Open Educational Resources (OER): Humanities

Lumen Learning Art Appreciation course, and set of resources.

Textbook.
Copyright:Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Available Formats: Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd.

Includes Open Texts on Western Art and African Art

The AHTR website includes a variety of pedagogical resources including adaptable lesson plans and downloadable powerpoint presentations, assignment ideas, and learning activities appropriate for museum and classroom settings.

Pamela Sachant, University of North Georgia
Peggy Blood, Savannah State University
Pub Date: 2016
Publisher: University of North Georgia Press

Image and Data Resources

This text is primarily designed to serve as a textbook for a college-level music theory fundamentals course. However, it also has the flexibility to serve equally well for a typical core curriculum college-level Music Theory I or Harmony I course. Our goal is to deliver sufficient information to enable the student to be able to evaluate and analyze select music from the literature as quickly as is practical. Secondly, we seek to provide sufficient instruction to enable a student to begin writing music as quickly as is practical. In order to develop a complete argument, it is important that the student understand that this text “assumes a blank slate.” No prior knowledge on the part of the student is assumed.

Open Source textbook from SUNY

An OER textbook on Open Stax

An open course on Lumen Learning

An open course on Open Course Library

An open-source, interactive, online “text”book for college-level music theory courses. OMT was built on resources authored by Kris Shaffer, Bryn Hughes, and Brian Moseley. It is edited by Kris Shaffer and Robin Wharton, and is published by Hybrid Pedagogy Publishing.

An OER textbook on Open Stax

The main purpose of the course, however, is to explore basic music theory so thoroughly that the interested student will then be able to easily pick up whatever further theory is wanted. Music history and the physics of sound are included to the extent that they shed light on music theory. Students who find the section on acoustics (The Physical Basis) uninteresting may skip it at first, but should then go back to it when they begin to want to understand why musical sounds work the way they do. Remember, the main premise of this course is that a better understanding of where the basics come from will lead to better and faster comprehension of more complex ideas.

Nonprofit arts org with free online music journalism, grantmaking capabilities, and free Open Source online software for musicians.

Community music remixing site featuring remixes and samples licensed under Creative Commons licenses.

Free Music Archive and Tribe of Noise are known for free to download music licensed under Creative Commons.

Freesound is a collaborative database of Creative Commons Licensed sounds. Browse, download and share sounds.

Royalty free music

Contains CC licensed music.

List of legal music resources from Creative Commons.

Open source music streaming

Open Music journals and public domain music library.

Lantern is the search platform for the collections of the Media History Digital Library, an open access initiative led by David Pierce and Eric Hoyt. The Media History Digital Library (MHDL) digitizes collections of classic media periodicals that belong in the public domain for full public access. The project is supported by owners of materials who loan them for scanning, and donors who contribute funds to cover the cost of scanning.

The American Variety Stage is a multimedia anthology selected from various Library of Congress holdings. This collection illustrates the vibrant and diverse forms of popular entertainment, especially vaudeville, that thrived from 1870-1920. Included are 334 English- and Yiddish-language playscripts, 146 theater playbills and programs, 61 motion pictures, 10 sound recordings and 143 photographs and 29 memorabilia items documenting the life and career of Harry Houdini. Groups of theater posters and additional sound recordings will be added to this anthology in the future.

This online presentation includes items selected from the Federal Theatre Project Collection at the Library of Congress. Featured here are stage and costume designs, photographs, posters, playbills, programs, and playscripts, including productions of Macbeth and The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus as staged by Orson Welles, and Power, a topical drama of the period. Selected administrative documents from the project are also available.

MIT Open Courseware

This site is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Introduction to Theater/ Theater Appreciation by Dr Charlie Mitchell from University of Florida. Open source textbook

A resource which offers sign vocabulary choices for difficult terminology, such as terms within academic disciplines.

Search and compare thousands of words and phrases in American Sign Language (ASL). The largest collection of video signs online.

Includes Communication Theory, Professional Communication and Media Studies.

Saylor Legacy Course

This book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0).

The course is an introduction to the preparation and delivery of oral presentations in an extemporaneous style. Emphasis is on ethical research, critical and logical analysis, and organization of informative and persuasive presentations.

Copyright ©2011. The Public Speaking Project.
Except where otherwise noted, The Public Speaking Project by Various Authors is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Users are free to copy, distribute and transmit the work for non-commercial purposes, provided The Public Speaking Project and the authors are credited for their work.

MERLOT is a program of the California State University System partnering with education institutions, professional societies, and industry.

Publisher: University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing

Self-paced course from University of Arkansas professor. Podcasts offer a “good introduction to Spanish for those who have never studied it before, or a good refresher for those who have. The course focuses almost exclusively on Spanish grammar.”

Free to use but need iTunes to play.

This book accompanies the “5 Minute Spanish” podcasts and is available for download with iBooks on your Mac or iOS device. Free to download and use but requires iTunes or Mac/iOS device.

The University of Kansas Collaborative Digital Spanish Project (Acceso) is 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.

University of Texas at Austin, CC BY license

Various open Spanish resources. including websites, grammar, exercises, videos. etc.

