LibGuides: Computer Science & Information Technology: Open Educational Resources

What are Open Educational Resources (OER)?

"Open Educational Resources" by Ron Mader is licensed under CC BY 2.0

OER are teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use and re-purposing by others. ~ William & Flora Hewlett Foundation

For a more comprehensive overview on OER, see:

Open Educational Resources - a guide designed to assist faculty in the exploration, identification, selection and adoption of Open Educational Resources.

Repositories and Open Access Materials

arXiv.org e-Print archive
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"arXiv is an e-print service in the fields of physics, mathematics, computer science, quantitative biology, quantitative finance, statistics, electrical engineering and systems science, and economics."
College Open Textbooks
Electronic Journals Library
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This resource is useful if the user knows the title of the journal needed. Only the "green dot" journals are freely available.
Free Progamming Books on GitHub
Free TechBooks
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Database of Free / Open Access Online Computer Science Books, Textbooks, and Lecture Notes
The Global Text Project
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The Global Text Project is a joint initiative between the Terry College of Business (University of Georgia) and The Daniels College of Business (University of Denver) to publish eBooks that can be accessed by all, especially the developing world.
InTech (Computer & Information Science )
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InTech publishes more than 2,300 open textbooks and 6 journals in a variety of subjects that fall under the heading of science, technology, and medicine.
Intensive Introduction to Computer Science Open Learning Course
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"The free video lectures of this course are made available as part of Harvard Extension School's Opening Learning Initiative."
IT & Programming (Bookboon)
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Bookboon.com contains free eBooks and textbooks that can be downloaded as a pdf, no registration needed. These books cannot be altered, but can be freely printed, shared, or embedded in non-commercial ways.
O'Reilly Open Books Project
A good source of "open copyright" books, some out-of-print. (Information covered in out-of-print books may still be needed by some users.)
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"Creative Commons and the Internet Archive... solve the licensing and digitizing challenges involved in bringing Open Books to readers. O'Reilly has adopted the Creative Commons Founders' Copyright, which we're applying to hundreds of out-of-print and current titles, pending author approval."
The Online Books Page
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This website facilitates access to books that are freely readable over the Internet.
Online Programming Books
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Quite a few of these titles are from O'Reilly, which also has O'Reilly Open Books Project.
Open Culture Free Textbooks: Computer Science
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Open Culture attempts to collect "the best free cultural and educational media on the web." They've compiled lists of free and open textbooks written by knowledgeable scholars.
Open Textbook Library
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The Open Textbook Library is supported by the Center for Open Education and the Open Textbook Network.
VideoLectures.NET
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"VideoLectures.NET is an award-winning free and open access educational video lectures repository." "The content on VideoLectures.Net is released under the Creative Commons BY-NC-ND license which essentially states that you are free to Share — to copy, distribute and transmit the work, also you must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work), you may not use the work for commercial purposes and you may not alter, transform, or build upon the work."

Open Educational Resources in Computing

"Used Punch Card." By Pete Birkinshaw. Taken on November 6, 2010. Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0). Until the mid-1970s, punch cards were used to load software into mainframe computers. Users were warned: "Do not fold, spindle or mutilate" the cards.

Here are several OER Computer Science and Information Technology textbooks and course materials. Additional OER may be found by searching the resources listed on the ACC Libraries primary Open Educational Resources Guide.

Business Information Systems: Design an App for That by Raymond D. Frost, Jacqueline C. Pike, Lauren N. Kenyo, and Sarah E. Pels
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
CC BY-NC-SA
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We set out to design an introductory course governed by four themes:
1. Give students a good idea of what a career in MIS looks like by doing MIS.
2. Enhance the professionalism of deliverables by teaching design and usability concepts.
3. Promote creativity by assigning projects that demand it.
4. Teach students about cloud computing by having them do cloud computing.
Computer Networking : Principles, Protocols and Practice by Olivier Bonaventure
Attribution CC BY
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Olivier Bonaventure is a Professor of Computer Science at Universite catholique de Louvain. Reviewed by Donald Easton, Faculty Instructor, Lane Community College, on 6/21/2017.
Database Design - 2nd Edition by Adrienne Watt (2014)
Attribution CC BY
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Adrienne Watt holds a computer systems diploma (BCIT), a bachelor’s degree in technology (BCIT) and a master’s degree in business administration (City University). Reviewed by Mary Gable, instructor, tidewater community college, on 8/16/2017. Reviewed by Krishnendu Ghosh, Assistant Professor, Miami University, on 6/21/2017.
An Introduction to Computer Networks by Peter Lars Dordal (2014)
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivsCC BY-NC-ND
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Peter Lars Dordal is an associate professor within the Department of Computer Science at Loyola University of Chicago. His research interests are in programming languages and computer networks. There are no reviews for this book.
Introduction to Computing Explorations in Language, Logic, and Machines by David Evans
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
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This book introduces the most important ideas in computing using the Scheme and Python programming languages. It focuses on how to describe information processes by defining procedures, how to analyze the costs required to carry out a procedure, and the fundamental limits of what can and cannot be computed mechanically.
The Linux Command Line A Book By William Shotts
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)
Think OS: A Brief Introduction to Operating Systems by Allen B. Downey
This text is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 License.
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In many computer science programs, Operating Systems is an advanced topic. By the time students take it, they usually know how to program in C, and they have probably taken a class in Computer Architecture. Usually the goal of the class is to expose students to the design and implementation of operating systems, with the implied assumption that some of them will do research in this area, or write part of an OS. This book does not assume that you have studied Computer Architecture. As we go along, I will explain what we need. Allen B. Downey, Ph.D., Computer Science, Olin College

Computer Networking: Principles, Protocols and Practice by Olivier Bonaventure
This resource covers the 1st as well as the 2nd edition of the Ebook (PDF), and is intended to be used for an upper-level undergraduate networking course. The first part describes the theoretical foundations of this domain as well and the main algorithms and protocols. The second part contains a detailed explanation of the main Internet protocols including HTTP, DNS, TCP, UDP, IPv6, BGP, RIP, OSPF, Ethernet and WiFi.
This item is licensed under a Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Eloquent JavaScript by Marijn Haverbeke
Eloquent JavaScript, 2nd Edition dives deep into the JavaScript language to show you how to write beautiful, effective code. Author Marijn Haverbeke immerses you in example code from the start, while exercises and full-chapter projects give you hands-on experience with writing your own programs.
Attribution-NoDerivsCC BY-ND
Think Python by Allen B. Downey
Think Python is an introduction to Python programming for beginners. All examples in the book are Python 3, and the supporting code has been updated to run in both Python 2 and 3.

This text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License