Open Textbooks @ UQ Catalogue

An introduction to different types of Artificial Intelligence (AI), using AI in your studies, the implications for society and research being done on AI at UQ.

Complete this module to learn how to develop a search strategy to find the best information, find different kinds of information using different tools and evaluate information.

Complete this module to learn how to source media (including images, video, and audio) for your assignments and help you understand copyright and licencing obligations so that you can ethically reuse media.

Music Research Essentials is for undergraduate music students and provides discipline-specific information on the fundamentals of doing music research. Students will gain knowledge and skills in responding to a topic or question, developing effective research strategies, using information technology and search tools efficiently, locating and discriminating between sources of information, using secondary and primary sources, documenting and referencing sources, as well as setting assignment work out clearly and consistently.  Music Research Essentials has been designed with first-year students in the School of Music at the University of Queensland in mind, but it also provides generic information that is more widely applicable.

The School of Pharmacy Preceptor Handbook has been developed for preceptors hosting students in the Bachelor of Pharmacy (Hons) program. Within this resource, preceptors can find supporting guides and information on placements, the work integrated learning program, and the Entrustable Professional Activities.

The updated 2024 edition of this guide is designed to support students undertaking legal studies and contribute to the development of research skills in Australian law schools.

Using language data to learn about language: A teachers’ guide to classroom corpus use contains English, Portuguese and Spanish teaching resources to be used in international language classes. These resources can be used in classrooms with internet access (hands on) or without (hands off). The idea behind using corpora in the classroom is that learners will play the role of language “detectives”, taking charge of their own learning process while working with others to investigate the language in use. Corpora are large collections of electronic text that learners can query and manipulate to learn about language through repeated exposure. Learners are encouraged to observe data, create hypotheses, formulate rules on linguistic patterns (i.e., an inductive approach), and/or verify the validity of grammatical rules from textbooks (i.e., a deductive approach). This perspective is called Data-Driven Learning (DDL), and is now widely featured in Computer Aided Language Learning (CALL) research (Boulton, 2010; Crosthwaite, 2020; Frankenberg-Garcia, 2021; Pérez-Paredes, 2020; Scott, 2010; among others). This collection of ready-made DDL lesson plans is curated to help both new and experienced teachers introduce DDL concepts into their language lesson planning. In each lesson, teachers and learners will find a description of the target tool and a link to a short video, in which the author(s) of the lesson explain(s) how this tool can be used. Detailed lesson plans are included, which can be used as a starting point or as an inspiration for the creation of future class activities. Most of the lesson activities can be done 1) with access to the internet (hands on); and/or 2) without access to the internet (hands off). This is useful for schools where students are not allowed to use their own devices, or where internet access is not available.

Designed specifically for UQ College Academic English Tertiary Preparation Program students, this Pressbook offers interactive activities and strategies for developing and refining academic writing skills. Learners are introduced to the writing basics, such as parts of speech, sentence and paragraph structure, right through to writing, editing , and refining their own essay. Students will have the opportunity to review key parts of the writing process from interpreting their assignment instructions, organizing their ideas, drafting their writing, and revising their work before final submission. In addition, students will learn key oral presentation skills for both group and individual class presentations. Also, it offers students the opportunity to develop as critical thinkers and write sound and valid academic arguments. The contents are supported by in-class practice and while it has been designed as an integral part of the TPP Academic English syllabus, it will enhance the writing skills of anyone new to academic writing.

This book is a multidisciplinary introduction to the social sciences with an applied approach to the study of human society. This book examines diverse aspects of social life from multiple perspectives, incorporating analytical and methodological insights in a wide range of social science disciplines, including sociology, anthropology, political science, public policy, psychology and human geography. Through real cases of contemporary issues and social problems, students will explore a wide range of topics that shape both Australia and the world today – the changing nature of work and education, the environment and health, community and development. Using a blend of text, video, and online materials, students will learn the skills for independent study and collaborative investigation. Upon the successful completion of this book, students will have gained critical knowledge on Australian and global social issues, relevant policies, and possible solutions.

Over the last two decades, sustainability has become a widespread normative framework or regulatory idea – mostly communicated in a context of sustainable development and thus as ‘alternative to’ or ‘fight against climate change’. Sustainability is generally defined as the fact that a given activity or action is capable of being sustained and therefore continued, related to the responsibility for the future, meeting global needs, the protection of the environment, development and ecocultural consciousness as a deeper logic and matter of life, as well as participation and engagement. Thus, sustainability communication encompasses the relationship between humans and their environment and focuses on social discourses (Godemann at al., 2011). Here, a critical approach seems to be fruitful to grasp the largely amorphous concept of sustainability that gets bent into many different shapes in the public sphere (Weder et al., 2019a; 2021; Dimitrov, 2018).

For the introductory book at hand, we focus on the role of strategic communication in shaping sustainability as current narrative of our society in relation to the ‘old’ climate change narrative of destruction and imbalance between human and nature. Therefore, we conceptualize the evolution of the sustainability narrative as core process of strategic communication. We focus on organizations and their responsibility towards the society (Corporate Social Responsibility) and identify the potential of strategic communication for a transition of the old to the ‘new’ narrative.

After the clarification of the basic paradigms of Corporate Responsibility, Environmental and Social Governance, and Sustainability as normative framework and narrative of the future, we introduce the basic paradigms of communication, communication from a functional, rather instrumental and critical, social-constructivist perspective, before we focus on sustainability and CSR communication and related strategies and tactics of content-related, storytelling-focused communication management.

In this introductory book on CSR and Sustainability Communication, we discuss the evolution of the sustainability story in corporate, political, and environmental discourses as well as paradigms and theoretical approaches to better understand communication about, of and for sustainability. The textbook follows a strategic communication perspective and offers practical examples and exercises for making sustainability and related issues accessible and comprehensible, for co-creating social change. The book offers students and instructors as well as (future) communication strategists and campaigners foundations, strategies, tools and methodologies of sustainability communication to create a new story and take authorship for the new narrative. Furthermore, it attracts professionals, advocates, and academics who are passionate about taking proactive roles in restoratively addressing the pressing interrelated sociocultural and ecological issues if our times, to become reflexive leaders and advocates.