The case study was written by Valencia Scott with input from Jeremy Patrich, the faculty author of the California Geography textbook, released under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license. Find the textbook at the following sites:

College of the Canyons OER Textbooks Repository
California Geography files on Google Drive

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Overview

California Geography (Course ID: GEOG-140) is one of three Geography courses offered at College of the Canyons (COC) that satisfies the Intersegmental General Education Transfer Curriculum for Social and Behavioral Sciences (IGETC AREA 4E) for California’s public higher education institutions. Suggested textbooks in the current course outline of record (2017) reference two commercial textbooks: one published in 1998 and a recent textbook that retails for over $70 new.

The CC ECHO Grant Program provided Jeremy Patrich, professor at College of the Canyons in Southern California, the opportunity to develop the first openly licensed textbook focused on geography in the “Golden State”. Driven by the author’s commitment to providing students with an accessible, affordable, and immersive exploration of the state’s diverse geography, it is a culmination of over three years of geographic exploration. He was further motivated to bring a holistic, intersectional approach to human and physical geography while creating a repository of multimedia content showcasing California’s national parks, ecosystems, and historical landmarks.

Textbook Description

The opening unit emphasizes the two primary branches of geography: human and physical. Beginning with an introduction to the state’s Indigenous history and the impact of Spanish and European colonization, California Geography centers the experiences of native communities as an integral starting point to understanding the interconnectedness of physical and human geography. Foundational concepts of physical geography delving into the scientific theories and practices used to investigate climates, landforms, and ecosystems relevant to the natural environment are discussed. Later, students are invited to engage with the concepts of human geography and explore how our historical interactions with the surrounding environment have shaped the geographical landscape. 

Subsequent units introduce students to foundational subfields within the discipline including cultural, economic, historical, political, population, and urban geography. As students engage with each unit, they are invited to analyze biodiversity and environmental landscapes through the lens of the surrounding cultures and critical historical events that continue to shape California’s geographic identity. 

The significance of cultural geography is investigated through language, religion, economy, government, and other cultural phenomena, examining how they differ from one place to another and explaining how humans function spatially. Both political and cultural boundaries are explored to better understand the state’s geographical spaces. The historical origins of landmarks and boundaries are discussed and how they have shaped California’s regional diversity.

Table of Contents

Development Process

The development process centered around creating visual and interactive artifacts to support the text. Personal photos from student field trips and videos created by the author in his own travels around the state accompany related chapters. The author’s multimedia spin on the traditional textbook was inspired by his own challenging experiences in higher education, which drove him to want to provide representation and access to underrepresented students who may be facing similar challenges: 

“During the pandemic, I started reevaluating my online teaching pedagogy … now that I had the time, I could be more creative and realiz[ed] there’s a lack of humanizing in [textbooks]. A lot of textbooks are written at a level that is not welcoming or engaging towards students…I thought it would be fun [to heavily incorporate video content] because we have so much out here [in California].” 

For the accompanying text, Patrich created an authoring template with the support of the College of the Canyons’ OER team. He completed the writing of the text in WORD documents which were backed up to a Google Drive. This approach has facilitated seamless updates to the fully accessible PDF, maintaining the alt-text descriptions for images and QR codes for videos.

Challenges

The textbook project started with a search for openly licensed materials on California geography that were available for re-use, but finding none, Professor Patrich committed to developing the course content himself.

“I searched every edge of the World Wide Web for information I could use that allowed this book to qualify as an OER- but I am proud of where we are with it and thrilled to see how it shifts and molds in the future.” 

Meet the Team

Peer Review

The textbook has not undergone a formal faculty peer review yet but early feedback has highlighted its user-friendly design and emphasis on interactive content, which they credit with creating a more cohesive and engaging learning experience for students. One of California Geography’s ‘virtual trips’ to the Calico Ghost Town outside of Barstow California, is a prime example:

“The textbook is easy to navigate and the diagrams and pictures are spot on. The chapters also build on each other. The five-minute video clips are a great addition to the text and give a sense of interactive learning.”

Trudie Russell, faculy

Faculty further noted that early chapters lay the groundwork for later ones bringing together cultural awareness, regional diversity, and contemporary issues that have impacted the state’s geographic landscape. 

“[…] I’m very much enjoying [the textbook] and the way it pulls together the wealth of information. [Pictures] and maps are great as well. I enjoy the way the Cultural Geography sections are not so much CA history, but CA cultural contributions oriented.”

