Lead Editors: Leonard A. Jason, Olya Glantsman, Jack F. O’Brien, and Kaitlyn N. Ramian
Project Title: Introduction to Community Psychology: Becoming an Agent of Change
Book Description: This textbook will show you how to comprehensively analyze, investigate, and address escalating problems of economic inequality, violence, substance abuse, homelessness, poverty, and racism. It will provide you with perspectives and tools to partner with community members and organizations to promote a fair and equitable allocation of resources and opportunities.
We have recently finished publication and are beginning the dissemination of our “Introduction to Community Psychology” textbook. We are excited for our textbook to be viewed by you, an international audience, and we are expecting and working towards instructors adopting the textbook for Fall 2019 courses. The book is a grassroots efforts to bring new voices to writing for an undergraduate audience. We posted a solicitation for this book on a community psychology website, and all chapters emerged from those who responded to this request for input. There are now 50 writers of the 19 chapters in this textbook. Even better, we were able to work with the Community Psychology organization to provide students free Associate Membership status in our organization.
We have also piloted the textbook with Community Psychology undergraduate courses, and the students were very impressed with the online textbook as well as the many features Rebus offers through their Pressbooks platform. We will post updates as we move through the publication and adoption processes and welcome any and all feedback.
Wonderful news! I’m tagging my colleague @LeighKP, who will be happy to spread the word more broadly with the community.
The book looks very thorough and clear to read, and I like that you’ve already made it available in multiple formats. Are you also working with anyone at DePaul to get the book into a print copy, for readers who prefer this format?
The fact that so many people were involved in the book’s creation, and that it has already been tested out in classrooms is amazing – kudos to you and the rest of the team! I would strongly suggest, if you haven’t done so already, highlighting this in the book, so readers can see how much work has gone into making this open textbook.
If possible, I may also suggest adding an Adoption Form, so you can keep track of any new users of the book. What may also be useful for potential adopters and readers is a statement addressing whether the book has been reviewed (both classroom review and peer review), and how the book in it’s web format meets recommended accessibility standards. You can see some example forms and templates here: Adoption Form, Review Statement, Accessibility Assessment.
We’ve actually received some interest in the book already, and will be directing any potential users or adopters to you in the platform, so you can connect and coordinate on getting feedback to improve or add to the book in the future. We’re so excited to mark the release of the book! Congratulations once again!
So happy to find this book. I will be adding it to my adopted books for my Sociology P170 Community & Social Psychology class at my college. Thank you to the ditors and contributors! -Karen Bishop
I (the person behind Rebus Communities newsletter and Twitter feed) want to jump in to say that I’m beginning to draw content from the New Release’s section. If you provide any details about your book’s release there, I’d be happy to shout out your project! I’d also spread an adoption form if you had one.
