Adam Sanders – Instructional Design

This week I read some interesting things about a call for open educational resources.  What stood out to me most was the emphasis on the need for a balance between sustainable delivery/distribution structures along with the development of quality open educational content.  It was proposed that neither can successfully exist without the other.  My own personal observations lead me to believe that there has been great improvement in both the means for distribution as well as the development of quality content as of late.

I have had the opportunity to work with a fine individual in Dr. Ron Hammond of the Sociology Department at UVU who has sought to contribute in the arena of open textbooks, recently releasing his first.  You can link to his open textbook on an Introduction to Sociology here.

His work has seemed in large part to be a labor of love.  This is a good thing on many levels, his intentions and motivations are pure… but I would also hope that institutions of education and higher learning will make this sort of opportunity more of a logistical reality for the members of their faculty who have the drive and skills (like Dr. Hammond) to do this in a consistent and sustainable way.