Students need to understand systems and the systems concept, and they need to understand the role of ICT in enabling systems. Students will learn the characteristics of good systems (e.g., intuitive, likable, error-resistant, fast, flexible, and the like). Knowing the characteristics of good systems will permit students to demand well designed systems and to suggest how existing systems should be changed. Students need to understand the affordances, directions, and limits of hardware, software, and networks in both personal and organizational dimensions. They also need to appreciate that, as technical capabilities change and new ones arise, more opportunities to apply ICT for efficiency, effectiveness, and innovation are afforded. They need to understand the process for developing and implementing new or improved systems and the activities of IS professionals in this process.

Welcome to Information Systems for Business and Beyond. In this book, you will be introduced to the concept of information systems, their use in business, and the larger impact they are having on our world.

This book is written as an introductory text, meant for those with little or no experience with computers or information systems. While sometimes the descriptions can get a little bit technical, every effort has been made to convey the information essential to understanding a topic while not getting bogged down in detailed terminology or esoteric discussions.

Learning objectives can be found at the beginning of each chapter. Of course, all chapters are recommended for use in an introductory information systems course. However, for courses on a shorter calendar or courses using additional textbooks, a review of the learning objectives will help determine which chapters can be omitted.

At the end of each chapter, there is a set of study questions and exercises (except for chapter 1, which only offers study questions). The study questions can be assigned to help focus students’ reading on the learning objectives. The exercises are meant to be a more in-depth, experiential way for students to learn chapter topics. It is recommended that you review any exercise before assigning it, adding any detail needed (such as length, due date) to complete the assignment.

Inorganic chemistry is concerned with the properties and reactivity of all chemical elements. Advanced interests focus on understanding the role of metals in biology and the environment, the design and properties of materials for energy and information technology, fundamental studies on the reactivity of main group and transition elements, and nanotechnology. Synthetic efforts are directed at hydrogen storage materials and thermoelectrics, catalysts for solar hydrogen generation, fullerenes and metal porphyrins, metal clusters and compounds with element-element bonds, as well as nanowires and nanoparticles.

Instruction in Functional Assessment introduces learners to functional assessment (FA), which includes a variety of assessment approaches (indirect, observational, and experimental) for identifying the cause of an individual’s challenging behavior for the purpose of designing effective treatments. FA is mandated by federal law and is a recognized empirically based approach to treatment of individuals with challenging behaviors (e.g., disruptive, self-injurious, and aggressive behaviors). Instruction in FA is essential for students who will one day enter professions as educators, psychologists, social workers, counselors, or mental health professionals.The purpose of this textbook is to provide instruction in FA skills for pre-professionals in the fields of education and psychology. This supplemental resource provides the context, background, and knowledge to facilitate students’ acquisition of the methods, decision-making, and skills involved in conducting FA. Each chapter begins with focus questions designed to promote reflective thinking and ends with discussion questions. To promote application of FA in diverse situations and teach important lessons, case studies of individuals with challenging behaviors, interactive activities, and opportunities for practice are embedded in the chapters. Moreover, the text includes the ingredients to facilitate students’ role play and rehearsal of appropriate FA skills while working in cooperative groups and using performance-based training.

The Republic of Plato is one of the classic gateway texts into the study and practice of philosophy, and it is just the sort of book that has been able to arrest and redirect lives. How it has been able to do this, and whether or not it will be able to do this in your own case, is something you can only discover for yourself. The present guidebook aims to help a person get fairly deep, fairly quickly, into the project. It divides the dialogue into 96 sections and provides commentary on each section as well as questions for reflection and exploration. It is organized with a table of contents and is stitched together with a system of navigating bookmarks. Links to external sites such as the Perseus Classical Library are used throughout. This book is suitable for college courses or independent study.

Containing 4 modules, this textbook covers the intermediate algebra concepts within specific themes such as citizenship, physical world, personal finance, and medical literacy.

