About Mavs Open Press

Creation of this resource was supported by Mavs Open Press, operated by the University of Texas at Arlington Libraries (UTA Libraries). Mavs Open Press offers no-cost services for UTA faculty, staff, and students who wish to openly publish their scholarship. The Libraries’ program provides human and technological resources that empower our communities to publish new open access journals, to convert traditional print journals to open access publications, and to create or adapt open educational resources (OER). Resources published by Mavs Open Press are openly licensed using Creative Commons licenses and are offered in various e-book formats free of charge. Optional print copies may be available through the UTA Bookstore or can be purchased through print-on-demand services, such as Lulu.com.

About OER

OER are free teaching and learning materials that are licensed to allow for revision and reuse. They can be fully self-contained textbooks, videos, quizzes, learning modules, and more. OER are distinct from public resources in that they permit others to use, copy, distribute, modify, or reuse the content. The legal permission to modify and customize OER to meet the specific learning objectives of a particular course make them a useful pedagogical tool.

About Pressbooks

Pressbooks is a web-based authoring tool based on WordPress, and it is the primary tool that Mavs Open Press (in addition to many other open textbook publishers) uses to create and adapt open textbooks. In May 2018, Pressbooks announced their Accessibility Policy, which outlines their efforts and commitment to making their software accessible. Please note that Pressbooks no longer supports use on Internet Explorer as there are important features in Pressbooks that Internet Explorer doesn’t support.

The following browsers are best to use for Pressbooks:

• Firefox
• Chrome
• Safari
• Edge

About the Print Version

This publication was designed to work best online and features a number of hyperlinks in the text. We have retained the blue font for hyperlinks in the print version to make it easier to find the URL in the “Links by Chapter” section at the back of the book.

Contact Us

Information about open education at UTA is available online. If you are an instructor who is using this OER for a course, please let us know by filling out our OER Adoption Form. Contact us at oer@uta.edu for other inquires related to UTA Libraries publishing services.