Academic Success is designed to help students on their university journey. It is divided into four parts, each reflecting different aspects of a student’s tertiary experience. Part A: Successful Beginnings addresses what it is like to be a new student at an Australian university. Part B: Successful Foundations introduces basic skills in English language, techniques for accessing and working with information, and understanding academic integrity. Part C: Successful Study Skills presents the everyday, core skills that successful students use while at university. Lastly, Part D: Successful Assessment meets head-on the challenges of tertiary assessments. This open book ultimately aids students across all disciplines in achieving academic success at university.

Bridges introduces students to a wide range of concepts, institutions, histories, and artifacts of United States college and university life. After discussing these items in easy-to-scan, concise, nuance-free prose, this textbook then offers useful lists, templates for writing and speaking in different discourses and situations, thought-provoking questions and activities for self-study and for classroom work, and pertinent hyperlinks for further information. Bridges is designed to help first-generation, first-year, English language learners, and/or culturally unfamiliarized students more fully and successfully explore their educational environments. By using this book, students will be better prepared for the academic and social challenges of successfully undertaking higher education in English.

OpenStax College Success is a comprehensive and contemporary resource that serves First Year Experience, Student Success, and College Transition courses. Developed with the support of hundreds of faculty and coordinators, the book addresses the evolving challenges and opportunities of today’s diverse students. Engagement, self-analysis, personal responsibility, and student support are reflected throughout the material. College Success also includes an array of student surveys and opinion polls, and OpenStax will regularly provide the results to adopting faculty.

This book is the result of a co-design project in a class in the Masters of Education program at the University of Calgary. The course, and the resulting book, focus primarily on the safe and ethical use of technology in digital learning environments. The course was organized according to four topics based on Farrow’s (2016) Framework for the Ethics of Open Education.

Foundations of Academic Success: Words of Wisdom (FAS: WoW) introduces you to the various aspects of student and academic life on campus and prepares you to thrive as a successful college student (since there is a difference between a college student and a successful college student). Each section of FAS: WoW is framed by self-authored, true-to-life short stories from actual State University of New York (SUNY) students, employees, and alumni. The advice they share includes a variety of techniques to help you cope with the demands of college. The lessons learned are meant to enlarge your awareness of self with respect to your academic and personal goals and assist you to gain the necessary skills to succeed in college.

Table of Contents:

Part One: YOUR Solid Foundation

The Student Experience by Kristen Mruk

Practice, Practice, Practice by Dr. Kristine Duffy

Why So Many Questions? by Fatima Rodriguez Johnson

These Are the Best Years of Your Life by Sara Vacin

With a Little Help from My Friends by Paulo Fernandes

Part Two: YOU Are the President and CEO of YOU

Can You Listen to Yourself? by Yuki Sasao
Failure Is Not an Option by Nathan Wallace

Thinking Critically and Creatively by Dr. Andrew Robert Baker

Time Is on Your Side by Christopher L. Hockey

What Do You Enjoy Studying? by Dr. Patricia Munsch

Part Three: The Future YOU

Fighting for My Future Now by Amie Bernstein

Something Was Different by Jacqueline Tiermini

Transferrable by Vicki L. Brown

It’s Like Online Dating by Jackie Vetrano

Learn What You Don’t Want by Jamie Edwards

Student Success and First Year Experience are learning community courses at UTA that teach new students academic success skills to aid their transition to college. The goal of the courses is to help students identify their individual needs, determine what resources are appropriate, recognize the faculty role in their development, and formulate a plan for an actively engaged and enriched experience from campus to career. The courses will be taught by Peer Academic Leaders (PALs) and faculty, staff and/or graduate students to provide guidance, raise awareness and understanding of students' majors and help support collaborative and co-curricular opportunities available within the School/College. This open educational resource is the required textbook for both courses.

We intend this book to act as a guide writ large for would-be champions of OER, that anyone—called to action by the example set by our chapter authors—might serve as guides themselves. The following chapters tap into the deep experience of practitioners who represent a meaningful cross section of higher education institutions in North America. It is our hope that the examples and discussions presented by our authors will facilitate connections among practitioners, foster the development of best practices for OER adoption and creation, and more importantly, lay a foundation for novel, educational excellence.

Tangent and Cotangent Functions - period, phase-shift, periodic functions, asymptotes, sine and cosine functionsTMM 002 PRECALCULUS (Revised March 21, 2017)1. Functions: 1a. Analyze functions. Routine analysis includes discussion of domain, range, zeros, general function behavior (increasing, decreasing, extrema, etc.), as well as periodic characteristics such as period, frequency, phase shift, and amplitude. In addition to performing rote processes, the student can articulate reasons for choosing a particular process, recognize function families and anticipate behavior, and explain the implementation of a process (e.g., why certain real numbers are excluded from the domain of a given function).*

Law of SinesTMM 002 PRECALCULUS (Revised March 21, 2017)2c. Analyze general triangles. Routine analysis of side lengths and angle measurements using trigonometric ratios/functions, as well as other relationships.*Sample Tasks:The student can solve general triangles using trigonometric ratios and relationships including laws of sine and cosine.The student can compare similar triangles.The student can compute length and angle measurements inside complex drawings involving multiple geometric objects.The student can algebraically describe relationships inside complex drawings involving multiple geometric objects.