In this course, the student will build on and apply what you learned in the introductory macroeconomics course. The student will use the concepts of output, unemployment, inflation, consumption, and investment to study the dynamics of an economy at a more advanced level. As the course progresses, the student will gain a better appreciation for how policy shifts and changes in one sector impact the rest of the macroeconomy (whether the impacts are intended or unintended). The student will also examine the causes of inflation and depression, and discuss various approaches to responding to them. By the end of this course, the student should be able to think critically about the economy and develop your own unique perspective on various issues. Upon successful completion of this course, the student will be able to: Explain the standard theory in macroeconomics at an intermediate level; Explain and use the basic tools of macroeconomic theory, and apply them to help address problems in public policy; Analyze the role of government in allocating scarce resources; Explain how inflation affects entire economic systems; Synthesize the impact of employment and unemployment in a free market economy; Build macroeconomic models to describe changes over time in monetary and fiscal policy; Compare and contrast arguments concerning business, consumers and government, and make good conjectures regarding the possible solutions; Analyze the methods of computing and explaining how much is produced in an economy; Apply basic tools that are used in many fields of economics, including uncertainty, capital and investment, and economic growth. (Economics 202)

This course is designed to extend the student's knowledge of the basic microeconomic principles that will provide the foundation for their future work in economics and give them insight into how economic models can help us think about important real world phenomena. Topics include supply and demand interaction, utility maximization, profit maximization, elasticity, perfect competition, monopoly power, imperfect competition, and game theory. Upon successful completion of this course, the student will be able to: Explain the standard theory in microeconomics at an intermediate level; Explain and use the basic tools of microeconomic theory, and apply them to help address problems in public policy; Analyze the role of markets in allocating scarce resources; Explain both competitive markets, for which basic models of supply and demand are most appropriate, and markets in which agents act strategically, for which game theory is the more appropriate tool; Synthesize the impact of government intervention in the market; Develop quantitative skills in doing economic cost and consumer analysis using calculus; Compare and contrast arguments concerning business and politics, and make good conjectures regarding the possible solutions; Analyze the economic behavior of individuals and firms, and explore how they respond to changes in the opportunities and constraints that they face and how they interact in markets; Apply basic tools that are used in many fields of economics, including household economics, labor economics, production theory, international economics, natural resource economics, public finance, and capital markets. (Economics 201)

International Finance Theory and Policy is built on Steve Suranovic’s belief that to understand the international economy, students need to learn how economic models are applied to real world problems. It is true what they say, that ”economists do it with models.“ That’s because economic models provide insights about the world that are simply not obtainable solely by discussion of the issues.

International Finance Theory and Policy develops a unified model of the international macroeconomy. The text provides detailed descriptions of major macroeconomic variables, covers the interest rate parity and purchasing power parity theories of exchange rate determination, takes an exhaustive look at the pros and cons of trade imbalances and presents the well-known AA-DD model to explore the effects of fiscal and monetary policy under both fixed and flexible exchange rates.

The models are developed, not by employing advanced mathematics, but rather by walking students through a detailed description of how a model’s assumptions influence its conclusions. But more importantly, each model and theory is connected to real world policy issues.

The Finance Text has the following unique features: 1). Begins with an historical overview of the international macroeconomy to provide context for the theory. 2). Concludes with a detailed discussion of the pros and cons of fixed and floating exchange rate systems. 3. Provides an extensive look at the issue of trade imbalances. Readers learn techniques to evaluate whether a country's trade deficit (or surplus) is dangerous, beneficial, or benign. 4). Explains how purchasing power parity is used to make cross country income comparisons. 5). Offers clear detailed explanations of the AA-DD model. 6). Applies the AA-DD model to understand the effects of monetary and fiscal policy on GDP, the exchange rate, and the trade balance.

International Finance: Theory and Policy by Steve Suranovic is intended for a one-semester course in International Finance.

This introductory, algebra-based, two-semester college physics book is grounded with real-world examples, illustrations, and explanations to help students grasp key, fundamental physics concepts. This online, fully editable and customizable title includes learning objectives, concept questions, links to labs and simulations, and ample practice opportunities to solve traditional physics application problems. Derived from College Physics by OpenStax.

