A Student-Created, Open Access, Living Textbook

Authors

  • Sualyneth Galarza UMass Amhers
  • Sarah Perry, Department of Chemical Engineering • University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA
  • Shelly Peyton Department of Chemical Engineering • University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA

Abstract

Textbooks are expensive, updated infrequently, and rarely used effectively by students. We discuss here a way for students to create the textbook for the course, helping them feel ownership over the course material. This Wiki-based, student-created textbook is online free for use, widely accessible by all, and editable during the course of and as topics evolve. This type of textbook format is particularly well suited to upper-level electives on topics that are rapidly emerging. We have nucleated a studentcreated textbook here, fully online and open access, for two upper elective courses in chemical engineering. Wikis offer an easy-to-learn platform that does not require previous training in coding, and we have found it to be an excellent way to increase student learning while encouraging student buy-in and ownership of their course textbook.

Author Biographies

Sualyneth Galarza, UMass Amhers

Sualyneth Galarza is a chemical engineering Ph.D. student in Dr. Shelly Peyton’s research group at UMass Amherst. She received her B.S. in chemical engineering from UPR Mayaguez with honors in 2014. Sualyneth is a North East Alliance for the Graduate and Professoriate (NEAGEP) 2014 fellow and a 2015 NIH diversity supplement fellowship recipient. Her research interests are in material science and tissue engineering, including the design of 3D extracellular matrices and synthetic scaffolds as in vitro systems.


Sarah Perry,, Department of Chemical Engineering • University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA

Sarah Perry is an assistant professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at UMass Amherst. She teaches Microfluidics and Microscale Analysis in Materials and Biology and Introduction to Chemical Engineering. From the latter she was awarded the Residential First-Year Experience Student Choice Award. Her interests include self-assembly, molecular design, and microfluidic technologies to generate biologically relevant microenvironments for the study of biomacromolecules. 


Shelly Peyton, Department of Chemical Engineering • University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA

Shelly Peyton is an associate professor and the Graduate Program director in the Department of Chemical Engineering at UMass Amherst. She is co-director of the Models 2 Medicine (M2M) Center, which is part of the Institute of Applied Life Sciences at UMass. Shelly is also an MESD director of AIChE. She has received a number of recognitions for her research including the National Science Foundation CAREER Award and an NIH New Innovator Award. Shelly is a Pew Biomedical Scholar and a Barry and Afsaneh Siadat fellow. She teaches Chemical Engineering Principles of Biological Systems and Tissue Engineering at UMass.


Downloads

Published

2017-01-25

Issue

Section

Manuscripts