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Morag,
Yes, please. Thank you.
--Ralph
From: Morag Coyne [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Monday, November 15, 2010 10:10 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Creating a Geology 101 Digital Textbook as an Open
Educational Resource
Dear
Ralph,
May I forward your email off-list to some geology faculty I know?
Best,
Morag
At 12:22 PM 2010-11-15, you wrote:
Care
to contribute to an open educational resource for introducing college students
to physical geology? In other words, help write and edit a free and open online
textbook for Geology 101?
You have probably heard about open educational resources. Besides being easily
found on the Web, the key criteria for an open educational resource (OER) are
that it:
1. Is free of charge.
2. Is copyrighted for free use (or free with
attribution), including use in altered, edited, and excerpted forms.
3. Requires no login, registration, or user information
to be accessed.
If enough of us get together and create an open Geology 101 textbook online, we
can leverage (1) each other’s experience in teaching introductory
geology, (2) each other’s content knowledge from our earth science
research backgrounds, and (3) each other’s pedagogical knowledge from
up-to-date educational research, in order to group-source, as they say, a
high-quality digital textbook.
Once it is available to the world at large, we can keep improving the digital
textbook with future edits and revisions as it gets perused, used, and
commented upon.
The next common questions might be: What’s in it for me? Don’t
people write textbooks, which can take years of effort, at least partly for a
profit motive? Yes, there is a lot to be said for traditional textbooks,
including letting the publishers provide editing, image-making artwork,
publicity, printing, and shipping; letting the academic marketplace filter
textbooks by purchasing more of those with the desired qualities; and in the
end rewarding those who write good-quality textbooks and get them published.
However, in spite of the questions we may raise about the nebulous-seeming
enterprise of open educational resources, and the benefits of traditional
for-profit textbooks, OER textbooks are going to happen. In my view, the best
way for an open, online, digital textbook for Geology 101 to happen is for
those of us who care most about having students be introduced to geology
properly at the college level be the ones who create it.
That is why I am asking you to join me in this endeavor. At this point, it is
just an inquiry on my part. If several of you express interest, we can go ahead
and set up a wiki to work together, agree on the editing controls, and go from
there until the digital text creation and editing site is up, online, and its
contents being composed by us, presumably sometime during 2011. There are no
deadlines.
By the way, if we spot some grant requests for proposals that the Geology 101
OER textbook might be suitable for, we should consider applying, as there will
be some aspects of the work that a grant could help us deal with more
efficiently. But regardless of whether we do this as a bootstrapped,
from-the-grassroots, on-our-own-time side project, or whether we find some
support along the way, the two key words are open and educational. In my view,
only those who have a sense of urgency about wanting to do this should step
forward and get involved in helping to make this happen.
In the meantime, all inquiries and comments are welcome. Thank you.
--Ralph
Ralph Dawes, Ph.D.
Earth Sciences
Wenatchee Valley College
1300 Fifth Street
Wenatchee, WA 98801
(509) 682-6754
[log in to unmask]
Morag Coyne
Acting Head, Engineering & Science Library
Undergraduate Services Librarian
Librarian for Biology, Geology, Geological Engineering & Environmental Studies
Queen's University, Kingston, ON
Phone: 613-533-6975
Email: [log in to unmask]