Open Education: Biological Sciences
Subjects
Agriculture
Apparel, Housing & Resource Management
Architecture, Interior Design & Landscape
Biological Sciences
Business
Chemistry
Classical Studies
Computer Science
Construction
Economics
Early Childhood Education Education (also)
Engineering
English
Foreign Languages and Literatures
Geosciences (Geology)
Health & Medicine
History
Human Nutrition, Food & Exercise
Information / Digital Literacy & Research Skills
International Studies
Law
Mathematics
Natural Resources and Environment
Performing Arts
Philosophy
Physics
Plant & Environmental Sciences
Political Science
Psychology
Public and International Affairs
Religion and Culture
Sociology
Statistics
Veterinary Medicine
Visual Arts
Biological Sciences
On this page you will find several openly licensed Biology textbooks along with supplemental material, interactive simulations, and other resources.
Discipline-specific pages are not intended to be exhaustive, but to showcase content that may be of interest to faculty considering adopting open educational resources for use in their classes.
For more information about Creative Commons including license descriptions, please see the Creative Commons tab.
Featured Resource
- Biology Anatomical Illustrations (from Iowa State University)These anatomical illustrations were created by Biological and Pre-Medical Illustration (BPMI) students at Iowa State University that had previously attended the course, BIOL 351: Comparative Chordate Anatomy. Students worked closely with their course instructor to develop detailed anatomical illustrations of the specimens studied in the lab, which allowed the students to showcase their work. (License: CC BY NC SA 4.0)
Eight images currently available include:
- Human Eye by Olivia Seweryn
- Necturus Upper Body by Graham Hagan
- Rabbit Upper Body; Rabbit Lower Body by Graham Hagan
- Turtle Skeleton by Olivia Seweryn
- Shark Skeleton; Shark Chondocranium by Katherine Tran
- Bowfin Fish Dermatocranium by Katherine Tran
Open Textbooks
- Concepts of Biology, OpenStax College, CC BY 3.0 License
- Biology, OpenStax College, CC BY 3.0 License
- Microbiology: A Laboratory Experience, Holly Ahern, Permissions and CC License info
Additional Sources of Open Textbooks
NLM / NCBI Bookshelf (National Library of Medicine / National Center for Biotechnology Information) "provides free online access to books and documents in life science and healthcare." To use these materials, see the Copyright information.
Course materials: Lecture Videos, Interactive Simulations etc.
"We present here a set of MIT courses that are Life Sciences-based. Pursuing an education in Life Sciences is both exciting and challenging, and we hope you experience both in viewing this collation!" To re-use these materials, follow the CC BY NC SA permissions.
"PhET provides fun, free, interactive, research-based science and mathematics simulations. We extensively test and evaluate each simulation to ensure educational effectiveness." To re-use these materials, follow the CC BY 3.0 permissions.
Science Forward "videos have been produced by Science Forward to support inquiry-based basic science classes. Students, we expect, will watch the videos and come to class with a wider range of basic questions, primed for discussion." To re-use these materials, follow the CC BY NC SA 4.0 permissions.
See also
The Encyclopedia of Life is an unprecedented effort to gather and share scientific knowledge about all living things in a single online resource, giving each of us a breathtaking view of our amazing world. To re-use these materials, follow the terms of use.