uses computer programs to implement models and generate predictions. This book shows how simulations are used to run experiments, answer questions, and guide decision-making.
Theodore Gracyk - Author
2026 · Book · Open Access
This book is an introduction to some influential theories in philosophy of art. It combines excerpts of historically important texts from European and American culture with explanations of the key ideas in those texts. The most recent of these texts dates from 1929.The overall organization is topical. Five topics have been selected. The chapters are relatively independent of one another and can be approached in any order.
Nina Brown - Author / Thomas Mcllwraith - Author / Laura Tubelle de González - Author
2026 · Book · Open Access
We are delighted to bring to you this novel textbook, a collection of chapters on the essential topics in cultural anthropology. Different from other introductory textbooks, this book is an edited volume with each chapter written by a different author. Each author has written from their experiences working as an anthropologist and that personal touch makes for an accessible introduction to cultural anthropology. Our approach to cultural anthropology is holistic. We see the interconnectedness of cultural practices and, in all of the chapters, we emphasize the comparison of cultures and the ways of life of different peoples. We start with Laura Nader’s observation that cultural differences need not be seen as a problem. In our complicated world of increasing migration, nationalism, and climate challenges, cultural diversity might actually be the source of conflict resolution and new approaches to ensuring a healthier world. Indeed, as Katie Nelson reminds us, anthropology exposes the familiarity in the ideas and practices of others that seem bizarre. Robert Borofsky advocates for anthropology’s ability to empower people and facilitate good. Borofsky calls on anthropologists to engage with a wider public to bring our incredible stories and important insights to helping resolve the most critical issues we face in the world today. This book brings Nader, Nelson, Borofsky, and many others together to demonstrate that our anthropological understandings can help all of us to improve the lives of people the world over. We need you, as students, to see the possibilities. As instructors, we want to help you easily share anthropological knowledge and understanding. We want all readers to be inspired by the intensely personal writings of the anthropologists who contribute to this volume.
Mark Kelland - Author
2026 · Book · Open Access
When you first think of personality, what comes to mind? When we refer to certain people as being “personalities,” we usually mean they are famous, people like movie stars or your favorite band. When we describe a person as having “lots of personality,” we usually mean they are outgoing and fun-loving, the kind of person we like to spend time with. But does this tell us anything about personality itself? Although we may think we have an understanding of what personality is, professional psychologists always seek to move beyond what people think they know in order to determine what is actually real or at least as close to real as we can come. In the pursuit of truly understanding personality, however, many personality theorists seem to have been focused on a particularly Western cultural approach that owes much of its history to the pioneering work of Sigmund Freud.
Emily Ford - Author
2026 · Book · Open Access
This book is a self-paced, open access training in peer review. In eight modules it asks readers to engage in a variety of activities to learn the who, what, why, and how of peer review. It is geared to library professionals, library school students, or other academic professionals who must understand and/or engage with the peer-review process.
Diana Lang - Author
2026 · Book · Open Access
This book has been created for students and all individuals who work with children and families (e.g., educators, parents, caregivers, direct support workers, etc.) in diverse contexts. It is imperative to understand how and what factors may influence child outcomes across the lifespan. Therefore, key concepts related to parenting, child-rearing, care-giving, and parenting education are outlined in this textbook to provide historical, theoretical, and practical perspectives across vast settings and developmental domains.
Jenn Kepka - Author
2026 · Book · Open Access
This textbook guides students through rhetorical and assignment analysis, the writing process, researching, citing, rhetorical modes, and critical reading. Using accessible but rigorous readings by professionals throughout the college composition field, the Oregon Writes Writing Textbook aligns directly to the statewide writing outcomes for English Composition courses in Oregon.
Athanasios Michaels - Author / Kaitlin Hakanson - Editor
2026 · Book · Open Access
This “open textbook” is a social and cultural history of the people of Oregon representing powerful figures from the dominant Euro-American culture, the marginalized and oppressed, and social and political reformers who shaped the historical legacy of the state. It is a story of the diverse array of immigrants who helped build the state and strengthen it. The title is a recollection of the racial fantasies that European-American settlers created in their expansionist vision of the West and the state of Oregon. Initially the Oregon Territory was built on intolerance and racial exclusivity, but eventually Oregon embraces its diversity, but not without struggle and heartache. Our journey through the past starts with an essential question, “Who are the people of Oregon?”
