OER Reviewed: University Physics Volume 3 (OpenStax)

Reviewer: Jennifer Kirkey, Instructor of Physics and Astronomy, Articulation Chair of Physics and Astronomy, Douglas College

The reviewer will be using it in January 2021. The Department reviewed this set of books before changing from Physics by Halliday, Resnick and Walker to these books starting September 2020.

Rating

Each criterion asks the reviewer to rate it on a scale of 1 to 5 (1 = very poor and 5 = excellent).

Comprehensiveness – Rating: 4

This OER is appropriate for the first part of PHYS III of the Engineering Common Core with is thermodynamics.

Openstax Volume 1

• Unit 1 Mechanics
• Unit 2 Waves and Acoustics

Openstax Volume 2

• Unit 1 Thermodynamics.  (PHYS III in the ENGR Common Core)
• Unit 2 Electricity and Magnetism

Openstax Volume 3

• Unit 1 Optics
• Unit 2 Modern physics including relativity and quantum mechanics

It is a good book.  Not a great book but as good book.  Others will wax poetically about the standard book by Knight or the new one by Mazur, but this book is just fine.

It integrates calculus throughout. That pun was deliberate.   In fact, that is one of the few criticisms.  It is based more on the US curricula and assumes that the student has already done differential and integral calculus, though in BC calculus is often being taken at the same time.   For example they do separation of variables to solve questions occasionally. They also use integrals to find time, i.e., t = integral of dx/v. Lastly, they talk about “exact differentials” in the context of conservative forces.

In my experience about half of the students in the Douglas College equivalent of PHYS I II II  (PHYS1110, 1210 and 1170) are either taking integral calculus or have taken it. Overall, the calculus level to be quite a bit higher than Halliday Resnick and Walker, which is one of the common standard textbooks.

One of the weak points of the book is the focus on math over physics.  It is difficult to tell students “ignore this example” frequently.

The index is comprehensive.  The OpenStax books tend to be very well organized, and this one is true to form.  An index at the back of the book.  Each chapter at the end has a listing of “key terms” and a summary.

Content Accuracy – Rating: 4

Content, including diagrams and other supplementary material, is accurate, error-free, and unbiased.

This is a well written and well proofed text book.   It is accurate, error-free and unbiased. Openstax makes good books.

Relevance/Longevity – Rating: 4.5

Content is up-to-date, but not in a way that will quickly make the OER obsolete within a short period of time.  The OER is written and/or arranged in such a way that necessary updates will be relatively easy and straightforward to implement.

The nice thing about first year physics is that it is applying laws that are more than 100 years ago.  The start of PHYS III is thermodynamics.  James Prescott Joule died in 1889 and the laws of thermodynamics mentioned in this book are about 100 years ago.  The nature of atomics with a nucleus was published by Rutherford in 1911.

It does have up to date examples that illustrate the physics but nothing that make it obsolete within a short period of time.  The cell phones and other equipment looks very early 2000s, but that is not a fatal flaw.  It will be relatively easy and straightforward to implement new examples as our technology continues to change.

Clarity – Rating: 4

The OER is written in lucid, accessible prose, and provides adequate context for any jargon/technical terminology used.

This is a well written book.  To repeat, Openstax makes good books.  It is very United States focused an assumes an intimate knowledge of sports.

Consistency – Rating: 5

The OER is internally consistent in terms of terminology and framework.

This a well written book.  To repeat, Openstax makes good books.  Well proofed.

Modularity – Rating: 4

The OER is easily and readily divisible into smaller reading sections that can be assigned at different points within the course (i.e., enormous blocks of text without subheadings should be avoided).  The OER should not be overly self-referential, and should be easily reorganized, and realigned with various subunits of a course without presenting much disruption to the reader.

This a well written book.  To repeat, Openstax makes good books.  Well proofed and well organized.  Like most physics books it is large.  Volume 2 is about 900 pages long with 16 chapters.  Each chapter has about 10 sub-sections.   It can be reorganized fairly easily.

The Thermodynamics unit is four chapters long, and it is first unit in Volume 2 and it follows the classic order for thermodynamics.

A suggestion to BCcampus. I think it would be money well spent by BCcampus to make up a Pressbooks version of Openstax university physics that clearly reflects PHYS I II III.  It would be easier for the BC physics community to start adding to those books.  The modularity of the books would make that project relatively simple.

Organization/Structure/Flow – Rating: 4.5

The topics in the OER are presented in a logical, clear fashion.

This textbook uses the classic format of a first year physics textbook.  That is a criticism to some (I repeat, that some will wax poetically about the books by Knight and Mazur).  It is logical and clear.

Interface – Rating: 5

The OER is free of significant interface issues, including navigation problems, distortion of images/charts, and any other display features that may distract or confuse the reader.

This a well written book.  To repeat, Openstax makes good books.  Well proofed.   It is available online and in print, including hard cover.  Nice use of colour, and consistent.

Grammatical/Spelling Errors – Rating: 5

The OER contains no grammatical or spelling errors.

I could not find any grammatical or spelling error.  This a well written book.  To repeat, Openstax makes good books.  Well proofed.   I have not yet used the book in my class, I will be doing so in January of 2021, but I have looked it over carefully in preparation for that and not found any errors yet.

Diversity and Inclusion – Rating: 3

The OER reflects diversity and inclusion regarding culture, gender, ethnicity, national origin, age, disability, sexual orientation, education, religion. It does not include insensitive or offensive language in these areas.

This OER reflects the diversity of genders in the illustrations and examples

This unit is only thermodynamics so there are fewer illustrations of people than in Volume 1 which focused on forces and motion.  Of the six photos and illustrations that featured humans (yes, there were only 6 in the 160 pages) only one of the six was of a BIPOC (Black or Indigenous, or Person of Colour).

Recommendation

1. Do you recommend this resource for the specific course taught in the first-year engineering common curriculum (in place of a commercially available resource)?
   Yes, I recommend this resource for the first part of PHYS III in place of the readily available commercially available resources.
2. If yes, please briefly summarize the reasons for recommending this resource.
   This is a classic first year physics books.  This a well written book.  To repeat, Openstax makes good books.  It will be a good resource for the students.
3. If not, why?  What improvements, if any, could be made?
   
   It assumes that students have already taken a first year calculus course with both derivatives and anti-derivates.  It is common that students in BC are taught the calculus they need in the physics class before covering it in more depth in their calculus classes, (this was true for me in Ontario more than 30 years ago) so either an appendix or an optional section in Chapter 3, the introduction to motion chapter, would be useful.  I will be providing that to my students when I teach this course in January.    You can keep telling students to ignore certain examples and assigned questions, but it does get annoying.   This is not as much as a problem for PHYS III as it traditionally is in the second semester and more of the students have completed a lot of calculus by that time, in comparison with the PHYS I, which is traditionally the first semester.
4. What gaps in content have you identified?
   No gaps, unless you include the calculus treatment mentioned above.This Openstax Volume 2 is a good resource for the thermodynamics part of PHYS III.  It does not cover the mechanics part of PHYS I.   Openstax Volume 1 covers the overall theory for PHYS III, but does not come close to the level or number of problems needed for the mechanics part of PHYS III.  That is another project that BCcampus is working on.

   What is needed in BC, and elsewhere, is a resource that combines calculus and physics as these two courses should in my opinion be co-taught in a cohort.