LibGuides: Business: Open Educational Resources

General Business Textbooks

Business Ethics by Stephen M. Byars; Kurt Stanberry
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ISBN: 9781947172562
Publication Date: 2018-09-24
Business Ethics is designed to meet the scope and sequence requirements of the single-semester business ethics course. This title includes innovative features designed to enhance student learning, including case studies, application scenarios, and links to video interviews with executives, all of which help instill in students a sense of ethical awareness and responsibility.
Good Corporation, Bad Corporation by Guillermo C. Jimenez; Elizabeth Pulos
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ISBN: 9781942341253
Publication Date: 2016-04-04
This textbook provides an innovative, internationally oriented approach to the teaching of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and business ethics. Drawing on case studies involving companies and countries around the world, the textbook explores the social, ethical, and business dynamics underlying CSR in such areas as global warming, genetically modified organisms (GMO) in food production, free trade and fair trade, anti-sweatshop and living-wage movements, organic foods and textiles, ethical marketing practices and codes, corporate speech and lobbying, and social enterprise.

Principles of Finance by Julie Dahlquist; Rainford Knight
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ISBN: 9781951693541
Publication Date: 2022-03-23
Designed to meet the scope and sequence of your course, Principles of Finance provides a strong foundation in financial applications using an innovative use-case approach to explore their role in business decision-making. An array of financial calculator and downloadable Microsoft Excel data exercises also engage students in experiential learning throughout.
Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure by Scott A. Cromar, Knobbe Martens ; Robert M. Lawless, University of Illinois
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Publication Date: 2014
The Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure appear in the Appendix to Title 11 of the United State Code. This publication was made with data provided by the United States government on the Office of Law Revision Counsel Bulk US Code. This title is current through July 31, 2014.

Financial Management for Small Businesses: Financial Statements & Present Value Models by Lindon J. Robinson, Michigan State University ; Steven D. Hanson, Michigan State University & J. Roy Black, Michigan State University
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Publication Date: 2020
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.

Entrepreneurship by Michael Laverty; Chris Littel
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ISBN: 9781947172692
Publication Date: 2019-06-01
This textbook is intended for use in introductory Entrepreneurship classes at the undergraduate level. Due to the wide range of audiences and course approaches, the book is designed to be as flexible as possible. Theoretical and practical aspects are presented in a balanced manner, and specific components such as the business plan are provided in multiple formats. Entrepreneurship aims to drive students toward active participation in entrepreneurial roles, and exposes them to a wide range of companies and scenarios.

Personal Finance
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This Lumen Course covers topics related to personal finance, including budgeting, credit reports, taxes, housing, vehicles, investments, banking, and more.
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Please note that each module is individually licensed. Lumen also provides access to instructor resources.
Boundless Finance
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This course provides various modules and readings that introduce the basic concepts of finance, including budgeting, the stock market, working capital, and more.
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Please note that each module is individually licensed. Lumen also provides access to instructor resources.

WOLFRAM Demonstrations Project
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Stephen Wolfram, scientist and founder of Wolfram Research, conceived the Wolfram Demonstrations Project as a way to bring computational exploration to the widest possible audience. It is an open-code resource that uses dynamic computation to illuminate concepts in science, technology, mathematics, art, finance and a remarkable range of other fields.

Open Access Journals

iBusiness
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IB, a quarterly journal, is dedicated to the latest advancements of Internet and Business, and the intersection of Economics with business applications.
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Open Access authors retain the copyrights of their papers, and all open access articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, CC BY (or the CreativeCommons Attribution-NonCommercial License CC BY-NC), which allows users to (noncommercially) copy, use, distribute, transmit and display the work publicly and to make and distribute derivative works, in any digital medium for any responsible purpose, subject to proper attribution of authorship.
Modern Economy
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Modern Economy (ME) is an open, international, peer-reviewed journal dedicated to the latest advancements in all areas of international economics. The goal of this journal is to provide a platform for scientists and academicians all over the world to promote, share, and discuss various new issues and developments in different areas of modern economy.
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Open Access authors retain the copyrights of their papers, and all open access articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, CC BY (or the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License CC BY-NC), which allows users to (noncommercially) copy, use, distribute, transmit and display the work publicly and to make and distribute derivative works, in any digital medium for any responsible purpose, subject to proper attribution of authorship.