Agata Guskaroska - Author / Erik Goodale - Author / Timothy Kochem - Author / Monica Ghosh - Author / Lily Compton - Author / Elena Cotos - Author
2026 · Book · Open Access
This book is an essential instructional tool for developing oral communication skills in academic settings, specifically designed for international graduate students, teaching assistants, postdoctoral researchers, and those preparing to enter academia. The second edition introduces dedicated chapters on developing listening, speaking, and pronunciation. Through its wide array of interactive online activities, suitable for both classroom teaching and individual practice, learners can actively develop the skills needed for success in English-speaking academic environments.
Max Hailperin - Author
2026 · Book · Open Access
In this book, you will learn about all three kinds of interaction. In all three cases, interesting software techniques are needed in order to bring the computations into contact, yet keep them suffciently at arm's length that they don't compromise each other's reliability. The exciting challenge, then, is supporting controlled interaction. This includes support for computations that share a single computer and interact with one another, as your email and word processing programs do. It also includes support for data storage and network communication. This book describes how all these kinds of support are provided both by operating systems and by additional software layered on top of operating systems, which is known as middleware. Chapter 1 provides an overview of the text as a whole, explaining what an operating system is, what middleware is, and what sorts of support these systems provide for controlled interaction. The next nine chapters work through the varieties of controlled interac- tion that are exemplified by the scenario at the beginning of the preface: in- teraction between concurrent computations on the same system (as between your email program and your word processor), interaction across time (as between your word processor before your trip and your word processor after your trip), and interaction across space (as between your email program and your service provider's email server). The first of these three topics is controlled interaction between computa- tions operating at one time on a particular computer. Before such interaction can make sense, you need to understand how it is that a single computer can be running more than one program, such as an email program in one window and a word processing program in another. Therefore, Chapter 2 explains the fundamental mechanism for dividing a computer's attention between concurrent computations, known as threads. Chapter 3 continues with the related topic of scheduling. That is, if the computer is dividing its time between computations, it needs to decide which ones to work on at any moment. With concurrent computations explained, Chapter 4 introduces con- trolled interactions between them by explaining synchronization, which is control over the threads' relative timing. For example, this chapter explains how, when your email program sends a document to your word processor, the word processor can be constrained to read the document only after the email program writes it. One particularly important form of synchroniza- tion, atomic transactions, is the topic of Chapter 5. Atomic transactions are groups of operations that take place as an indivisible unit; they are most commonly supported by middleware, though they are also playing an increasing role in operating systems. Other than synchronization, the main way that operating systems con- trol the interaction between computations is by controlling their access to memory. Chapter 6 explains how this is achieved using the technique known as virtual memory. That chapter also explains the many other objectives this same technique can serve. Virtual memory serves as the foundation for Chapter 7's topic, which is processes. A process is the fundamental unit of computation for protected access, just as a thread is the fundamental unit of computation for concurrency. A process is a group of threads that share a protection environment; in particular, they share the same access to virtual memory. The next three chapters move outside the limitations of a single com- puter operating in a single session. First, consider the document stored before a trip and available again after it. Chapter 8 explains persistent storage mechanisms, focusing particularly on the file storage that operat- ing systems provide. Second, consider the interaction between your email program and your service provider's email server. Chapter 9 provides an overview of networking, including the services that operating systems make available to programs such as the email client and server. Chapter 10 ex- tends this discussion into the more sophisticated forms of support provided by communication middleware, such as messaging systems, RMI, and web services. Finally, Chapter 11 focuses on security. Because security is a pervasive issue, the preceding ten chapters all provide some information on it as well. Specifically, the final section of each chapter points out ways in which se- curity relates to that chapter's particular topic. However, even with that coverage distributed throughout the book, a chapter specifically on security is needed, primarily to elevate it out of technical particulars and talk about general principles and the human and organizational context surrounding the computer technology. The best way to use these chapters is in consecutive order. However, Chapter 5 can be omitted with only minor harm to Chapters 8 and 10, and Chapter 9 can be omitted if students are already suffciently familiar with networking.
