A librarian and a professor walk into an unexpectedly small neuroscience
class. A team of scholars - undergraduates, faculty, and staff - walks out,
open educational resources in hand. During two course iterations,
undergraduates collaboratively wrote two chapters of a behavioral
neuroanatomy textbook in a process designed from the beginning to be open.
In doing the work required to translate primary scientific literature to an
introductory audience, the students developed science communication skills
that are in demand for scientists and citizens alike. In this lightning
talk, the librarian will discuss their student-created open textbook
project and the opportunities it offered to build science communication
skills, give undergraduates direct experience with scholarly publishing,
embed and enact principles of equitable scholarly sharing, and develop a
lasting faculty-library partnership.