Get Started Searching for OERs

Since OERs are typically digital, the best place to look is online. If you're just getting started, you may want to forgo a Google Search and start looking in well known OER Repositories (listed at the bottom of this page in the OER Collections box). Some of the most common starting places for faculty are the Open Textbook Library, Lumen Learning, and OpenStax.

As OER become more popular, more powerful search tools are being developed. The Mason OER Metafinder (the MOM) and OASIS are two such search engines. These two resources search across a variety of known OER repositories, presenting results from multiple locations in one convenient place.

College and University LibGuides are another great place to look for discipline-specific resources. Librarians take great care in selecting resources that they think best suit the needs of their faculty.

And, of course, when you feel comfortable in your ability to find and recognize OER, Google Searching is always a viable option. Combine subject-specific search terms with recommended OER search terms to get started. Remember when browsing online to always check the license, terms, and conditions associated with a resource to be sure that it is OER!

The resources listed in the OER Collections box below are a great starting place for any OER search!

Recommended Search Terms:

Open Educational Resources
OER or OERs
OER Textbooks
Open Access or Open Access Journals
Open Textbooks
Open Education
Open Source
Creative Commons or Creative Commons Licensed
Public Domain

Combine these or other terms with your subject-based terms

Collections of Resources

Opendora
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Opendora, developed by PALS, is a digital archive for open educational resources that serves as a central repository for Minnesota State faculty and librarians to leverage licensed open educational resources (OER) with the ability to access, load, and share material.
Open Textbook Library
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A comprehensive resource for openly licensed academic textbooks. All textbooks are free, and the majority are peer reviewed.
OpenStax
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High-quality, peer-reviewed, openly licensed college textbooks that are absolutely free online and low cost in print.
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Additionally available: low-cost, research-based courseware that gives students the tools they need to complete their course the first time around, and a new online math homework system with step-level feedback.
BC Campus OpenEd
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The B.C. Open Textbook Collection is home to a growing selection of open textbooks for a variety of subjects and specialties. Discover open textbooks that have been reviewed by faculty, meet our accessibility requirements, and/or include ancillary materials (quizzes, test banks, slides, videos, etc.).
Textbook Equity Open Education
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These are university-quality textbooks: Most contain exercises, discussion questions, problem sets. Most have appendices, supplemental materials and bibliographies. Academically reviewed and tested in the classrooms. PDF versions are free.
2012 Book Archive
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This is the archive of Creative Commons-licensed copies of all the books which were available online from a specific publisher at the end of 2012. In late 2012, they decided that the process of giving away access to their textbooks online wasn't working, and decided to switch to a different model, requiring students to pay for access to the books starting in 2013. The original versions of those books are still available under the original license, made available here.
OAPEN
OAPEN promotes and supports the transition to open access for academic books by providing a digital collection of open-access books
LibreTexts
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The LibreTexts mission is to unite students, faculty and scholars in a cooperative effort to develop an easy-to-use online platform for the construction, customization, and dissemination of open educational resources (OER) to reduce the burdens of unreasonable textbook costs to our students and society. "Explore the Libraries" to get started finding resources
Utah State University Press
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Utah State University’s (USU) Institutional Repository (IR) supports open access initiatives and contributes to USU’s intellectual output and engagement with global scholarly resources. The purpose of this repository is to archive and provide open access to the scholarly works, research, reports, publications, teaching materials, workshops, and lectures produced by USU faculty, staff, students, and organizations.
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Effective January 2021, content in the Institutional Repository (IR) will be available under open licensing or Creative Commons By Attribution (CC-BY) Licenses unless noted otherwise in individual items. https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/about.html
Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB)
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DOAB is a community-driven discovery service that indexes and provides access to scholarly, peer-reviewed open access books and helps users to find trusted open access book publishers.
Open Research Library
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The Open Research Library (ORL) is planned to include all Open Access book content worldwide on one platform for user-friendly discovery, offering a seamless experience navigating more than 14,000 Open Access books.

