Introduction to Social Welfare

Project Synopsis:

This is one of the 4 prerequisite classes to enter into the Social Work Program and is one of the electives of the College of Health Professions. It has 65--80 students every semester, and it covers three campuses: Main Campus, Wayne College, and Lakewood. Our goal is to reduce student costs and improve access to resources. Many students may not have access to textbooks for a few weeks into the semester which puts them at a disadvantage by needing to play catch up in the course.

92.86% of the students surveyed said that the quality of the textbook resources used in this course were of the same or better quality to paid textbooks they have used in the past.

100% of the students surveyed said that we should continue utilizing open textbooks / resources for this course.

Quotes from Students:

“It cut down on the stress of paying for textbooks. Much easier to follow online opposed to handbook.”

“The open textbook did allow me more time to grasp the information at hand, I found it easier to retain the information this way.”

“Being able to have the book on hand wherever I went was very nice.”

“It was so much cheaper which motivated us to actually look at the book. Since books are so expensive, most people don't buy it so they get a lower grade in the class.”

Quotes from Faculty:

“I think having all resources in the LMS helps with course design and quality. The students only need to go to one location for all that they need. We do have some other classes that we hope to convert to use open books for the students. I would go through this [process] again. I think OER is important for social justice issues. It does take a lot more work up front, but it also frees you from being locked into the design of someone else’s textbook.”
-- Baomei Zhao

Created Resources and Reference Texts:

• Introduction to Design Equity
  Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, & 7
• Poverty in America: A Handbook, 3rd Edition
  Chapters: 3, 6, & 7
• Sociology: Understanding and Changing the Social World
  Chapter 6

Sociology: Understanding and Changing the Social World is adapted from a work produced and distributed under a Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-SA) in 2010 by a publisher who has requested that they and the original author not receive attribution. This adapted edition is produced by the University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing through the eLearning Support Initiative.

This adaptation has reformatted the original text, and replaced some images and figures to make the resulting whole more shareable. This adaptation has not significantly altered or updated the original 2010 text. This work is made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.