DIGITAL VIGNETTES SUPPLEMENT A NEW GEOMORPHOLOGY TEXTBOOK— INSTRUCTORS CHOOSE CASE STUDIES FROM A FREE DATABASE

Vignettes are a series of detailed examples, case studies, quantitative derivations, and regional geomorphology examples available to students and professors from a free, on-line database (http://serc.carleton.edu/vignettes). A community of international geomorphologists has contributed Vignettes for use with the new Key Concepts in Geomorphology textbook—a shortened text focusing on “core concepts” (Bierman et al, this meeting). Vignettes allow customization of geomorphology courses when professors add on-line regional and topical case studies to a traditional printed text.

Although the Vignettes are being created for use with Key Concepts in Geomorphology, the collection stands alone and may be freely used as an open-source educational resource. Vignettes are peer-reviewed by academic geomorphologists at scientific meetings worldwide (EGU, GSA, AAG, AGU, special Australia session). The Vignettes collection is a growing resource with nearly 250 submissions.

In general, the creation of Vignettes is part of a new model of textbook creation (http://www.uvm.edu/~geomorph/textbook/), funded in part by the National Science Foundation. The new model includes writing a condensed “key-concept” textbook (outlined from community input), creating a stand-alone, free, on-line Vignettes collection of supplemental textbook material, creating a free geomorphology image gallery (http://www.uvm.edu/~geomorph/gallery), and using a “concept sketch” approach to textbook figure creation.