Vectors - dot product, projection, decomposition of a vectorTMM 002 PRECALCULUS (Revised March 21, 2017)AdditionalOptional Learning Outcomes:2. Geometry: The successful Precalculus student can:2e. Interpret the result of vector computations geometrically and within the confines of a particular applied context (e.g., forces).Sample Tasks:The student can define vectors, their arithmetic, their representation, and interpretations.The student can decompose vectors into normal and parallel components.The student can interpret the result of a vector computation as a change in location in the plane or as the net force acting on an object.

Vectors - magnitude, direction, component form, trigonometric form, unit vector, algebra of vectors, applications,TMM 002 PRECALCULUS (Revised March 21, 2017)AdditionalOptional Learning Outcomes:2. Geometry: The successful Precalculus student can:2e. Interpret the result of vector computations geometrically and within the confines of a particular applied context (e.g., forces).Sample Tasks:The student can define vectors, their arithmetic, their representation, and interpretations.The student can decompose vectors into normal and parallel components.The student can interpret the result of a vector computation as a change in location in the plane or as the net force acting on an object.

Ellipse - conic section, foci, major and minor axes, vertices, standard form, eccentricityTMM 002 PRECALCULUS (Revised March 21, 2017)AdditionalOptional Learning Outcomes:2. Geometry: The successful Precalculus student can:2f. Represent conic sections algebraically via equations of two variables and graphically by drawing curves.Sample Tasks:The student can perform the process “completing the square” transforming the equation into a standard form.The student can draw curves representing conic sections.The student can solve systems of equations involving linear and quadratic functions.The student can parametrize conic curves.

Hyperbola - conic section, foci, transverse and conjugate axes, vertices, asymptotes, standard formTMM 002 PRECALCULUS (Revised March 21, 2017)AdditionalOptional Learning Outcomes:2. Geometry: The successful Precalculus student can:2f. Represent conic sections algebraically via equations of two variables and graphically by drawing curves.Sample Tasks:The student can perform the process “completing the square” transforming the equation into a standard form.The student can draw curves representing conic sections.The student can solve systems of equations involving linear and quadratic functions.The student can parametrize conic curves.

Parabola - conic section, focus, directrix, focal length, standard form, vertex form, completing the square method.TMM 002 PRECALCULUS (Revised March 21, 2017)AdditionalOptional Learning Outcomes:2. Geometry: The successful Precalculus student can:2f. Represent conic sections algebraically via equations of two variables and graphically by drawing curves.Sample Tasks:The student can perform the process “completing the square” transforming the equation into a standard form.The student can draw curves representing conic sections.The student can solve systems of equations involving linear and quadratic functions.The student can parametrize conic curves.

This book aims to provide an overview of theoretical and practical considerations in terms of self-directed multimodal learning within the university context. Multimodal learning is approached in terms of the levels of multimodality and specifically blended learning and the mixing of modes of delivery (contact and distance education). As such, this publication will provide a unique snapshot of multimodal practices within higher education through a self-directed learning epistemological lens. The book covers issues such as what self-directed multimodal learning entails, mapping of specific publications regarding blended learning, blended learning in mathematics, geography, natural science and computer literacy, comparative experiences in distance education as well as situated and culturally appropriate learning in multimodal contexts.

This book provides a unique focus on multimodality in terms of learning and delivery within the context of self-directed learning. Therefore, the publication would not only advance the scholarship of blended and open distance learning in South Africa, but also the contribute to enriching the discourse regarding self-direction. From this book readers will get an impression of the latest trends in literature in terms of multimodal self-directed learning in South Africa as well as unique empirical work being done in this regard.

Welcome to university! Whether this is your first time in post-secondary education, or whether you are returning to studies, you’re arriving with some goals you want to achieve. Perhaps you are taking a focused program to lead you into your desired career. Perhaps you are exploring courses in different areas, providing a foundation for future specialization. Wherever you are in your journey, you find yourself in a learning environment that is different from one you have experienced before.

A good foundation for university is learning how to learn. By taking the time to read this book and work through the exercises included, you are investing in the skills that will support you in all of your classes and future learning. Successful students share a set of skills and habits in common. The good news is that these skills are not a secret; anyone can learn the skills that support successful learning. By taking some time to learn proven study strategies, you will be able to reach your learning goals, and avoid the pitfalls that can take you off-track.