Victoria Chow, faculty

Outcomes

The author’s main goal when developing California Geography was to create a sense of belonging and engagement for students across the state:

Student Feedback 

While students were not directly involved in the initial development, their feedback is informing updates to the textbook. One student shared that the formatting helped them easily navigate each chapter, with a clear understanding of the objectives and concepts they are expected to engage with: 

“I like the way the book is formatted. Particularly how it is set up in a way that as a student, I know what to expect in each chapter […] how the goals and objectives of each chapter are set out in the beginning, helps me get a handle on what the learning expectations are for the week […] the subjects and content aren’t drawn out so long that I [lose] interest ...” 

Student

Students also attributed Professor Patrich’s inclusion of virtual trips throughout the textbook as making the content more interesting and helping them apply the subject matter to their real-world experiences.

“I like how there are photos or diagrams throughout the chapters and then every once in a while a qr code for a video … that go along with the content … making it more interesting. I just enrolled in this course for my degree requirements, and I didn’t expect to like learning about California Geography, but I do. Even last week when I flew up to San Francisco from Burbank for 2 days, the entire flight I spent looking out the window because we were low enough to see the entire coast and the mountains and I was thinking about the class content the whole time.” 

Student

Accessibility

From chapter headers to style formatting, and alt-text images, the author credits the OER team at College of the Canyons for ensuring the textbook is structured to support learning for students with disabilities. He has also ensured that all the videos have closed captioning. When he’s not using Otter.ai (a speech-to-text transcription service), Professor Patrich hand edits and captions the videos himself. The closed captioning makes California Geography’s content accessible for individuals who are deaf and hard of hearing but he plans to take this a step further for future revisions, expressing interest in creating an audio version of the text which could support visually impaired learners. The author hopes the textbook can become an example of inclusive instructional design and content accessibility for courses across the state.

The openly licensed, publicly available videos encourage broader access to – and, potentially, adoption of – the California Geography textbook. Furthermore, anyone can access the material and understand geography better. As individuals scan the QR codes and watch the California Geography videos, the backend analytics capture how many times a video has been accessed and from what geographical location. This information can support the revision process. Check out all of Professor Patrich’s closed-captioned video content on his YouTube channel. 

“If I see that there’s videos linked to certain textbook chapters that people just aren’t accessing, that’s good information for me to know that maybe I should edit that [chapter] and include something different…if a video has high viewer traffic, I know that’s a chapter that I should expand on.”

Lessons Learned 

Developing OER is challenging particularly with little existing content available to adapt but having a support team at the college made a huge difference. The text will continue to evolve as students and other educators engage with the materials and bring their own narratives. 

“The text will never be done, as that would be a disservice to our students… perhaps much of the content will not change over time, but the way the information is observed and interpreted will – allowing students and instructors to add their narratives.”

Be open to the unexpected.  When exploring one topic, it may lead to something else and you’ll want to capture that for inclusion later.

“A great example of this was the first bicycle freeway which would eventually become the 110 Freeway… I don’t know how I stumbled or why, but when I found it, I knew it needed to be integrated into the text.”

Urban Geography & Iconic California Landscapes, Unit 16

Be excited to hear and see what other instructors have done with your OER even when your teaching styles differ. The text is created to serve students but tracking the adaptations can be helpful when considering future revisions.

“That’s the beauty of OER- the text is a seed, and I have watched it grow and produce fruit for the first time, and once it is made available, I am excited to see what others will produce with their clippings”

Impact and Sustainability

By folding multimedia into the more traditional textbook format, California Geography offers a unique approach to making a textbook that is both responsive and sustainable to diverse readers. The videos are openly licensed, making them available to anyone who wants to learn more, even readers who are not in the course. As the first openly licensed textbook for California Geography, the hope is that this textbook humanizes geography and provides a foundational example to instructors who want to provide relevant and inclusive instructional content to underrepresented student populations. Thus far, Professor Patrich has used the textbook for seven sections of his California Geography course, each with at least 35 students. The industry standard text, Rediscovering the Golden State, can cost students upwards of $70. With the use of his open-access textbook, he estimates a total savings of $17,150 for students in his classes alone. 

Much like the geography and history of California, the author considers California Geography a living, breathing textbook. Earlier this year, he presented at a Geography conference, laying the groundwork for potential networking and sharing of the textbook across the state. He looks forward to collaborating with interested peer faculty in further expanding the text. Major revisions are planned every four to five years to maintain the college’s five-year revision cycle for course materials.

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