Collaborative Research: The Textbook Reconsidered - Creating the Shortbook of Geomorphology

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Geology (42) This project is creating and assessing a new style of textbook - an economical, succinct, and focused guide to the most important tenets of Geomorphology, the study of Earth's dynamic surface. This "Shortbook" is made up of 15 chapters, each 15 to 18 pages long, and each focused specifically on core concepts identified though a process of community consensus building. The goal of this book, and its accompanying public-domain e-media, is to organize and present the most important knowledge about Earth's surface in a concise fashion relevant to the way in which todays students deal with information. This project addresses a dynamic discipline of the geosciences and serves as a model for textbook creation in the STEM disciplines. The textbook is being designed, printed, and distributed by a commercial publisher and is linked to a public-domain website that hosts a suite of e-media, referred to as "Vignettes". These are short (1000 word) case studies that supplement the text and allow customization of the learning environment. Some vignettes are place-based examples; some are quantitative treatments of significant equations or problems in geomorphology; and others feature videos or animations that clarify difficult concepts. The vignettes are being created by experts, vetted by others, linked to the textbook, searchable on line, and available free, both on line and as PDF versions. The "Shortbook" concept comes from the recommendations of a 2006 NSF/National Academy of Sciences workshop, "Reconsidering the Textbook", which suggested that textbooks of the future would be short, economical, reflect community consensus, be student-centered, and be well and purposefully integrated with e-media. This project is testing the workshop recommendations by creating a new textbook in the growing discipline of geomorphology for which the existing texts were first published between 12 and 30 years ago. The assessment plan, which is integral to this proposal and the textbook development process is designed to improve the quality of the final product and determine whether the project has met its goal of creating a book that is widely accepted and useful for both students and faculty.