Introduction to Art: Design, Context, and Meaning offers a comprehensive introduction to the world of Art. Authored by four USG faculty members with advance degrees in the arts, this textbooks offers up-to-date original scholarship. It includes over 400 high-quality images illustrating the history of art, its technical applications, and its many uses.
Combining the best elements of both a traditional textbook and a reader, it introduces such issues in art as its meaning and purpose; its meaning and purpose; its structure, material, and form; and its diverse effects on our lives. Its digital nature allows students to follow links to applicable sources and videos, expanding the students’ educational experiences beyond the textbook. Introduction to Art: Design, Context, and Meaning provides a new and free alternative to traditional textbooks, making it an invaluable resource in our modern age of technology and advancement.

This book describes how Earth's climate is changing, how it has been changing in the recent geological past and how it may change in the future. It covers the physical sciences that build the foundations of our current understanding of global climate change such as radiation, Earth's energy balance, the greenhouse effect and the carbon cycle. Both natural and human causes for climate change are discussed. Impacts of climate change on natural and human systems are summarized. Ethical and economical aspects of human-caused climate change and solutions are presented.

Welcome to the website for An Introduction to Computer Networks, a free and open general-purpose computer-networking textbook, complete with diagrams and exercises. It covers the LAN, internetworking and transport layers, focusing primarily on TCP/IP. Particular attention is paid to congestion; other special topics include queuing, real-time traffic, network management, security and the ns simulator.

The book is suitable as the primary text for an undergraduate or introductory graduate course in computer networking, as a supplemental text for a wide variety of network-related courses, and as a reference work.

Dear student! You are starting to learn about computation and its purpose. This course covers the same materials as an introductory class for undergraduate computer science majors. Its curriculum, which includes software, hardware and algorithms, resembles that of a one- or two-semester first-year college course or the high school Advanced Placement (AP) Computer Science. It does not require a formal computer science background.

This OER textbook is adapted from Social Problems: Continuity and Change under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license. The original author asked not to receive attribution. It covers poverty, racial and ethnic inequality, sexual orientation and inequality, aging and ageism, and religion.

This course uses the basic principles of biology and earth science as a context for understanding environmental policies and resource management practices. Our planet is facing unprecedented environmental challenges, from oil spills to global climate change. In ENSC 1000, you will learn about the science behind these problems; preparing you to make an informed, invaluable contribution to Earth’s future. I hope that each of you is engaged by the material presented and participates fully in the search for, acquisition of, and sharing of information within our class.

This text is provided to you as an Open Educational Resource which you access online. It is designed to give you a comprehensive introduction to Geology at no or very nominal cost. It contains both written and graphic text material, intra-text links to other internal material which may aid in understanding topics and concepts, intra-text links to the appendices and glossary for tables and definitions of words, and extra-text links to videos and web material that clarifies and augments topics and concepts. Like any new or scientific subject, Geology has its own vocabulary for geological concepts. For you to converse effectively with this text and colleagues in this earth science course, you will use the language of geology, so comprehending these terms is important. Use the intra-text links to the Glossary and other related material freely to gain familiarity with this language.

This text was designed for use in the human osteology laboratory classroom. Bones are described to aid in identification of skeletonized remains in either an archaeological or forensic anthropology setting. Basic techniques for siding, aging, sexing, and stature estimation are described. Both images of bone and drawings are included which may be used for study purposes outside of the classroom. The text represents work that has been developed over more than 30 years by its various authors and is meant to present students with the basic analytical tools for the study of human osteology.

Library and Information Science (LIS) is the academic and professional study of how information and information carriers are produced, disseminated, discovered, evaluated, selected, acquired, used, organized, maintained, and managed. This book intends to introduce the reader to fundamental concerns and emerging conversations in the field of library and information science.

A secondary goal of this book is to introduce readers to prominent writers, articles, and books within the field of library science. The book originated as a collection of annotations of important LIS articles. Though these citations are being developed into a fuller text, we hope that this book remains firmly rooted in the literature of LIS and related fields, and helps direct readers toward important resources when a particular topic strikes their fancy.

This is an introductory textbook in logic and critical thinking. The goal of the textbook is to provide the reader with a set of tools and skills that will enable them to identify and evaluate arguments. The book is intended for an introductory course that covers both formal and informal logic. As such, it is not a formal logic textbook, but is closer to what one would find marketed as a critical thinking textbook. Downloadable as a pdf file.