collaborative tools idl

Free textbooks (aka open textbooks) written by knowledgable scholars are a relatively new phenomenon. Below, find a meta list of 150 Free Textbooks, and check back often for new additions. Also see our online collection of Free Courses.

The ChemCollective is an online resource repository for Teaching and Learning Chemistry.

Web-based Science Labs Laboratory simulations for chemistry and biology enhance science education. Perform life-like science experiments anytime, anywhere. Easy to implement for any general chemistry or biology course. Perfect for distance learning.

Connexions is: a place to view and share educational material made of small knowledge chunks called modules that can be organized as courses, books, reports, etc. Anyone may view or contribute: authors create and collaborate instructors rapidly build and share custom collections learners find and explore content

"Teaching Peer Review Teaching Peer Review Web Part Menu "

"Peer Review: Establishing an Effective Practice A Collaborative Project by Andrea Dennin, Richard Ellman, Melissa Jones, Angela Tartaglia and Erin Trauth University of South Florida FYC Program"

You can share your presentations online on the web through authorPOINT Lite, by uploading to authorSTREAM (see how), a free online presentation sharing platform, and to WiZiQ (see how), a free online education platform. authorPOINT Lite is Microsoft® Windows® Vista® compatible and Microsoft Office® 2007 compatible. You can also directly share your PowerPoint's on these servers, using aP Lite's PowerPoint plug-in, for which the conversion to flash outputs is done on these servers.

Download Jing - a free screen cast software. You can snap a picture of your screen, record a video of onscreen action, and share your screen casts instantly over the Web.

View the Camtasia overview video and download a 30-day trial.

Tutorials to learn how to use Camtatasia to record your screen, narrate your power point and others.

iPeer is an application to develop and deliver rubric-based peer evaluations, to review and release student comments, to build progress report forms online, and to analyze evaluation results. It has extensive features including user management system, student feedback control, data import/export, automatic installer, self-evaluation and etc…

The MERLOT ELIXR Initiative offers a digital case story repository that hosts over 60 discipline-specific multimedia stories. Digital stories for faculty development can provide real-life experiences of exemplary teaching strategies and the process of implementing them. These digital case stories can be used freely in faculty development programs and also accessed by individual instructors.

A list of UCF teaching online faculty resources.

The Online@UCF Support provides immediate and personal support for faculty and staff who offer online Webcourses@UCF. Supporting a wide range of online faculty needs, Online@UCF Support offers phone, e-mail, and scheduled face-to-face support sessions, as well as group workshops throughout the academic year.

"In 1996, UCF established an institutional goal of expanding its services to include students who might not otherwise have access to higher education. The Center for Distributed Learning was created to leverage new opportunities for flexible, Web-based course delivery to benefit campus-based students as well as off-campus and distant students. UCF now offers over two dozen totally Web-based degree, degree-completion, and certificate programs, and hundreds of individual Web-based courses."

Groupsite ties together social networking and collaboration in an effort to make group communications easier and more efficient. It's a hosted solution with Pro plans and a free tier for social networks. With the free account, you can add individual premium features at $9/month each. Groupsite has all of the features you would expect to find, including forums, calendars, blogs, file sharing, and profiles. Some have said that Groupsite is to Ning what Facebook is to Myspace. Check out our coverage here and go take it for a spin yourself.

SocialGo, founded in 2007, is more of a direct competitor to Ning as far as their goals. They allow "anyone to create a professional-grade social network for their group, business or interest." They are focused on expanding premium services, but do offer a free (forever) account to get your feet wet. If you don't really feel like setting up your network on your own, you can pay $149 and have a SocialGo Concierge do it for you.

"The Office of Teaching Resources in Psychology (OTRP) develops and distributes teaching and advising materials and provides services to teachers of psychology at all levels on behalf of The Society for the Teaching of Psychology. OTRP Materials are Peer-Reviewed "

The Orange Grove Florida's Digital Repository & Orange Grove Texts Plus are libraries for your to browse/search for learning objects and open textbooks.