College Open Textbooks BLOG
Driving Awareness and Adoption
Exemplary open textbooks and methodology: ChemWiki and its Progeny
ChemWiki not only shines as an exemplary series of open-licensed chemistry textbooks, it has spawned
Professor Delmar Larsen of the University of California at Davis heads the ChemWiki project, a series of online textbooks including Analytical, Biological, Inorganic, Organic, Physical, and Theoretical Chemistry plus the History of Chemistry and Lab Techniques. All are licensed Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share-Alike. Students and instructors contribute to the textbooks that are constantly improved.
ChemWiki includes more than 6,000 pages with high-quality illustrations. Individual pages in ChemWiki can be printed or turned into Adobe PDF files. Contributors include more than 30 chemistry professors and students as well as web technologists and publicist Richard Osibanjo.
ChemWiki provides maps to popular commercial general, organic, and physical textbooks.
Here are the pages showing how other colleges and universities are starting to incorporate the UC Davis ChemWiki into their courses:
- Columbia University
- Contra Costa College
- Diablo Valley College
- Hope College
- J. Sargent Reynolds Community College
- New Mexico State University Alamogodro
- University of Minnesota at Morris
- Truman State University
College Open Textbook grantee communities include two based on the UC Davis series:
- 3-D Molecular Models in ChemWiki: Dr. Ron Rusay and colleagues at Diablo Valley Community College
- PhysWiki Dynamic Textbook project: Professor Erik Christensen at South Florida Community College and a colleague at Monroe Community College, NY. Erik was named a College Open Textbooks Outstanding Open Textbooks Advocate/Trainer in 2010.
A special feature of the UC Davis wiki texts is the Student Ability Rating and Inquiry System (SARIS) , a tool for tracking student progress based on PracticeZone.
PracticeZone is part of the ChemVantage academic program learning and assessment program for General Chemistry that includes jargon used in mastering video games. Chuck Wight of the University of Utah founded ChemVantage. “We have configured the software to allow students to submit proposed solutions to the problems as often as they want, in order to improve their scores. The objective is for students to use the feedback to correct their errors prior to the deadline for the assignment.” ChemVantage carries a Creative Commons Attribution license.
College Open Textbooks delights in publicizing the wiki texts from UC Davis, the use of these by several institutions, and the exciting approach to chemistry education from the University of Utah.
Indigenous Peoples Reader Project
The goal of this project was to take existing open source material being used by a developmental-level reading and writing course as part of Project Kaleidoscope, and update the material to meet the needs of learners on the Hoopa Indian Reservation. The first draft of the Reader itself has been completed. Vinnie Peloso, also from College of the Redwoods, is currently editing the last six stories. Finding suitable material was a challenge, but folk tale and myths from around the world were adapted to reading levels between 4th and 8th grade from the following nations/continents:
• Australia
• North America: Cheyenne, Inuit, Nez Perce, Oanagon, Zuni
• China
• Hawaiian Islands
• India
• Japan
• Korea
• Africa: Kenya/Swahili, South Africa
• Russia
• Tibet
The Reader is annotated to provide context for unfamiliar concepts and words, and includes video to illustrate that many of the indigenous peoples represented continue to have active and vibrant cultures and continue the traditions mentioned in the stories. For example, the myth from the Zuni tribe has the leading character playing a flute, and at the end of the story there is a short video of a master flautist playing a traditional Zuni song on the exact type of flute from the story.
Also in progress is the development of reading comprehension quizzes for each of the chapters in the Reader, as well as transferring lessons into the new course. A meeting has been scheduled next week where I will visit our college satellite campus on the Reservation and present the materials to the dean and faculty to hear their insights toward the project. I am looking forward to this conversation and their suggestions on how to make the Reader even more meaningful and relevant.
This project, along with other OER projects that I am currently working on, were mentioned in a guest blog I posted for SoftChalk. I submitted this as a proposal for the 2012 Online Teaching Conference, and will be recording a one-hour webinar event that will be streamed during that conference in June, and will then be archived. When this goes live I will post a link to that presentation on COT’s blog, so look for that mid-June.
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