OER Catalog

This book is for those whose financial management focus is on small businesses. For you, we adapt the traditional financial management themes emphasized in corporate financial management courses to meet the needs of small businesses.

Many financial managers of small businesses come from farms or agribusinesses. Others are interested in working for or starting businesses in the food or retail sectors. In most cases, these businesses aren’t organized as C-corporations impacting things like taxes, depreciation, and legal requirements around compiling and reporting financial data. They are rarely publicly traded which creates unique constraints to raising debt and equity capital and calculating required risk-adjusted returns.

These financial managers are interested in solving specific problems they face in family or small businesses. They want to know how to apply the tools they are learning—coordinated financial statement analysis, present value analysis, management of cash flow, measuring their opportunity costs, etc.—to the problems they face at home. As we started to work on the actual problems faced by these managers, it quickly became clear that corporate finance tools don’t exactly fit the small businesses they come from. Further, in attempting to tackle the problems they bring, we learned that finding and/or constructing the data needed for financial management is another skill set often overlooked and in need of development. In the end, after investing a lot of time, we found that—without adaptation—corporate finance theory as traditionally taught doesn’t meet the knowledge needs and application skills of financial managers of small businesses. We wrote this book to be a catalyst that enables students and managers of small businesses to learn the tools and skill sets that will help them make sound financial management decisions.

Basic Tamil is an online, interactive, and tech-enhanced textbook that promotes speaking, listening, reading, writing, and cultural skills. Each Chapter in this book has clearly stated learning outcomes, relevant grammatical items, and cultural notes. Each chapter is designed to teach the vocabulary needed as a building bloc as the student progresses to the next chapter. The pedagogical approach in the book is mixed and informed by the socio-cultural approaches and the generative approaches of the Second Language Acquisition theory. The mixed theoretical backgrounds match diverse learning and teaching philosophies and styles. Following the learning outcomes guided by American Council of Teaching Foreign Language (ACTFL), this textbook aims for the novice learners to attain intermediate low to mid-level proficiency level. The textbook incorporates pictures, audio-visual materials, and activities developed on the H5P platform to keep learners engaged.

The book comprises a total of nine chapters. Every chapter is equipped with explicit learning objectives, grammatical concepts, and cultural annotations. Additionally, every chapter includes dedicated sections for listening, speaking, reading, writing, and grammar, which are then followed by interactive activities. Cultural insights and a selection of online resources pertaining to the chapter’s theme are presented. At the conclusion of each chapter, there is a chapter summary that includes a list of functional expressions and a grammar summary. Additionally, there is a further practice section that offers exercises and activities for students to continue practicing the target language or the chapter’s topic.
Each chapter is structured to include three modes of communication (interpretative, interpersonal, and presentation mode) for each of the four skills, or three stages of teaching reading/listening: pre-reading, reading, and post-reading. The acquisition of vocabulary in reading and listening occurs through engaging in conversations that include English translations, allowing learners to deduce the meaning within the provided context. H5P has been utilised to create learning activities that provide learners with prompt and constructive feedback.

This open textbook is designed for beginners learning Chinese as a second/foreign language. This book aims to introduce learners to standard Chinese pronunciation, character knowledge, basic conversational phrases, grammar and vocabulary use, and cultural knowledge. Throughout the eight chapters, learners will explore: greetings and self-introduction, hobbies, nationalities, family members and occupations, inviting friends to dinner, talking about food and beverage, making phone calls, and talking about classes and exams. Learning activities include audio recordings so students can listen to the pronunciation of vocabulary words and observe dialogue between speakers. The book also includes videos with captions, allowing learners to listen, watch, and read. Original interactive activities have been created by the author to facilitate the practice of target vocabulary and dialogues.

This “textbook” is interactive, meaning that although each chapter has text, they also have interactive HTML5 content such as quizzes, simulations, interactive videos, and images with clickable hotspots. Students receive instant feedback when they complete the interactive content and, therefore, can learn and check their understanding all in one place. I still consider this textbook to be fairly text-heavy and will continue to make even more interactive content!

The image on the cover represents the creation of this book. I pulled most of the content from open resources, modified them, added questions, and now offer them for you to use!

I chose the content to align with two courses that I teach: Environmental & Organismal Applications and Biomedical Applications. Unit 1 introduces students to science, which both courses use. Unit 2 covers content necessary for understanding conservation implications (the underlying theme of the course is de-extinction), and Unit 3 focuses on proteins so that students can understand the implications of modifying DNA (the underlying theme is CRISPR).

Please use this book as you see fit for your classes. I look forward to hearing how to make this book even more useful in the future!

Elementary Chinese II is aimed at those who have learned Chinese as a second/foreign language for one semester, using the OER textbook “Elementary Chinese I“.

This open textbook contains six main lessons, including topics such as school life, shopping, transportation, weather, eating out, and asking and giving directions. They are organized in a straightforward and well-structured manner that are easy to follow. Within each lesson, there are a set of two dialogues or a set of one dialogue plus one narration. The texts of the dialogues or narrations are created to provide real-life Chinese language to beginning learners. After the texts, vocabulary words are listed for them to study and review. Grammatical points are explained in English and example sentences are provided for students to understand. Each dialogue or narration ends with culture notes where learners can read and better understand the target text.

The essence of organic chemistry is how carbon atoms interact with other atoms and groups of atoms to produce an astounding array of complex and interesting molecules. The basics of bonding and intermolecular interactions are introduced in the general chemistry version of CLUE (Chemistry, Life, the Universe & Everything), along with how the structure of a molecule affects its properties, how the energy changes associated with chemical and physical changes can be predicted and explained, and how chemical systems can be stabilized or perturbed by changing conditions. These four core ideas (structure-property relationships, bonding and interactions, energy, and stability, and change) are continued on into OCLUE and are deepened and expanded as we discover and explain ever more complex chemical systems.

This open textbook is intended for beginning students of Arabic who have already covered their literacy skills and ready to explore language in a lively and interactive approach. This OER is unique in its presentation of Arabic language content through theme-based modules. Each theme is addressed through vocabulary, grammar, reading, speaking, culture, and writing components. Each chapter includes self-check embedded quizzes that help learners digest language concepts. The book is also designed with teachers in mind. Each chapter includes pair work and group tasks that the teacher can implement in class and other parts that can be assigned as homework. The focus of the book is to establish a sound basis in Standard Arabic structure in a simplified and sequenced approach. Additionally, each theme will include a conversation section in which a module on Egyptian Arabic is presented. While developing a solid foundation in written Arabic, the Egyptian Arabic component will enhance students’ spoken fluency and enrich their cultural experience in their language learning journey.

Advanced Vietnamese is designed for students at the Intermediate mid to High levels, language enthusiasts, and anyone seeking to deepen their understanding of Vietnamese language and culture. Immerse yourself in the richness of the Vietnamese language by exploring both the Northern and Southern dialects. This dual-dialect approach mirrors the media representation and presence of Vietnamese in various contexts, providing you with a holistic understanding of the language as it is spoken and used in real-life situations.