Open Education Resources (OER)

Horticulture / Turf & Landscape Management

The Employment Concentration Certificates in Turf & Landscape Management is designed to prepare the student for entry into a variety of careers associated with golf course and turf management. This program specifically provides students with the technical foundations in turf management, water usage, fertility, soils, horticulture, and human resource management for golf courses, recreational parks, sports fields, and general landscape areas.

Reach out to you library liaison with any questions.

Where to Begin?

OER Starter Kits

This starter kit has been created to provide instructors with an introduction to the use and creation of open educational resources (OER).

The text is broken into five sections: Getting Started, Copyright, Finding OER, Teaching with OER, and Creating OER.

Although some chapters contain more advanced content, the starter kit is primarily intended for users who are entirely new to Open Education. [Version 1.1. Revised September 5th, 2019.]

The OER Starter Kit for Program Managers was created to bring attention to the work that is involved in building and managing an OER program, from learning about open educational practices and soliciting team members to collecting and reporting data on your program’s outcomes.

Regardless of your program's scope and your own experience with OER, we hope that the Starter Kit for Program Managers will have some tips to help you along your way.

DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals) was launched in 2003 with 300 open access journals. Today, this independent index contains almost 17 500 peer-reviewed, open access journals covering all areas of science, technology, medicine, social sciences, arts and humanities. Open access journals from all countries and in all languages are accepted for indexing.

DOAB (Directory of Open Access Books) 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. All DOAB services are free of charge and all data is freely available.

The Soil Science Society of America (SSSA) is a progressive international scientific society that fosters the transfer of knowledge and practices to sustain global soils.

SSSA Online Library -- The American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, and Soil Science Society of America publish scholarly research, reference titles, and periodicals in support of the agronomy, crop, and soil science fields—timely and relevant content that is valuable to a wide range of audiences.

Open Soil Science

The goal of Open Soil Science is to provide instructors with the resources they need to effectively teach the world about soils and soil science. The soil science resources made available on this website are open access, and in some cases, open-source.

Soils Laboratory Manual

The Soils Laboratory Manual is an open-source, open access laboratory manual designed for introductory, undergraduate soil science courses. It was first developed by a series of faculty members at North Carolina State University, and later adapted by Colby Moorberg for use at Kansas State University. The foundational document of this open-source lab manual is the Soils Laboratory Manual -- K-State Edition published by New Prairie Press. The current version, Soils Laboratory Manual - K-State Edition, Version 2.0, is available as a PDF, and eBook on the New Prairie Press website, and as a Pressbooks web book. The previous version of the manual is available as still available as a PDF through New Prairie Press. The K-State Editions of the manual are published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).

Soil and Water Conservation

Soil and Water Conservation: An Annotated Bibliography was published by New Prairie Press in 2019. It is available as a web book, various eBook formats, and a PDF. The book was edited by Colby Moorberg, and was made possible through the contribution of 25 contributors. The open textbook highlights freely available online resources on soil and water conservation, including extension publications, technical bulletins, USDA-NRCS conservation practice standards, and other resources. It is organized as an annotated bibliography with links to the online resources, curated into relevant chapters and sections based on each topic. It is licensed with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY).

Glossary of Soil Science Terms

This Glossary of Soil Science Terms was an ad hoc committee of the Soil Science of America to provide a single glossary of terms for the various disciplines of soil science. Thanks are expressed to the many members of the society who have aided in the development of this glossary over the years.

Open Access Journals

Agriculture & Environmental Letters

Agricultural & Environmental Letters is a gold open access journal, publishing communications-length, broad-reaching, transformative, and timely commentaries and research letters on major scientific, policy, and economic issues that span the entire range of the agricultural and environmental sciences.

Agrosystems, Geosciences & Environment

Agrosystems, Geosciences & Environment is a gold open access journal publishing studies limited in geography or time, confirmatory articles, and reports of negative results, focusing on all aspects of agriculture, plant, environmental, and soil science.

The Plant Genome

The Plant Genome is a gold open access journal that provides the latest advances and breakthroughs in plant genomics research, with special attention to innovative genomic applications that advance our understanding of plant biology that may have applications to crop improvement.

The Plant Phenome Journal

The Plant Phenome Journal is a transdisciplinary, gold open access journal that focuses on original research, interpretations, and datasets investigating all aspects of plant phenomics. TPPJ is a forum that combines engineering, remote sensing, computer or data science with plant science, breeding, genetics, or agronomy.

Urban Agriculture & Regional Food Systems

Urban Agriculture & Regional Food Systems is a multi-disciplinary gold open access journal that focuses on urban and peri-urban agriculture and systems of urban and regional food provisioning in developing, transition, and advanced economies.

Vadose Zone Journal

Vadose Zone Journal is an international, gold open access journal that serves as an outlet for interdisciplinary research and assessment of the vadose zone, the portion of the critical zone that comprises the earth's critical living surface down to groundwater.