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Ralph,
 
Splendid idea.  Besides teaching a geology course for non-majors at
Truckee Meadows Community College, I've been teaching the lab course
that accompanies Geology 101 on and off for over 20 years at the
University of Nevada, Reno.  I use a lab manual but I also use it as a
jumping-off point, and create my own exercise whenever I think it would
be more useful.   
 
I would like to participate in developing that aspect of a Geology 101
online text.
 
Maureen Leshendok
Instructor and Reference Librarian, Truckee Meadows Community College
7000 Dandini Blvd.
Reno, Nevada 89512
775-673-7011
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>>> "Dawes, Ralph" <[log in to unmask]> 11/15/2010 9:22 AM >>>

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 
rdaw
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