Skills Commons
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Skills Commons makes available open access Courses and Course Materials, especially those pertaining to Technical Programs.
Lumen Learning
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Lumen course materials replace expensive textbooks and provide: Engaging, interactive content (text, video, simulations, practice questions, etc.), Continuous improvements to support increased learning, Accessible and mobile-friendly, Available for 50+ high-enrollment subjects
Lumen Learning - Boundless Catalog
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This catalog contains educational content originally curated by Boundless. Lumen maintains the Boundless content in the same condition it was provided to us, and courses may contain some formatting and accessibility issues.
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Except where otherwise noted, all material in Boundless courses are licensed under a CC BY-SA license.
Lumen Learning - Achieving the Dream Catalog
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This catalog contains openly-licensed course materials developed for the Open Educational Resources (OER) Degree Initiative, led by Achieving the Dream. Lumen maintains this content in the same condition it was provided to us by participating faculty and institutions.
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Except where otherwise noted, all material is licensed under a CC BY license.
Saylor Academy
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Saylor Academy is a nonprofit initiative working since 2008 to offer free and open online courses to all who want to learn. They offer nearly 100 full-length courses at the college and professional levels, each of which is available right now — at your pace, on your schedule, and free of cost.
OpenLab
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City Tech’s OpenLab is an open-source digital platform where students, faculty, and staff can meet to learn, work, and share their ideas. Use the search and filters to find a Courses with Creative Commons Licenses.

Canvas Commons

Canvas Commons is a learning object repository that enables educators to find, import, and share resources. A digital library full of educational content, including OERs, Commons allows Canvas users to share learning resources with other users as well as import learning resources into a Canvas course.

Available in all Canvas Free for Teacher (FFT) Accounts

Learn more about how to get started.

Pixabay
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A collection of new, high quality images that have been dedicated to the Public Domain by their creators.
Unsplash
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The images in this collection are high quality and new.
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The Unsplash License page outlines the terms of use, stating that these images have been dedicated to the public domain.
Pexels
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This site provides free stock photos, a collection of which have been licensed with a Creative Commons License.
Flickr
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This site includes CC Licensed Images and other media, such as videos. Each item includes a CC License detailing the ways in which the item can be used.
Wikimedia Commons
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This site includes CC Licensed Images and other media, such as videos. Each item includes a CC License detailing the ways in which the item can be used.

TED Talks
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TED is a nonprofit devoted to spreading ideas, usually in the form of short, powerful talks (18 minutes or less).
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TED Talks recordings are owned by TED, provided on TED.com and any other site that we manage or license to. Unless otherwise indicated on the website, audio and video files, transcripts and/or information about a speaker are licensed via Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International), which means that certain TED Content may be used for personal and/or educational purposes as long as the license terms and TED Talks’ Usage Policy are followed.
FedFlix
FedFix features the best movies of the United States Government, from training films to history, from our national parks to the U.S. Fire Academy and the Postal Inspectors, all of these fine flix are available for reuse without any restrictions whatsoever.
DOE Science Cinema
Contains multimedia videos highlighting the U.S. Department of Energy's scientific research. State-of-the-art audio indexing and speech recognition technology allows the user to search for specific words and phrases spoken by the presenter in these video files. Simply enter a term and the results list will point to the precise snippets of the video where the term was spoken.
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As government created resources, these should be part of the Public Domain, but please check each resource's license before use.

Sage Publishing Open Access
All articles published in the journals provide worldwide, barrier-free access to the full-text of articles online, immediately on publication under a creative commons license. All articles are rigorously peer-reviewed retaining the quality hallmarks of the academic publishing process that authors would experience in publishing in any traditional SAGE journal.
Wiley Open Access
Wiley Open Access publishes authoritative peer reviewed open access journals across many research disciplines.
Elsevier Open Access
All articles in open access journals which are published by Elsevier have undergone peer review and upon acceptance are immediately and permanently free for everyone to read and download.
Peer Reviewed Journals
Peer review is the essential part for maintaining substantial standard in publishing and brings out the best possible scientific novel information from the potential authors and researchers globally. This Open Access Publishing house has around 700+ peer-reviewed journals, 50,000 eminent and renowned Editorial Board members, and highly qualified, expert reviewers to meet the objectives of the Peer-Review Process.
SCIRP
Scientific Research Publishing (SCIRP) is one of the largest Open Access journal publishers. It is currently publishing more than 200 open access, online, peer-reviewed journals covering a wide range of academic disciplines.
Hindawi
One of the world's largest fully open access journal publishers. We believe in openness, in scholarly publishing and research communication.

Business

About OERs

Creative Commons Licenses

How to Provide Attribution