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Nursing: Open Access and Open Educational Resources

Open Access Journals

Disclaimer: The following open access journals are international. Because the UCNJ and its affiliate nursing programs are USA nursing schools, be sure to check FIRST with your professor to determine whether it is permissible to use or reference articles from these journals in your research processes or clinical practice.

Asia-Pacific Journal of Oncology Nursing

Asian Nursing Research

International Journal of Africa Nursing Sciences

International Journal of Nursing Sciences

SAGE Open Nursing

Women and Children Nursing

OER for Nursing-- portals to resources

Mason OER Metafinder-- this resource, offered by George Mason University, "...launches a real-time, simultaneous search across 21 different sources of open educational materials as you hit the Search button..."

Merlot --  this collection is filtered for nursing.  Offered by the California State University, Merlot is an online repository for learning materials.

OASIS (Openly Available Sources Integrated Search) -- from SUNY Geneso. 

Open Educational Resources, from George Washington University--  for "...use by nurse educators worldwide."

Open RN --  "...The Open RN project is led by Chippewa Valley Technical College as part of the Wisconsin Technical College System (WTCS) consortium. OER nursing textbooks and virtual simulations are collaboratively developed by faculty based on the WTCS State Nursing curriculum and the current NCLEX-RN Test Plan. Textbooks undergo national peer review by faculty, deans, industry members, and nursing students to ensure the content is accurate and relevant, written in clear language for pre-licensure nursing students, and based on current, evidence-based practices. All Open RN materials have CC-BY 4.0 Creative Commons licensing.

Open RN textbooks are published in Pressbooks where they are free and accessible in online or downloadable formats. The textbooks are also uploaded to LibreTexts where they can easily be "remixed" by faculty and aligned to their curriculum. Affordable print versions are published by XanEdu and available in college bookstores and on Amazon."

Open Educational Resources - by topical area

Anatomy and Physiology

Dosage Calculation and Medication Administration

End of Life Care

Environmental Health in Nursing

  • Environmental Health in Nursing --  a 2017, AJN Book of the Year award winner, this e-textbook from The Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments (ANHE), also links to authoritative resources such as the EPA, ToxNet, and WHO.

Future of Nursing

Health Literacy

Health Technology and Next Generation Health Services

Social Determinants of Health

Wound Care

Tips for Creating an Effective Learning Environment in an Online Course.

OER Textbooks

IOM Reports --  IOM (Institute of Medicine) reports published after 1998.

NCBI Bookshelf --  provides "...free online access to books and documents in life science and healthcare."

Nursing: Advanced Skills -- an OER textbook, developed by the Open RN project from Chippewa Valley Technical College. 

Nursing Fundamentals -- an OER textbook, developed by the Open RN project from Chippewa Valley Technical College. 

Nursing: Management and Professional Concepts -- an OER textbook, developed by the Open RN project from Chippewa Valley Technical College.

Nursing: Mental Health and Community Concepts -- an OER textbook, developed by the Open RN project from Chippewa Valley Technical College.

Nursing Pharmacology (2e) -- this is the second in the series of OER textbooks from the Open RN project, Chippewa Valley Technical College. Here is the list of revisions to the 2nd edition.

Nursing Pharmacology --  this was the first in a series of planned OER textbooks, developed by the Open RN project from Chippewa Valley Technical College.  See the Open RN link below for further information.

Nursing Skills (2e) -- this is the second edition of Nursing Skills. (It uses the same URL as the 1st edition.)  Here is the list of revisions made to the 2nd edition.

The Open RN -- this textbook development project is well underway, with its first book Nursing Pharmacology released in August 2020 (linked above). More are forthcoming.

  • The Open RN project from Chippewa Valley Technical College is one of the 3 grant awardees of the Department of Education’s Open Textbook Pilot Grant and is charged with developing 5 open nursing textbooks and 25 virtual reality scenarios.

'...The textbooks will be published in Pressbooks, available free and openly accessible to all nursing students and faculty everywhere. They will be       accessible in a variety of digital or print formats. The texts will also be stored in the online repository, Libretexts, where they can be easily “remixed” by nursing or other faculty interested in customizing their own textbook...'

OER as Equity Innovation

Adopting OER as an Equity Strategy-- is an open access article published in the September/October 2023 volume of Nursing Education Perspectives: The Research Journal of the National League for Nursing. It outlines student outcomes in Wisconsin Technical College System nursing courses using Open RN OER textbooks.

UCNJ LibGuides at Union College