Josef Spillner - Author
2026 · Book · Open Access
Modern data scientists work with a number of tools and operating system facilities in addition to online platforms. Mastering these in combination to manage their data and to deploy software, models and data as ready-to-use online services as well as to perform data science and analysis tasks is in the focus of Operating Systems and Infrastructure in Data Science. Readers will come to understand the fundamental concepts of operating systems and to explore plenty of tools in hands-on tasks and thus gradually develop the skills necessary to compose them for programming in the large, an essential capability in their later career. The book guides students through semester studies, acts as reference knowledge base and aids in acquiring the necessary knowledge, skills and competences especially in self-study settings. A unique feature of the book is the associated access to Edushell, a live environment to practice operating systems and infrastructure tasks.
Adam Rex Pope - Author
2026 · Book · Open Access
This book presents technical writing as an approach to researching and carrying out writing that centers on technical subject matter. Each and every chapter is devoted to helping students understand that good technical writing is situationally-aware and context-driven. Technical writing doesn’t work off knowing the one true right way of doing things—there is no magic report template out there that will always work. Instead, the focus is on offering students a series of approaches they can use to map out their situations and do research accordingly.
Lukas Röseler - Author
2026 · Book · Open Access
During the last years, many scientific disciplines have changed. There have been new journals, methods, initiatives, societies, structures, and many more. Researchers are calling these changes a crisis, revolution, a renaissance, or a reform. Together, these changes have led to a greater degree of openness and transparency and have changed the academic system. In this German textbook, I discuss the concept of openness, the origins of change, and the many facets of openness with an emphasis on the academic system, scientific methods, theories, and epistemological arguments. Examples and developments are primarily from the social sciences, particularly psychology.
Rebecca Pitt - Author / Beatriz de los Arcos - Author / Rob Farrow - Author
2026 · Book · Open Access
If you have an interest in openness, open education, research skills or want to find out more about the impact of Open EducationalResources (OER), then this resource is for you. You could be: Using an OER with students and interested in assessing its impact Facilitating sessions on open practice with students or colleagues and looking for inspiration Working on a research project and wanting to find out more about incorporating open research techniques into your own practice Curious about the benefits and challenges of open research Looking to use open tools in your research Wanting increased impact for your research Interested in open research on OER This resource will help you explore what open research is, how you can ethically and openly share your findings so others can reuse or develop your work, and the role of reflection and open dissemination. Whilst many challenges and issues apply to all aspects of research (for example: choosing an appropriate methodology), open research brings a range of different opportunities and challenges; it's these that we are specifically interested in exploring. What can openness add to the research process?
Tiffani Tijerina - Author / Mara Crumby - Author / Amber Anderson - Author / Abigail Steele - Author / Hannah Darden - Author
2026 · Book · Open Access
Open Professional and Technical Editing is a collaboratively-authored and edited open textbook with both named and anonymous undergraduate and graduate-level student contributors from Dr. Tiffani Tijerina’s Advanced Editing and Editing for Usage and Style classes at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.
Richard Zach - Author / Andrew Arana - Author / Jeremy Avigad - Author / Walter Dean - Author / Gillian Russell - Author / Nicole Wyatt - Author / Audrey Yap - Author
2026 · Book · Open Access
The Open Logic Text is an open-source, collaborative textbook of formal meta-logic and formal methods, starting at an intermediate level (i.e., after an introductory formal logic course). Though aimed at a non-mathematical audience (in particular, students of philosophy and computer science), it is rigorous. The Open Logic Text is a collaborative project and is under active development. Coverage of some topics currently included may not yet be complete, and many sections still require substantial revision. We plan to expand the text to cover more topics in the future. We also plan to add features to the text, such as a glossary, a list of further reading, historical notes, pictures, better explanations, sections explaining the relevance of results to philosophy, computer science, and mathematics, and more problems and examples. If you find an error, or have a suggestion, please let the project team know. The project operates in the spirit of open source. Not only is the text freely available, we provide the LaTeX source under the Creative Commons Attribution license, which gives anyone the right to download, use, modify, re-arrange, convert, and re-distribute our work, as long as they give appropriate credit.
Alexander Greengaard - Author
2026 · Book · Open Access
Open ELA is a complete course in Reading and Language Arts for instructors and self-directed learners in Adult Basic Education settings. These materials are designed to aid students in completing the GED exam and to support college and career pathways. This course includes resources for the Reading and Language Arts, Social Studies, and Science portions of the GED exam. It also includes GED Study Guides and lessons contextualized to college and career exploration and readiness. Open ELA covers six units of study: Understanding Literature, Intro to Communications, Metacognitive Reading, Film & Television Studies, Reading for Science & Social Studies, and Journalism.