This telenovela, or Spanish soap opera, from Annenberg Learner immerses students in everyday situations and teaches speaking, listening, and comprehension skills in Spanish. Episodes incorporate Spanish from different Spanish-speaking countries. Each episode is closed-captioned and includes related practice vocabulary. Free to use. Drawback? Look and feel a bit dated.

For lower-level Spanish courses - video course through the BBC. (Not open but free).

Lots of stuff in here, including complete courses, tutorials, units, exercises, etc. Consider using the limiters on the left side of the page, such as material type, media format, conditions of use, etc.

Entire open course for introductory Spanish (formerly SPAN 101), Washington SBCTC Open Course Library project. Google Drive docs, includes folders for modules (with assessments and learning activities) and resources. CC BY license.

Entire open course for middle Spanish course, Washington SBCTC Open Course Library project. Google Drive docs, includes folders for modules (with assessments and learning activities) and resources. CC BY license.

Entire open course for more advanced Spanish, Washington SBCTC Open Course Library project. Google Drive docs, includes folders for modules (with assessments and learning activities) and resources. CC BY license.

Spanish in Texas is part of the 2010-2014 program of the Center for Open Educational Resources and Language Learning (COERLL), a National Foreign Language Resource Center at the University of Texas at Austin.

“An introduction to formal logic suitable for undergraduates taking a general education course in logic or critical thinking, and is accessible and useful to any interested in gaining a basic understanding of logic. This text takes the unique approach of teaching logic through intellectual history; the author uses examples from important and celebrated arguments in philosophy to illustrate logical principles.”
Available formats include online, PDF, and ebook
CC BY NC SA license

Developed by Portland Community College team of instructors
Five main chapters: Reasoning, Argument, Process of Argument Analysis, Argument Structure, and Deduction Basics
Google Doc, downloadable in multiple formats
CC BY license

An introduction to sentential logic and first-order predicate logic with identity, logical systems that significantly influenced twentieth-century analytic philosophy.
PDF version and links to purchase print copy.
2012, CC BY SA license
Includes peer reviews

Matthew J. Van Cleave
Lansing Community College
CC-BY-NC-SA license.

Series of podcasts through the University of Oxford
7 podcasts, with captions
Links to embed audio or video versions
CC BY NC SA license

Free online interactive textbook for introductory college level logic courses
Created in 2008, last updated in 2015
CC BY NC ND license

Series of podcasts through the University of Oxford
8 podcasts, with captions
Links to embed audio or video versions
CC BY NC SA license

BC Campus
Multiple formats, including online, PDF, Kindle, and more.
Combines readings from primary sources with two pedagogical tools, including numbered study questions.
“Minilogic and Glossary” section sketches out basic philosophy principles; also includes a chapter on “Background to Modern Philosophy” with Aristotle and Aquinas. Rest of textbook has chapters for Descartes, Spinoza, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Kant
2013, CC BY NC SA

"Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental questions about existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Major sub-fields of academic philosophy include metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, aesthetics, political philosophy, logic and philosophy of science."

PHIL103: Moral and Political Philosophy
PHIL304: Existentialism
ENVS203: Environmental Ethics, Justice, and World Views
All CC BY licenses

These courses are inactive but available as a resource for self-directed learning. Courses include.
PHIL101: Introduction to Philosophy
PHIL102: Logic and Critical Thinking
PHIL201: The Philosophy of Death
PHIL202: Philosophy of Science

Includes works by Machiavelli, Hobbes, Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, Kant, and more.
Arranged chronologically by philosopher. All public domain texts

Online collection of classic philosophy texts, with works by Aristotle, Homer, Hesiod, among others.
All public domain texts.
Site has text-only versions available for download.

MIT Open Courseware.
Historical look at philosophy and focus on primary source texts. This course does list print textbooks, but there are online, public domain versions for almost every reading included in this course, from either this site or this site. Full course with assignments, readings, and complete lecture notes for each class and topic. Also includes related resources.
2016, CC BY NC SA

15 free or open courses linked on Academic Earth, which collects open-access or openly licensed educational materials.
A range of philosophy open courses, including General Philosophy, An Introduction to Political Philosophy, and more.

Open access encyclopedia, with in-depth articles about concepts.
Open access -- not OER -- so you could link to articles or provide a general link to the whole site as an additional help to students.

High-quality video playlists and TED Talks on different topics of philosophy.
Free for educational use (not technically OER.)
Can link to or embed in Canvas courses

open access philosophy videos

Series of 41 lectures (each around 10 min.), available in video or audio versions.
Mostly seem to be focusing on specific philosophers
2010, CC BY NC SA, with links to embed video or audio versions

Open Yale courses.
Links to 40-50 min. video lectures, transcripts, and audio versions. Includes Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, and Tocqueville.
CC BY NC SA

CrashCourse video series of 46 videos (8-11 min. each) with innovative graphics.
Connects philosophical concepts with contemporary issues
2016-2017
Videos are not CC-licensed, but you can link to/embed videos into Canvas courses.

For intermediate level Japanese. Available through the Open Textbook Library.