Textbook Alternatives

High quality open access textbooks from Rice University, the HP Foundation, and the Gates Foundation. A large collection of textbooks covering a wide range of topics; strengths are the high quality, ease of dissemination to students, ease of printing, supplementary materials like powerpoints, tests banks, answer guides, and easy Canvas integration

About 60% of the titles have reviews, good place to publish a review because Ferris is an institutional member, wider range of subjects than OpenStax, supplementary materials rarer, and a “coming soon” section is available.

Includes open texts funded by British Columbia government and open texts reviewed by faculty on many topics. Easy to scan by topic area.

These "open-access textbooks have been judged to meet the evaluation criteria set by the AIM editorial board." Covers many mathematical disciplines, including statistics.

Lists by subject of college level open access texts for Mathematics and Physics.

Links to open mathematics texts in PDF format.

Milne Library Publishing at SUNY Geneseo manages and maintains Milne Open Textbooks, a catalog of open textbooks authored and peer-reviewed by SUNY faculty and staff.

Faculty at Grand Valley State University have published some open access texts on their library's Digital Commons repository. Includes texts on Calculus, Simulation in Manufacturing, Human Osteology, Mathematical Reasoning, and Writing.

Offers free educational courses; Users must create a login and password. This site has changed from University of Georgia to University of Denver, but is now a publisher's website.

Free textbooks that can be downloaded as PDFs.

Includes quality medical textbooks underwritten by foundations and societies.

"A free, comprehensive, peer-reviewed, award-winning Open Text for students and faculty in college-level courses that require writing and research." Uses an interesting model that allows for collaborative authorship and an editorial board.

Open access writing texts vetted by an editorial board of professors from multiple colleges. Site hosted at Colorado State University.

This "build-your-own" open access psychology textbooks project allows instructors to choose chapters.

Computer science texts written by Allen B. Downey, Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering.

Faculty at USF have published some open access texts on their library's Digital Commons repository.

Complete text of numerous titles available in PDF--mostly literary and other humanities topics.

Includes: Contribute a Verse: A Guide to First Year Composition, Compact Anthology of World Literature, Principles of Macroeconomic Literacy, The Basics of American Government, and History in the Making: A History of the People of the United States of America to 1877.

"Pitt Press has selected 762 monographs for open access, including titles from the Pitt Latin American Series, Pitt Series in Russian and East European Studies, and Composition, Literacy and Culture. The majority of these titles are out-of-print, but are now available online."

Open access texts from AU Press, a Canadian university press.

Download books for the study of ancient Near Eastern civilizations, including Anatolian studies, archaeology, Egypt, epigraphic survey, Hittite civilization, Islamic studies, language and text studies, Mesopotamian civilization, Nubian civilization, Iranian civilization, prehistoric Near East, Syro/Palestine.

These items are currently being used to support higher education at Kansas State University (KSU).

ESL, Japanese, Arabic, Spanish literature, special education, mathematical analysis, GIS, developmental systems, gender and sexualities.

The Cupola: Scholarship at Gettysburg College is proud to host open textbooks, lab manuals, and other learning materials created by Gettysburg College faculty and employees.

Collaborative online American History text. List of authors includes faculty at many good colleges.

This model won't work for everybody--but it's easy to browse by subject to see if there is a wikibook that does meet your standards.
Not included in custom search.

Most books listed are not suitable for use as texts, but this may change as this project expands. (Not included in the Google Custom Search).

Great reviews from profs at multiple universities. Free to read online or download as PDF. Stable - this book (and some updates) have been up for years.

Trinity University. On Digital Commons. Simple to download.

Book shared by Professor via Google Drive.

Physics texts offered in free PDF by a physics professor (PhD Yale). Very inexpensive print versions also available. Supplementary materials for verified faculty.

"These workbooks, designed for use in an active learning environment, arrange topics such that students receive repeated exposure to concepts over an extended time interval each time with
an incremental increase in complexity."

"An introduction to the nature of the universe. Use it to research or review our solar system, stars, galaxies, and the history of the universe. Each chapter has a set of corresponding homework questions."

Interactive online textbook from The University of Texas Medical School at Houston.

Introductory accounting text by a professor at Utah State.

Dumas, B.A. & McCarthy, J.E. (2014). Transition to higher mathematics: Structure and proof (2nd ed.) [PDF]. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.7936/K7Z899HJ

Pieters RS, Bishop-Jodoin M, Liebmann J. Introduction to Cancer Concepts: A Guidebook for the Non-Oncologist. In: Pieters RS, Liebmann J, eds. Cancer Concepts: A Guidebook for the Non-Oncologist. Worcester, MA: University of Massachusetts Medical School; 2014.

"A comprehensive web-based textbook that addresses all of the topics in a typical introductory undergraduate or graduate course in social research methods. "

A Palomar College professor offers two award-winning "tutorials" which can substitute for a textbook to teach cultural anthropology or biological anthropology.

Computer science studies how to describe, predict properties of, and efficiently implement information processes. 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.